Two Australian sires titles set to go down to the wire

With just four days left of the Australian racing season, two key categories in the Australian sires titles remain up for grabs.

The title of champion two-year-old sire could depend on results during the final few days with just over $32,000 separating the late Snitzel and second-placed Home Affairs.

Snitzel will claim his fifth Australian sires title but whether the late Arrowfield resident adds a sixth two-year-old title will depend on Home Affairs’ progeny performance this week.

Snitzel has eight Australian two-year-old winners this season, 10 fewer than Home Affairs, but five of them have been stakes winners, including Group 1-winning pair Fireball and Campione D’Italia.

With juvenile progeny earnings of $4.98 million in Australia, he is poised to break through $5 million for seasonal two-year-old earnings for just the second time.

But Home Affairs, who is assured of being crowned champion first-season sire, has tracked him closely, briefly taking the lead a couple of weeks ago before Snitzel hit back.

Home Affairs has 16 Australian winners for the season, four more than his closest rival Spirit Of Boom, and his two-year-olds have banked $4.95 million, the highest for any first-season sire in history.

His hopes of overcoming Snitzel could come down to Wednesday’s two-year-old race at Randwick. He has Saturday Party set to debut for Team Hawkes. Snitzel has Godolphin colt Threads in the same race.

Meanwhile, a stakes victory to his first-crop filly Cavalry Girl on the weekend may have done enough for Darley’s Bivouac to claim the Australian second-season sires title.

As things stand, Bivouac is on $6.57 million in Australian progeny earnings, just over $91,000 ahead of Wootton Bassett.

Both have had 115 runners and six stakes winners, but Wootton Bassett has 57 winners as compared to Bivouac’s 47.

Bivouac has finished the season full of running with three Australian stakes winners (and one in NZ) in the final two months of the season.

Cavalry Girl’s emphatic win in the Lightning Stakes gives the son of Exceed And Excel eight stakes winners over his first two crops.  

The late Wootton Bassett, who was runner-up to Ole Kirk as Australia’s champion first-season sire last season, secured his first Australian-bred Group 1 winner with the victory of Providence in the Queensland Derby.

Vinery Stud’s Farnan is third in the second-season sire standings on $5.7 million in progeny earnings, just ahead of Ghaiyyath, who returns to Darley Australia in 2026.

Street Boss will comfortably claim the title as Australia’s champion three-year-old sire, while Fastnet Rock will make it three straight Australian broodmare sires titles, although he is set to fall just short of his record mark of $37.4 million.