The Snitzel dominance looks set to continue at Flemington on Saturday.
Arrowfield Stud’s super sire has three of the 11 starters in the $200,000 Group II Danehill Stakes including the unbeaten Jukebox and the promising Azazel.
The one we like is the New Zealander Summer Passage who was a Group I winner in his homeland last season before crossing the Tasman to finish runner-up to Invader in the Group I ATC Inglis Sires’ Produce Stakes.
Long before Australian Bloodstock’s Luke Murrell and Jamie Lovett discovered the worth of the German Thoroughbred, Lord Howard de Walden was investing heavily in what was one of the world’s most insular industries.
Born in 1912, de Walden visited Germany as a freshman at Cambridge. According to the fabulously wealthy de Walden, he was driving through Munich when a man stepped out in front of him and was knocked down.
"He was only shaken up but if I had killed him it would have changed the history of the world,” de Walden later recalled. Needless to say, that man was Adolf Hitler.
De Walden bred many outstanding horses including the top-miler and outstanding sire Kris as well as the hugely successful New Zealand-based stallion Oncidium.
Perhaps his finest moment was when his homebred Slip Anchor, trained by 41-year-old Henry Cecil and ridden by 25-year-old American Steve Cauthen, romped home a 7-length winner of the 1985 Epsom Derby.
Slip Anchor’s dam was German Oaks runner-up Sayonara (GER) (Birkhahn) a descendant of the hugely influential mare Schwarzgold ( Alchimist) who won the 1940 German Derby.
Besides Slip Anchor, Sayonara produced several the Lancashire Oaks winner Sandy Island the dam of Hardwicke Stakes winner Sandmason (Grand Lodge) and a mare that would prove her worth half a world away.
A winner at Newmarket, Subterfuge (GB) was imported into Australia carrying a filly by Lure.
She found a great mate in Danehill who she visited four times leaving the multiple Group II winner and multiple Group I placed Shania Dane, Hong Kong champion Scintillation, who won the Centenary Sprint Cup twice, and the stakes-placed Danevade and Puzzle Book.
To Danehill’s son Rock Of Gibraltar (IRE), Subterfuge (GB) left the stakes-placed Liatris and to Encosta de Lago the Listed stakes winner Risk Aversion.
And what a gold mine Subterfuge was at stud.
Her yearlings bought $470,000, $300,000, $800,000, $1,300,000, $1,250,000, and $625,000.
But back to her first foal Sequin (Lure). Having failed to win in 10 starts she produced the stakes winners Order Of The Sun (Encosta de Lago) and Get To Work (Snippets) as well as Sequential (Lion Hunter).
Sequential is the dam of Listed winner Excitable Boy (More Than Ready). Despite looking extremely promising at two, Excitable Boy failed to add to his record in Hong Kong. He started 22 times in the former colony and the world’s best jockeys, Moreira, Whyte, Purton, Callan, Demuro, Teeton, Rispoli, De Sousa and Schofield, all had a go without getting him across the line first.
Another of Sequin’s foals is the Encosta de Lago mare Subsequent.
A winner over 1550 metres from five starts Subsequent was retained to race by her breeder, Ron Gilbert’s Highgrove Stud when she failed to make her $250,000 reserve at the 2010 Easter Yearling Sale.
Subsequent’s second foal was the strapping Snitzel colt Summer Passage (pictured as a yearling) who was knocked down to Wexford Stables for $800,000 at the 2016 Inglis Easter Yearling Sale.
The Lance O'Sullivan and Andrew Scott-trained
Names such as Fastnet Rock and Black Caviar
