With Australia’s most prolific Group 1-winning jockey retiring on Saturday, we have looked back at the influence Damien Oliver had on the racing careers of Australia’s leading stallions.
From the first Oliver's 129 Group 1 winners, aboard Submariner in the 1990 Show Day Cup, he has developed an affinity for claiming big races on future stallions.
Submariner went onto a modest career in the breeding barn but among the 20-odd future sires Oliver rode are some of the most influential and important stallions of the past 40 years.
Chief among those was Flying Spur, who Oliver rode six times, including in his win in the 1996 Australian Guineas.
He would go on to become Australia’s champion stallion in 2006/07, producing 13 Group 1 winners in a brilliant breeding career at Arrowfield Stud.
Of those 13 Group 1 winners, three were ridden by Oliver to elite success, including Flying Spur’s sire sons Casino Prince and Magnus.
Oliver developed a wonderful affinity with Magnus, winning The Galaxy with his first ride on the horse and travelling with him around the world.
As a sire, Magnus, who only died recently, has produced four Group 1 winners and 38 stakes winners.
Oliver rode Casino Prince on eight occasions, including in his sole Group 1 win in the Chipping Norton Stakes, which helped book a post-racing career as a stallion at Vinery Stud.
From the breeding barn, Casino Prince has produced 23 stakes winners, including Group 1 hero and fellow Vinery resident All Too Hard.
Another future Vinery stallion which Oliver shared a great relationship was Testa Rossa.
Oliver jumped aboard the son of Perugino at the start of his three-year-old campaign and would win five races on him, including the 1999 Vic Health Cup, the 2000 Lightning Stakes and the 2000 Futurity Stakes.
As a sire, Testa Rossa produced 66 stakes winners, among them a quartet of Group 1 winners.
Going further back in the 1990s, Oliver rode Danewin to victory in the 1995 Caulfield Stakes.
That entire would go on to sire 29 stakes winners, including six at Group 1 level.
Earlier that year, Oliver was aboard Hurricane Sky in his All Aged Stakes win and that stallion would become a four-time Group 1 producer from the breeding barn.
Oliver rode high-profile colt Don Eduardo 12 times for four racetrack victories, including his win in the 2002 Australian Derby.
The son of Zabeel had 12 stakes winners as a sire, while he has proven even more successful as a broodmare sire.
Don Eduardo was among several Derby winners Damien Oliver rode who became noted stallions.
Another Oliver-ridden Derby winner to go on to stud was Elvstroem, whose first Group 1 win came with the legendary jockey on board in the 2003 Victoria Derby.
As a sire, Elvstroem produced 13 stakes winners, including Group 1 victor Hucklebuck.
The legendary Queensland sprinter Falvelon featured Oliver in the saddle in 18 of his 37 starts.
Among that collection was a Group 1 victory in the Doomben 10,000 and two successful trips to Hong Kong to win the Hong Kong Sprint.
Falvelon would go on to produce more than 400 winners at stud, 12 of them at stakes level.
There is a reasonable argument to say that if Oliver hadn’t come with a well-timed run on Nicconi in the 2010 Lightning Stakes then he may have never earned his place at stud and produced one of the great sprinters of recent times, Nature Strip.
The Flemington feature was the first time Oliver had ridden Nicconi.
Including nine-time Group 1 winner Nature Strip and Winterbottom Stakes victrix Graceful Girl, Nicconi has produced 28 stakes winners from his time at Widden Stud.
Road To Rock, a horse Oliver rode to victory in the 2010 Queen Elizabeth Stakes, would also produce a genuine superstar, Hong Kong fan favourite Beauty Generation, as well as three other stakes winners.
Glass Harmonium and Toorak Toff, both ridden to top-flight wins by Oliver, would go on to be serviceable stallions, while Fiorente, who died earlier this year, won a Melbourne Cup and an Australian Cup with the champion jockey in the saddle and has nine stakes winners to his name.
In more recent times, future stallions Tivaci, Grunt and Russian Camelot all benefitted from Oliver’s big-race expertise.
The most recent Oliver-ridden Group 1 winner to go on to stud is Anamoe.
The Western Australia-born jockey rode the James Cummings star in his first four starts as well as in his 2021 Caulfield Guineas victory.
Anamoe, a nine-time Group 1 winner, has just completed his first season at Darley Australia.
