Run The Numbers – The Redoute’s renaissance

Redoute’s Choice has left a legacy on 21st-century Australian bloodstock that is arguably only surpassed by his own legendary sire, Danehill. The late Arrowfield star won three champion sires’ titles in his own right and has followed that up with four broodmare sires’ titles.

Snitzel remains, to this point, his only champion sire son, having won the Australian title on four occasions, although he may add to that total, posthumously, as he leads the Australian sires’ race for this year by a clear $2 million, helped significantly by the victory of Fireball in Saturday’s Inglis Millennium.

The late Arrowfield legend has now had an Australian stakes-winning two-year-old in each of his 17 crops to date.

Behind him on the sires’ table is his Arrowfield heir apparent, The Autumn Sun, whose progeny have now won over $12 million, highlighted by arguably Australia’s most exciting horse, Autumn Glow.

While we are just over halfway through the season, this is remarkable given that the two sire sons were foaled 13 years apart. Snitzel came from Redoute’s Choice’s second crop, while The Autumn Sun was the star of his 15th.

The Autumn Sun’s breeding career began the season after the death of his sire, assuming an enormous gap on the roster. It was also the season of Snitzel’s most recent sire championship.  

As things stand, Redoute’s Choice has 147 stakes winners, while Snitzel has 167 and The Autumn Sun just 10 to date. As a comparison, at the same point in their careers, Redoute’s had 32 stakes winners while The Autumn Sun has 10.

Snitzel and The Autumn Sun’s records are similar at the same point of their breeding careers, with Snitzel having the edge when it comes to overall winners – 158 to 133 – but they are equal on stakes winners with 10 apiece, while The Autumn Sun’s five Group 1 winners is four more than Snitzel had at the same stage.

The last time Australia’s sires’ championship featured two of the progeny of the same stallion at the top of the rankings at season’s end was in 2014/15, when Fastnet Rock eclipsed fellow sons of Danehill, Exceed and Excel. The same pair had featured as the top two in 2012/13, in the reverse order.

These are the only time that this has occurred since the turn of the century.

The year in between, 2013/14, it was Redoute’s Choice edging out his own emerging son Snitzel by less than $500,000. Exceed And Excel and Fastnet Rock were third and fourth, completing a first four for Danehill-line sires.

That was arguably the peak of the Danehill-dominated era. In the 26 years between 1994/95 and 2019/20, 20 sires’ titles were won by either Danehill himself or one of his sire sons or grandsons.

In a changing of the guard, the past five sire championships have featured non-Danehill-line champions, Written Tycoon, I Am Invincible (three) and Zoustar, although Zoustar is out of a daughter of Redoute’s Choice.

But this season looks to be a return to the Danehill dominance of old,

The other Redoute’s Choice son in the Top 50 is Yulong’s Alabama Express, 29th, but, as mentioned before in this column, he is extremely well placed to make a surge up the championship standings over the next few years, given the quality of the books he has received.

Snitzel also has three sons in the Top 50: Russian Revolution 15th, Shamus Award 21st, and Trapeze Artist 26th.

The other significant Redoute’s Choice descendant in the top 50 is his grandson via Not A Single Doubt, Extreme Choice. His well-known fertility issues will mean that he will likely never be crowned champion stallion, but his extraordinary stakes-runners-to-winners record puts him among the elite global stallions.

However, he may not even figure as the leading son of Not A Single Doubt in Australia on the sires table by season’s end, given Kia Ora’s Farnan is just $200,000 behind him.

Farnan is in a battle for champion second-season sire honours, just $121,000 behind current leader Ghaiyyath. Redoute’s son King’s Legacy is eighth on that list, while Not a Single Doubt’s Anders is 10th, having marked his first stakes winner last weekend in Tasmania.

As a further measure of the ongoing Redoute’s influence amongst emerging sires, three of the four first-season stallions to have produced Australian stakes winners already are sire descendants of his, Snitzel’s son Sword Of State and Extreme Choice’s pair Stay Inside and Extreme Warrior.

It is conceivable that a son of Redoute’s Choice could win the sires’ championship and a grandson or great-grandson the first and second season titles. Meanwhile, the old champ himself is third on the broodmare sires’ table, although seemingly adrift of runaway leader Fastnet Rock.

All in all, there are 70 stakes-producing stallions that are male line descendants of Redoute’s Choice.  Of those, 24 were still active in Australia during the last breeding season.

Group 1-producing male line sire descendants of Redoute’s Choice

Courtesy: arion.co.nz