Vintage Crop – Where Are They Now?

Tara Madgwick - Monday April 22

With three of our first season sires posting Group I winners this season and five in total siring the winners of over a million with three more months of this season to come, we’re entitled to speculate on whether these guys have the makings of a vintage crop of sires such as we saw in 2020/2021.

The Australian first season sires table finished the 2020/2021 season with a trifecta for Newgate Farm sires Extreme Choice, Capitalist and Flying Artie with all three getting Group I winners.

Extreme Choice

Extreme Choice sired Golden Slipper winner Stay Inside, Capitalist sired Champagne Stakes winner Captivant and not to be left out Flying Artie sired Artorius to win the Blue Diamond.

The table below shows how they finished the 2020/2021 season and also their fee before their runners hit the track and the year after.

Sire

R/W

SW

Earnings

2020 Fee

2021 Fee

2024 Fee

Extreme Choice

15/4

3

$3,392,085

$22,000

FOA

$275,000

Capitalist

61/20

4

$3,278,728

$44,000

$99,000

$66,000

Flying Artie

42/10

1

$2,063,945

$16,500

$33,000

TBA

Shalaa (IRE)

41/7

1

$1,964,755

$33,000

$44,000

TBA

Star Turn

41/19

1

$1,458,155

$16,500

$16,500

TBA

Frosted (USA)

16/5

2

$1,348,386

$22,000

$44,000

No shuttle

Maurice (Jpn)

34/8

0

$939,835

No shuttle

$44,000

TBA

Now we’ll fast forward to 2024 and their stats for this season are as below with six of the seven sires rated in the Top 50 by earnings. Capitalist is a long way ahead helped along in part due to sheer weight of numbers and Frosted has slipped off the pace with the other sires all relatively close together, although Extreme Choice is operating with a fraction of the numbers of his peers due to his well documented fertility issues and his overall SW to runner strike rate of 13.8% is the best of all active sires in the country.

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Ranking on 2023/204 Sires Table

Sire

R/W

SW

Earnings

10

Capitalist

276/121

6

$9,364,887

34

Shalaa (IRE)

183/74

1

$5,143,234

38

Maurice (Jpn)

115/56

3

$4,936,186

41

Star Turn

138/56

0

$4,783,670

42

Extreme Choice

63/31

3

$4,760,195

44

Flying Artie

161/65

3

$4,630,318

81

Frosted (USA)

111/36

2

$2,677,221

Capitalist and Extreme Choice remain where they started at Newgate, while Flying Artie has been relocated to Blue Gum Farm in Victoria.

Arrowfield Stud bid farewell to Shalaa, who is now at Woodside Park in Victoria, while they have retained Maurice, who has held his own this season despite his no show in 2020 due to Covid which has left him without juveniles this season.

Star Turn remains at Vinery Stud, while Frosted was on the Darley America roster this year at a fee of $10,000 and has not been to Australia since 2022 when he covered just 23 mares.

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