As Group 1 racing in Sydney comes to a close for another season, it is a good time to review the two-year-old division in Australia while bearing in mind that we still have one more Group 1 – the JJ Atkins Stakes in Queensland, won last year by Too Darn Hot’s Broadsiding – to be contested next month.
Ranked by Timeform ratings, the juvenile hierarchy actually provokes more questions than it provides answers, even more so than in a normal season as the top-rated horse, the Wootton Bassett colt Wodeton, owned by the Coolmore partners, hasn’t won a race since January when he broke his maiden first time out at Rosehill over 1,100 metres. So even though not a stakes winner, he is considered to have put up the best performance of any youngster when just failing to peg back the Snitzel filly Marhoona in the Group 1 Golden Slipper Stakes.
For that effort, giving the filly 2kg, Timeform awarded Wodeton a rating of 121, which tops the log at present. The A$1.6 million yearling purchase then contested the Group 1 Sires’ Produce Stakes over 1,400 metres at Randwick, a race considered more suitable to his attributes, but failed to sparkle and finished only fourth. Wodeton is not the only non-stakes winning Group 1-placed two-year-old from the first Australian crop of Wootton Bassett. Also on our list the 113-rated State Visit, who finished two places ahead of Wodeton in the Sires’ Produce and then followed up with a fourth in the Group 1 Champagne Stakes.
Wootton Bassett may not yet have registered a first stakes winner from his Australian crops, but he is away to a very exciting start. Besides Wodeton and State Visit, he also sired a pair of Group 2-placed youngsters in West of Swindon (TF104+) and Wiltshire Square (TF101), plus two more Listed-placed juveniles. That makes it six stakes horses from his first 18 runners, producing a massive strike-rate of 33.3 per cent, which would be the best of any freshman sire in Australia this century should it stay that way until the end of the season.
Interestingly, although it remains far too early to be conclusive, Wootton Bassett’s stakes horses are split five to one in favour of his colts, which mirrors what is happening in Europe where he has sired 69 male stakes horses and 29 fillies/mares. Looking ahead, it is very much in Wootton Bassett’s favour that Wodeton is out of an Exceed And Excel mare while State Visit is from a Redoute’s Choice mare – there are plenty of high-class mares by this pair in the population.
The Golden Slipper Stakes heroine Marhoona (TF117) is the third Slipper winner for her sire Snitzel following Shinzo and Estijaab. A four-time veteran champion sire with 156 (10.3 per cent) stakes winners, Snitzel also has four two-year-old Premierships to his name and this season will in all likelihood be his fifth so rich is the Golden Slipper. He leads the way with over A$4 million in earnings from 23 runners, including 11 winners and two stakes winners.
For context, it should be noted that Australia stages comparatively fewer juvenile races than Europe. Last season there were only 632 races for two-year-olds or 3.3 per cent of the total, compared with 2,334 or 14.4 per cent of the total in Europe. This is why the numerical achievements of juvenile sires fall below their European counterparts.
Nepotism, the Champagne Stakes winner, is the next top rated on 116. This colt, who ran third in the Group 2 Todman Stakes on debut behind Tentryis and Wodeton, picked up the 1,400 metre Group 3 TL Baillieu Stakes on the way to his Champagne success. He is by the New Zealand-bred O’Reilly stallion Brutal, who numbered the famous Group 1 Doncaster Handicap among five victories from ten starts. Based at Newgate Stud, Brutal has sired just two stakes winners from two crops and Nepotism is his first at Group level.
It is Newgate Stud’s Extreme Choice who supplied the first Group 1-winning two-year-old of the season in Devil Night, winner of Victoria’s sole top-flight contest for two-year-olds, Caulfield’s Blue Diamond Stakes. Himself a Blue Diamond winner in a short eight-race career that also produced a victory in the Group 1 AJ Moir Stakes at three, Extreme Choice’s stud career has been numerically curtailed by poor fertility but he has compensated brilliantly by siring plenty of quality, so much so that there is no current sire in Australia or New Zealand that can match his 11.9 per cent stakes winners to runners. His CV uniquely contains winners of Australia’s two most iconic races, the Golden Slipper Stakes and Melbourne Cup. How is that for diversity?
Apart from Wootton Bassett and I Am Invincible, the only other sire with two representatives among the top 15 juveniles is Darley veteran Street Boss, who has been doing sterling work in recent seasons through the likes six-time Group 1 winner Anamoe. Alongside Pride of Dubai, who currently leading the Australian Premiership, Shocking and Per Incanto, he is doing plenty to showcase the merits of the Street Cry sire line in Australia.
Street Boss’ daughter Tempted (TF114) won the Group 2 Reisling and Group 2 Percy Sykes Stakes and was placed third in the Golden Slipper in between. Tentyris, meanwhile, defeated top-rated Wodeton and Group 1 winner Nepotism in the Todman Stakes, having previously been an unlucky runner-up in the Blue Diamond Stakes.
In recent years, Street Boss has really benefitted from top mares owned by Godolphin, and it is hardly surprising that both Tempted and Tentyris are out of mares by his stud companion Exceed And Excel. Street Boss has had 48 runners from Exceed And Excel mares so far and has sired seven Group winners from them at an impressive rate of 14.6 per cent. There will be plenty more in the pipeline.
For all his achievements and they are considerable, three-time champion sire I Am Invincible had never sired a juvenile Group 1 winner in Australia before his Timeform 114-rated son Vinrock won this season’s Sires’ Produce Stakes. Now unbeaten in three starts, Vinrock became the first horse since 1981 to win both ATC and VRC versions of this race. He defeated a stellar field at Randwick including Wodeton and Too Darn Hot’s Rivellino and has since been snapped up by Yulong – he is already a ready-made stallion prospect.
