Straight Up – A sire dynasty built from Windsor Park

In this edition:

• Run The Numbers – A High chance of sire success 
• Deep Field’s legacy rolls on with Hong Kong record 
• Rowe On Monday – Bronco boost for Taltys, blue hens and big results, and lessons learned the hard way 
• ‘Serious consequence for owners’ – Racing Australia persists with foal compliance crackdown
• ‘You’ve got to think of the upside’ – Longevity a testament to Teo’s international investment 
• Gooree say Yes Yes Yes to Everest winner 
• Go Racing to sell New Zealand Group 1 winner Velocious

Twenty years ago, New Zealand’s Windsor Park Stud took on Sadler’s Wells’ seven-time Group 1 winner High Chaparral as a high-profile shuttler in a deal with Coolmore.

And High Chaparral’s impact on the Australasian industry was immediate, with his first New Zealand-conceived crop producing eight stakes winners, four of them Group 1 winners.

So You Think won 10 Group 1s, Shoot Out won five and Descarado and Monaco Consul won two elite races each.

In his third crop of just 54 southern hemisphere-bred foals, six won stakes races including Dundeel, himself a six-time Group 1 winner for trainer Murray Baker.

High Chaparral would shuttle to Windsor Park four times in a five-year period before Coolmore announced in early 2010 that the stallion would join its Australian roster later that year.

During the 2009 spring carnival, So You Think won the first of his two Cox Plates and Monaco Consul completed the Spring Champion-Victoria Derby double to make him commercially a no-brainer for Coolmore to stand him themselves.

He would go on to cover 235 mares, at a fee of $88,000 (inc GST), in his first of five seasons shuttling to the Hunter Valley. He died in late 2014 at the age of 15 after complications following colic surgery soon after returning to Ireland.

Windsor Park has maintained a strong relationship with Coolmore over the past two decades and this year the Schick family will stand six-time Group 1 winner Auguste Rodin on the Magnier family’s behalf.

Auguste Rodin’s CV includes an Epsom Derby, Irish Derby and Breeders’ Cup Turf, races of which High Chaparral also won prior to retiring to stud. Coolmore’s four-time Group 1 winner Paddington will shuttle to Windsor Park for his second season in 2025.

Although High Chaparral died prematurely, it’s those aforementioned Windsor Park-conceived sire sons So You Think and Dundeel who are carrying the Sadler’s Wells sire line with distinction, as Bren O’Brien’s Run The Numbers column points out.

Another stallion no longer in the breeding barn is Deep Field, but he’s still leaving his mark from just eight crops, becoming the first sire in Hong Kong racing history to break HK$100 million in progeny earnings for the season.

That milestone was achieved last week and his three-year-old son Endued added to Deep Field’s tally at Sha Tin on Saturday, providing retiring trainer Benno Yung with a winner with just three meetings in the 2024/25 season remaining.

Off the track, and popular NSW breeders Mick and Michelle Talty, who ran Edinglassie for more than three decades, had cause to celebrate sporting success of another kind.

The racing industry diehards were at Accor Stadium in Sydney on Friday to watch their son Ben make his National Rugby League debut for heavyweight club the Brisbane Broncos.

Ben’s accomplishment was up there with winning a Group 1 race and the Taltys’ story leads this week’s Rowe On Monday.

Racing Australia has confirmed it is pressing ahead with its compliance of foal ownership declarations, outlining the fees and processes which will be enforced under the national rules of racing from August 1.

Expatriate Australian Eden Harrington also provided a deep insight into Teo Ah Khing’s China Horse Club, which wields significant influence and holds bloodstock interests in both hemispheres.

In other breeding industry news over the past week, The Everest winner Yes Yes Yes has found a new home at Gooree Park Stud and Group 1-winning two-year-old Velocious will be sold via Inglis Digital later this month.

Thanks for your ongoing support of The Straight.

Regards

Tim Rowe

Senior Journalist