Run The Numbers – When the market misses – the Pride Of Dubai story

There were more lengths between Pride Of Jenni and the rest of the Queen Elizabeth Stakes field on Saturday than there have been yearlings sold by her sire Pride Of Dubai so far in 2024.

The extraordinary victory of the Ciaron Maher-trained mare on Saturday will live long in Australia’s racing memory. This six-year-old and her jockey Declan Bates sat nearly 40 lengths clear at one point of the $5 million race, eventually triumphing by 6-1/2 lengths in a contest that was over as far as 1000 metres out.

It is a spectacle that drew inspired reactions from racing fans around the world. The only dissenters as to the spectacle were rival trainers and jockeys, who lamented ‘missing the boat’, despite the evidence that the jet-powered Pride of Jenni had made the rest of the field look like paddle steamers.

But in a week where we saw a yearling filly that shared some lineage with Pride Of Jenni fetch a previously unfathomable $10 million, it’s clear that the beaten riders in the Queen Elizabeth haven’t been the only ones missing the boat with the Pride Of Jenni story.

There were no yearlings by Pride Of Dubai catalogued at the recent Inglis Easter Yearling Sale, while the two offered at the Magic Millions sale at the Gold Coast in January were passed in.

Of the 4379 yearlings sold at Australasia’s yearling sales in 2024, just five have been by Pride Of Dubai. Those five yearlings have averaged $63,466. That is less than half the average price of all yearlings, which is $147,861.

That paucity of Pride Of Dubai progeny has more to do with supply than it says about specific market preferences. His book numbers collapsed in 2021, his sixth season as stud, to just 30 mares. From that book came just 20 live foals, which are his current yearling crop.

The season prior, off the back of being crowned Australia’s champion first-season sire, he had served a massive book of 202. While he followed that up by only narrowly missing out on second-season honours, finishing second to Headwater, the market turned on him quickly.

A bevy of hot young sires emerged in the next stallion crop, three of them with two-year-old Group 1 winners in their first season. Meanwhile, in his own barn, expectations were sky-high for what Justify might do in the Australian market.

But it was in the sales ring where the harsher judgments were being made, and those were made from the very start.

Pride Of Dubai’s first yearling crop averaged $76,287, a modest return on an opening service fee of $55,000. While that average jumped to $101,002 the following year, his commercial appeal quickly declined, with a $68,903 average with his third crop, slumping to $48,301 by his fourth crop.

Year	Offered	Sold Advertisement	Average	Margin
2024	8	5	$63,466	$83,333
2023	83	67	$65,119	$50,000
2022	76	68	$48,301	$30,000
2021	72	57	$68,903	$50,000
2020	112	95	$101,002	$70,000
2019	162	139	$76,287	$54,057

Coolmore had responded to his commercial ‘challenges’ by dropping his service fee, and in that 2021 season it was just $22,000. Off the back of that book of just 30, his fee dropped again to $16,500 in 2022. It only helped marginally revive his numbers, with 54 mares in 2022, which produced a current foal crop of just 30.

The commercial market had clearly made up its mind on the son of Street Cry, with his only hope resting on resurrection through the feats of his progeny on the racetrack.

That came on Cox Plate day in October 2022, some 1178 days into his active stud career. Bella Nipotina destroyed her rivals in a delayed Manikato Stakes, giving her sire his first Group 1 success.

Four months later Dubai Honour, conceived from the first of Pride Of Dubai’s two overseas sojourns to Coolmore Ireland, won the Ranvet Stakes and followed that up with another win in the Queen Elizabeth Stakes.

Those events, plus five other Australian stakes winners last season, was enough to breathe some oxygen into the stallion’s career. His fee rose to $27,500 in 2023 and he served 102 mares.

But even better things have emerged since. Pride Of Jenni put together breathtaking back-to-back Group 1 victories over the Flemington carnival in the spring before Desert Lightning became his fourth Group 1 winner, and his first in New Zealand, in December.

That then brings us to the current autumn, where Pride Of Jenni won the All-Star Mile and then Saturday’s Queen Elizabeth Stakes in breathtaking fashion. While she may be a flagbearer, she is far from the only one putting forward his virtues. He has had eight individual global stakes winners since October.

And while in the sales ring, Pride Of Dubai’s numbers are yet to stack up, on prize money his progeny are making a compelling commercial argument. Of all active sires with more than 50 starters, he is ranked third when it comes to prize money per starter in Australia this season.

Only Justify ($92,473) and I Am Invincible ($82,223) are above his average of $80,841. The former stood for $77,000 at stud last season, while the latter for $302,500.

Leading sires ranked by Australian prize money per starter 2023-24 (more than 50 starters)

Sire	Av PM per starter
Justify	$92,474
I Am Invincible	$82,223
Pride of Dubai	$80,841
Al Maher	$77,496
Extreme Choice	$75,048
Savabeel	$70,848
So You Think	$66,059
Street Boss	$64,888
Harry Angel	$63,109
Territories	$62,493

It will be interesting to see what Coolmore does with Pride Of Dubai’s fee in 2024, given his on-track revival.

Commercially, in a sales market that thrives on quick returns, fresh blood and fashion, he is not likely to ever sit at the top end, but at what point do racetrack results overwhelm yearling market preferences?

His barnmate, So You Think, is an interesting case study. He has been runner-up to I Am Invincible in the Australian sires race the past two seasons and is currently placed third this season. With 56 stakes winners, among them 11 Group 1 winners, he is a proven producer of star racehorses.

Commercially, So You Think is far from a failure, but the average price of his yearlings this year has been $178,551, only slightly above the overall average ($147,861). In 2023, his average was $180,103, a lift from 2022, when it was just over $150,000.

So You Think stood at $99,000 last year – this was before Think About It’s win in The Everest – up from as low as $38,500 in 2020. That rise came off the back of his ability to produce elite racehorse, not elite sales prospects.

There are myriad reasons why a stallion’s progeny doesn’t set the sales ring alight, but the market doesn’t lie when it comes to its preferences, and it takes a lot to change their minds.

We may see a revival in Pride Of Dubai’s sales averages assuming there are bigger and better crops to come, but that is very unlikely to result in him becoming a commercial powerhouse.

But the performances of Pride Of Jenni, a $100,000 Classic Sale graduate, remind us that the qualities that drive yearling speculation are not always those that lead to racetrack adulation.

*Data sourced from Arion.co.nz