Brave Smash now holds a special place in racing history as the only Japanese-bred horse to have both won an Australian Group 1 and sired a Group 1 winner in Australia. Run The Numbers breaks down his influence in Australia and the ongoing legacy of Japanese bloodlines.
Brave Smash now holds a special place in racing history as the only Japanese-bred horse to have both won an Australian Group 1 and sired a Group 1 winner in Australia. Run The Numbers breaks down his influence in Australia and the ongoing legacy of Japanese bloodlines.
To that point, the only Japanese horses to win Group 1 races in Australia were overseas-trained hit-and-run raiders like Melbourne Cup winner Delta Blues, Caulfield Cup winner Admire Rakti, All Aged victrix Hana’s Goal and George Ryder hero Real Impact.
A year before they acquired Brave Smash, Australian Bloodstock had purchased Tosen Stardom, a multiple group-winning son of Deep Impact, and brought him to be trained by Darren Weir. He had been Group 1 placed in that autumn of 2017, which fuelled his owners’ desire to go back to Japan and find another prospect.
But while Tosen Stardom was proven at 1600m to 2000m and was from one of the world’s most revered sirelines out of a female family replete with Group 1 heroes, Brave Smash’s best distance, to that point, was largely unknown, as too was his pedigree in this part of the world.
He had won a Listed mile race as a two-year-old and had contested a Tokyo Yushun – the Japanese Derby, in his classic year. He had also been placed in a Group 3 race over 1400 meters, while in his final race in Japan he was fourth in a slickly run 1200-metre sprint.
His sire, Tosen Phantom, was a winner over a mile, while his dam, Tosen Smash, won over 1800 metres and was a half-sister to a stakes-winning miler. The pedigree certainly didn’t suggest he’d be up to the best sprinters in Australia.
But that’s exactly what evolved. Under Weir’s guidance, he won a Listed sprint race and placed third in the Everest in his first Australian preparation. In his second prep, he claimed his first Group 1 win in the Futurity Stakes, edging out Tosen Stardom, who had won two Group 1 races in the previous spring.
Brave Smash would win a Manikato Stakes the following spring and was then snapped up by an expanding Aquis to add some Japanese influence to their burgeoning roster.
Australia had suddenly become obsessed with Japanese bloodlines. That only intensified as Brave Smash embarked on his first season at stud in 2019 as Lys Gracieux won the Cox Plate, Mer De Glace the Caulfield Cup and Fierce Impact both the Toorak Handicap and the Cantala Stakes.
By the end of 2019, Japanese-bred horses had won 12 Australian Group 1s in total since Delta Blues won the 2006 Melbourne Cup, while Japanese stallions were becoming a lot more available.
At that point, Arrowfield was standing three Japanese-bred stallions, Maurice, Real Steel and Mikki Isle, while Real Impact had left three crops from his stay at John Messara’s Hunter Valley farm.
Coolmore’s Japanese-bred Saxon Warrior also made his debut in 2019, Tosen Stardom was in his second year at Woodside Park, while Neorealism was at Oaklands Stud in Queensland. Satono Aladdin and Staphanos were among four active Japanese sires in New Zealand.
With a surge of Japanese bloodlines suddenly available in Australia, it wasn’t an easy time for Brave Smash to kick off his stallion career. But starting out at $22,000, he served 122 mares from his New South Wales base, more than any other Japanese sire that season. Among those mares was the Aquis-owned Summer Fun, the dam of Saturday’s Group 1 winner Kimochi.
He followed that up with a book of 83 before Aquis relocated its entire stallion operations to Queensland, taking him out of the Hunter Valley. That could have proven a major setback, but he was able to get 109 mares in that third year and 89 in his fourth as his first crop hit the track.
Japanese-bred sires in Australia, mares covered 2019-2023
Source: Australian Studbook (DNS = did not serve)
That first crop had made an immediate mark at the sales, averaging $74,703, well over three times his initial service fee.
By the end of the 2022/23 season, he was the leading first-season sire by winners with 11, outperforming a host of contemporaries who were at much higher service fees. Of the 51 starters from that initial crop, 33 have been winners, including stakes winners Kimochi, Brave Mead and Brave Spirit.
Even more significantly, he was then secured by Yarraman Park. Few stallions get a recall to the Hunter Valley having previously left, but his stats on the track and in the sales ring, prove enough to get him a slot alongside multiple Australian champion I Am Invincible and his son Hellbent.
He earned a fee jump to $33,000 and subsequently attracted 112 mares last year, a significant increase in both quantity and quality.
In 2024, there are seven Japanese-bred sires on Australian stallion rosters, with Maurice the only other one besides Brave Smash remaining from 2019.
Maurice has two Group 1 winners, Mazu and Hitotsu, who stands alongside him at Arrowfield, while both New Zealand-based Satono Aladdin and Staphanos star have Group 1 winners, the former with Pennyweka, who won an ATC Australian Oaks.
Overall, there are 13 individual Japanese sires to have produced Group 1 winners in Australia, with Deep Impact the most successful, with five individual winners.
Significantly, there are only four Japanese-bred sires who have produced Group 1 winners bred in Australia, Maurice, Brave Smash, Genuine and Tayasu Tsuyoshi. The latter two, the sires of Pompeii Ruler and Hollow Bullet, both stood at Chatswood Stud in Victoria,
Of that quartet, only Brave Smash also won a Group 1 race in Australia, giving him a unique double.
Kimochi’s win is also significant for Yarraman Park as she is just the second Group 1 winner for I Am Invincible as a damsire, the other being Asfoora.
The Brave Smash/I Am Invincible combination is one we are likely to see much more of, given where Brave Smash is now based, but it is interesting that she is the only runner for that nick.
Of the 112 mares he visited in his first season at Yarraman Park, 2023, nine were by I Am Invincible.
Brave Smash progeny performance by crop
Source: Arion.co.nz
