Run The Numbers – The 2025/26 Group 1 season in review
As Chris Waller and James McDonald scaled new Group 1 heights, Snitzel produced a season of Group 1 dominance not seen in 20 years. Run The Numbers looks back over the elite-racing season.
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Run The Numbers – Savabeel, from furthering a legacy to creating his own
A true Australasian success story on the track and in the breeding shed, the influence of Savabeel, who died last week aged 24, will be felt for years to come on both sides of the Tasman. His phenomenal record is the focus of this week’s Run The Numbers.
Run The Numbers – Tron Bolt and the almost lost legacy of Fanfreluche
After a week where the fate of the famous Shergar yet again hit the headlines, the legacy of a more fortunate kidnappee, Fanfreluche, continued to build as Tron Bolt became the eighth Australian Group 1-winning maternal descendant of the champion Canadian mare.
Run The Numbers – A commercial unicorn
Any stallion running at 12 per cent stakes-winners-to runners is always going to prove a commercial hit, but when you add in the scarcity factor of fertility limitation, it creates a formula where you can expect records to be broken. Such has been the tale of the latest yearling crop by Newgate’s Extreme Choice.
Run The Numbers – Where to now for the live broodmare auction?
In the space of seven years, the number of broodmares and race fillies offered annually at live auctions in Australia has slumped by close to 70 per cent. The switch to digital sales has changed the landscape for selling breeding stock. Run The Numbers digs into the details.
Run The Numbers – 6602 days – Chris Waller’s astonishing 200
Chris Waller has added his name to the most revered horsemen in Australia with his 200th Group 1 victory, becoming just the third, alongside TJ Smith and Bart Cummings, to mark that milestone. But it is the speed at which he has done it, just over 18 years from his first that makes it such an extraordinary effort.
Run The Numbers – Age won’t weary record-breaking Rothfire
With 2170 days between his first Group 1 win and his second, Rothfire reset all sorts of history when he won the Doomben 10,000, including the first two-year-old Australian Group 1 winner this century to have gone on and won an elite race at eight.
Run The Numbers – Pride of place – Lightning strikes twice
While the number of stallions in Australia is in decline, the genetic make-up of stakes winners remains diverse, with 360 different nicks of sires and broodmare sires represented among black-type winners this season, including the formula behind Desert Lightning’s success in The Goodwood.
Run The Numbers – Dam good – Extraordinary maternal influences to the fore
In Classic races either side of the Atlantic at the weekend, descendants of a trio of true blue hens further enhanced the influence of their families, while South Australian Derby winner Wigmore put his globetrotting grand dam’s name back up in lights.
Run The Numbers – The mistruths about non-Group 1-winning sires
After Wordsmith became the eighth non-Group 1 winning racehorse to sire a Group 1 winner in Australia this season, Run The Numbers looks at how commonplace this pattern has been over the years.
Run The Numbers – Savabeel, from furthering a legacy to creating his own
A true Australasian success story on the track and in the breeding shed, the influence of Savabeel, who died last week aged 24, will be felt for years to come on both sides of the Tasman. His phenomenal record is the focus of this week’s Run The Numbers.
Run The Numbers – Tron Bolt and the almost lost legacy of Fanfreluche
After a week where the fate of the famous Shergar yet again hit the headlines, the legacy of a more fortunate kidnappee, Fanfreluche, continued to build as Tron Bolt became the eighth Australian Group 1-winning maternal descendant of the champion Canadian mare.
Run The Numbers – A commercial unicorn
Any stallion running at 12 per cent stakes-winners-to runners is always going to prove a commercial hit, but when you add in the scarcity factor of fertility limitation, it creates a formula where you can expect records to be broken. Such has been the tale of the latest yearling crop by Newgate’s Extreme Choice.
Run The Numbers – Where to now for the live broodmare auction?
In the space of seven years, the number of broodmares and race fillies offered annually at live auctions in Australia has slumped by close to 70 per cent. The switch to digital sales has changed the landscape for selling breeding stock. Run The Numbers digs into the details.
Run The Numbers – 6602 days – Chris Waller’s astonishing 200
Chris Waller has added his name to the most revered horsemen in Australia with his 200th Group 1 victory, becoming just the third, alongside TJ Smith and Bart Cummings, to mark that milestone. But it is the speed at which he has done it, just over 18 years from his first that makes it such an extraordinary effort.
Run The Numbers – Age won’t weary record-breaking Rothfire
With 2170 days between his first Group 1 win and his second, Rothfire reset all sorts of history when he won the Doomben 10,000, including the first two-year-old Australian Group 1 winner this century to have gone on and won an elite race at eight.
Run The Numbers – Pride of place – Lightning strikes twice
While the number of stallions in Australia is in decline, the genetic make-up of stakes winners remains diverse, with 360 different nicks of sires and broodmare sires represented among black-type winners this season, including the formula behind Desert Lightning’s success in The Goodwood.
Run The Numbers – Dam good – Extraordinary maternal influences to the fore
In Classic races either side of the Atlantic at the weekend, descendants of a trio of true blue hens further enhanced the influence of their families, while South Australian Derby winner Wigmore put his globetrotting grand dam’s name back up in lights.
Run The Numbers – The mistruths about non-Group 1-winning sires
After Wordsmith became the eighth non-Group 1 winning racehorse to sire a Group 1 winner in Australia this season, Run The Numbers looks at how commonplace this pattern has been over the years.
