Run The Numbers – Following the Snitzel trail

As sire and son, there are a few clear characteristics that Snitzel and Russian Revolution shared. One was the narrow white blaze down their nose; another was their reputation for speed.

Snitzel was more precocious than his son, winning three races, including a Breeders’ Plate before the New Year in his first two-year-old campaign. Russian Revolution didn’t appear on a racetrack until the winter of his juvenile season, winning two races.

Their three-year-old seasons both featured Group victories in the spring, Snitzel in the Up And Coming and Russian Revolution in the Vain and the Roman Consul.

Both would then win open-age Group 1 sprints in their three-year-old autumn, Snitzel won the Oakleigh Plate and his son The Galaxy 11 years later. But the career paths would diverge from there, with Snitzel heading to Arrowfield to stud and Russian Revolution kept in work as a four-year-old.

The lure of a possible shot at the first edition of The Everest kept Russian Revolution going, but that spring was cut short, leaving him with one more significant mark to make on the racetrack. A one-start autumn campaign saw him emulate Snitzel and win the Oakleigh Plate, supercharging comparisons between the two.

Both ended their careers with seven wins on their resume. Both had won over $1 million and both began their stallion careers – Snitzel at $33,000 in 2006 and Russian Revolution at $55,000 in 2018, at a time when bloodstock prices were firmly on the up.

Snitzel’s stallion career was one of the most storied in the 21st-century Australian breeding and bloodstock. He won four Australian champion sire titles and, at last count, has produced 163 stakes winners.

His death at age 22 at Arrowfield this year was felt by an entire industry that had seen him add to an incredible dynasty, built from his own sire Redoute’s Choice and his grandsire Danehill.

It was some act to follow for Russian Revolution, who would become a headline addition for Newgate. At the time of his entry to stud, there was some query over whether Snitzel’s sons were going to live up to the substantial record of their sire.

At that point in 2018, none of his sons produced a Group 1 winner. That would occur in 2019, when Shamus Award got off the mark thanks to Mr Quickie’s Queensland Derby win.

As things stand right now, there have been 33 sons of Snitzel who have had runners to the track. Eighteen of them have had stakes winners and six have had Group 1 winners.

With Libertad’s upset win in Saturday’s Winterbottom Stakes, Russian Revolution became just the second of Snitzel’s sons to have multiple Group 1 winners, joining Shamus Award (six).

Eyebrows were raised when Russian Revolution’s service fee was halved to $33,000 this year, but in a competitive stallion market, it was a necessary move in order to maintain the popularity of the now 12-year-old.

Expectations had risen sharply when he won both the champion first-year and second-year sires titles, but racetrack results in the two crops since have tailed off.

Henry Field admitted earlier this year that Russian Revolution’s third and fourth year mares were short of the quality he should have commanded and the stats confirm that.

After 13 stakes winners from his first two crops, the next two have yet to bear fruit. Field said that Newgate had actively addressed that lack of quality in his fifth (now two-year-olds) and sixth crops.

“His fifth and sixth book of mares, these last two seasons were just phenomenal. They’re a much better quality book of mares than his first and second season book of mares.”

Snitzel too had his ups and downs early in his career, albeit it was his third and fourth crops which produced this upswing, with nine stakes winners in his first two and 15 in his next two.

Comparing a sire and his son at the same stage of their careers is an interesting statistical exercise. Firstly, we do have to put it in the context that Russian Revolution has had 105 more runners than Snitzel (as at November 30, 2013) at the same point (386 v 281).

Russian Revolution has the same number of Group 1 winners – two – to this point, while Snitzel leads the number of stakes winners 18 to 13.

Comparison between Snitzel and Russian Revolution

Category	Snitzel	Russian Revolution
Runners	281	386
Winners	206	253
SW	18	13
GW	12	7
G1w	2	2

*At same point of career

Breaking down those stakes winners by age reveals an interesting pattern that someone correlated with what happened in their racing careers. Snitzel had 12 two-year-old stakes winners at this point of his career, while Russian Revolution has had six, while Snitzel also leads the three-year-old stakes winners category 10 to five.

However, among stakes winners aged four and over, Russian Revolution holds an edge, with seven (including Libertad) to Snitzel’s three.

In terms of the age of the winners by the sire Snitzel (67-49) leads the two-year-old ranks but Russian Revolution edges his sire to this point of their respective careers in three-year-olds (157 to 133) and four-year-old plus (155 to 98).

Again, the context of the number of runners is important to note. Snitzel had more two-year-old runners (183 to 163) at the same point, while Russian Revolution had more than 100 extra runners in both the three and four-year-old plus categories.

Bringing it back to winners to runners, Snitzel has a clear edge in all age categories, as can be seen in the table below, while, to that point of his career, he had 73.3 per cent winners to runners, compared to Russian Revolution’s 65.5 per cent.

The key to Snitzel’s success was kicking on from this early base. Both his stakes-winners-to-runners record (9.7 per cent career, compared to 6.4 per cent at that point) and his winners-to-runners (78.9 per cent compared to 73.3 per cent) improved substantially from the point in his career where Russian Revolution is now.

Winners to runners percentage comparison by age

Age	Snitzel	Russian Revolution
2	36.6%	30.1%
3	54.7%	45.6%
4	62.4%	57.8%

*At same point of career

*Data courtesy of Arion