Rowe/O’Brien on Monday – Feeling fresh? Getting a read on first-season sires
In this week’s Rowe On Monday, Bren O’Brien takes the reins and looks at how a run of festive season racetrack success sets up the latest crop of first-season sires well for key two-year-old features in January.
By the time most buyers get to the Magic Millions sales on the Gold Coast, they would hope to have a strong read on their on-track ability of the progeny of the latest crop of first-season stallions – that is, those who have their second crops of yearlings coming through the sales.
Traditionally, there would be enough of a sample size for the market to have made at least some assessment of whether potential is developing into ability, but that is getting harder and harder in an era where fewer two-year-olds are being prepped for early-season appearances.
Across the 31 Australia and New Zealand stallions listed as having their first progeny at the track this season, only 20 have had two-year-old runners to date, and just 11 have had four or more runners.
There have been 85 runners overall, representing just 4.5 per cent of the foal crop of that set of stallions.
Of those 85, there have been 15 winners, and a relatively high percentage of those, five, have been stakes winners, including a pair of Kiwi stakes winners over the past few days, Kinnaird (Home Affairs) and Lassified (Stay Inside).
So, does that high stakes-winners percentage give buyers reason for optimism ahead of looking at their second crops in the upcoming sales season?
Well, cutting the analysis back to Australian-only performances might sound a note of caution. Just seven first-season sires have Australian winners this season, the lowest to this point across the past five seasons, while there are just 10 winners among that group, again the lowest in data since 2022.
Next week’s Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale catalogue features 169 second-crop progeny of those stallions, or 13.8 per cent of the catalogue. It will be fascinating to see how buyers assess them.
Trans-Tasman tangle
What has been notable, and slightly confusing to those who try to assess a sire’s potential from his progeny’s early performances, is that Australian-based first-season sires are dominating New Zealand’s juvenile races, while Kiwi-based Sword Of State is topping the Australian first-season sires’ table.
Sword Of State’s Warwoven, trained by Bjorn Baker, confirmed his favouritism for the Magic Millions 2YO Classic with an emphatic win at Eagle Farm on Saturday.
Bred by Kia Ora, who purchased his dam in foal to Sword Of State out of the Valachi Downs dispersal, Warwoven was a $380,000 Magic Millions purchase for the same Ridgmont colours carried to victory in the 2024 edition of the Magic Millions 2YO Classic with Storm Boy.
Cambridge Stud’s Sword Of State has two winners from as many Australian runners, with his other being October’s Debutant Stakes winner Torture, who is trained by Lindsay Park.
She returned in the Geelong Diamond on Saturday and the stable would have been pleased with her first-up fourth, finishing on strongly from the back of the field after sitting last most of the way.
The half-sister to Group 1 winner Ruthless Dame looks an ideal horse for feature two-year-old races and is equal favourite for the Karaka 2YO Millions on January 24.
Sword Of State, who has two representatives at the Magic Millions Yearling Sale and 25 at the New Zealand Bloodstock National Yearling Sale at Karaka later this month, has one winner from six starters in New Zealand so far.
Home and away
It’s been more than a decade since an Australian-based sire has claimed the honour of being New Zealand’s champion first-season sire, but Home Affairs and Stay Inside are setting the early pace.
Stay Inside, the Newgate-based Golden Slipper winner, has his first NZ stakes winner thanks to the OTI Racing-owned Lassified, an Inglis Classic Sale graduate from Glenbeigh Farm.
Lassified, trained by Andrew Forsman, won the Listed Wellesley Stakes at her third start, a sign of OTI’s increased presence in both New Zealand and in two-year-old racing.
She joined Breeders’ Plate winner Incognito as a stakes winner by Stay Inside, who has 36 entries in the Magic Millions next week.
He is second on the NZ sires’ table behind Home Affairs, whose progeny quinellaed the Group 2 Eclipse Stakes at Ellerslie on New Year’s Day.
Te Akau-owned Kinnaird, a $340,000 buy for David Ellis and co at Karaka, is equal at the top of the market for the Karaka Millions after two starts for two wins.
The latest came at the expense of another son of Home Affairs, Harvey Wallbanger, who has now been placed in stakes company at his past two starts for trainer Tony Pike.
Home Affairs recently had his first Australian winner, with the debut victory of Guest House at Cranbourne on December 27.
He has the most Australasian runners of any first-season sire, 11, although that is only 7.6 per cent of the Coolmore stallion’s first crop of 144.
Home Affairs has 46 catalogued for Magic Millions and 10 at Karaka Book 1.
Given the progeny of first-season sires dominate betting markets for both the Magic Millions 2YO Classic and the Karaka 2YO Millions, the conversation around this crop might be much more positive by the time we get to the end of January.
*Tim Rowe will be back on board from Magic Millions next Monday.
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