It has been 28 years since O’Reilly’s shot at Australian Guineas glory was foiled by Mouawad, but last Saturday the late Kiwi champion’s name was all over the Group 1 race as the broodmare sire of the first two horses across the line.
The record of the late Waikato Stud champion sire O’Reilly as a broodmare sire is well-known in bloodstock, breeding and racing circles.
His daughters have produced 143 stakes winners, including 31 Group 1 at Group 1 level, and he has been champion broodmare sire on six separate occasions in New Zealand, and is well on track for a seventh - a fifth in a row - in 2024/25.
Last season he finished fourth in the Australian broodmare sires’ table, a performance driven by Pride Of Jenni, but also including 14 other Australian stakes winners. O’Reily’s stakeswinners-to-runners broodmare sire percentage in Australia last season was 4.39 per cent, higher than any other stallion inside the Top 10.
This season, he has had a further six stakes successes as a broodmare sire in New Zealand, including multiple Group 1 winner El Vencedor, and elite performers Savaglee and Crocetti.
On Saturday at Flemington, his three-year-old grandsons quinellaed the Australian Guineas, as Feroce overpowered Savaglee in the final stages.
It was the first time in the nearly 40-year history of that race that the first two home were represented by the same broodmare sire.
Significantly, but perhaps unsurprisingly, both Feroce (Super Seth) and Savaglee (Savabeel) are by Waikato Stud sires.
Waikato is arguably the most successful stud in Australasia when it comes to combining the blood of their stallions.
The much-celebrated Savabeel x O’Reilly nick has an extraordinary 14 per cent stakes winners to runners, among them 10 Group 1 winners, while Pins over O’Reilly mares is at 8 per cent.
Like O’Reilly passing the baton to Savabeel, Super Seth is considered the next heir to the Waikato throne. His success with the mares of the other two will likely define where he sits in the scheme of things.
As things stand, it has begun well for the son of Dundeel, who has had two stakes winners already from just 11 runners out of O’Reilly mares.
Feroce’s victory on Saturday saw him join Listed winner Super Photon as Super Seth progeny out of mares by O’Reilly.
Most successful nicks with O’Reilly as broodmare sire
Source: arion.co.nz
It has been over a decade since O’Reilly’s sudden death at age 21. Studmaster Mark Chittick called him his "movie star" after his passing and with due cause as he played a huge role in transforming Waikato into the powerhouse it is today.
His key role as broodmare sire of the first two home in the Australian Guineas came 28 years after he took on the race himself in what would be his penultimate start. He was beaten by another Kiwi-bred, Mouawad. But while Mouawad’s stud legacy would be notoriously short-lived, O’Reilly would have a much bigger impact at stud.
He would win four Grosvenor awards as New Zealand champion sire, four Dewar Awards for combined progeny earnings in Australasia, and four Centaine Awards for annual global earnings.
The first progeny of his daughters hit the track in 2003/04, but it was a slow build-up in terms of numbers. It took until 2013/14 for his seasonal runners as a broodmare sire to exceed 100 in New Zealand, while that didn’t occur in Australia until 2014/15, around the time of his death.
It was around this time that his excellent combination with Savabeel became apparent through horses such as Costume, Diademe and Savaria, while Provocative was by Savabeel’s sire Zabeel.
Waikato Stud stallion O'Reilly made a huge impact. (Photo Gallery: Bronwen Healy - The Image Is Everything)
But to categorise him as a one-nick broodmare sire would be an injustice to O’Reilly’s versatility, His daughters have produced stakes winners with 70 different individual sires. Of those 57 per cent are at a stakes-winners-to-runners ratio of 10 per cent or more.
The racetrack earnings of the progeny of O’Reilly’s daughters have exploded.
Arion charts global earnings by calendar year and in 2024, his daughters’ progeny banked just short of $36 million, a career-high. That total was higher than his contemporary Encosta De Lago and Redoute’s Choice.
Those 2024 numbers were powered by Pride Of Jenni, a daughter of Pride Of Dubai and O’Reilly mare Sancerre, who earned more than $7.1 million. But his daughters also had 2024 Group 1 wins from Orchestral, Savaglee, Belclare and El Vencedor.
O’Reilly global broodmare sire stats by calendar year since 2016
Source: arion.co.nz
