When Good News Can Go A Long Way

The official Sydney two year-old trials are just two weeks away and will be followed not long after by the return of juvenile racing in Australia and for the farms standing fourth season sires this is when a little bit of good news can translate very quickly into mare bookings, so let’s take a look at the stats for these sires.

Manaal wins the Gimcrack Stakes to become a game changer for her sire Tassort - image Steve Hart

The Group III ATC Breeders Plate and Gimcrack Stakes will be run on October 5 at Randwick and while results from these races don’t mean a great deal in the grand scheme of things, they do mean a lot if the winners and place-getters are by first crop sires in terms of racing, who are buttering up as fourth season sires at stud.

Last year, Newgate Farm’s $11,000 sire Tassort made his presence felt at the trials with a couple of promising youngsters showing to advantage and then he followed up with Manaal coming out to win the Gimcrack Stakes.

Those results meant a tidal wave of interest in Tassort, who ended up as the busiest sire in Australia last season covering 232 mares and nearly half of them were covered in November and December as breeders took note of what was happening on the track and jumped on board.

Fast forward to now and Manaal has not only emerged as a Group I winner last season, but has also trained on to win the Group II ATC Furious Stakes and is not the lone stakes-winner for Tassort, who has also added Group II ATC Silver Shadow Stakes winner Ameena to his resume.

Let’s take a look at those fourth season at stud and first season on the track sires, whose fortunes have the potential to change rapidly over the next few months.

Australian Based First Season Racing Sires for This Season (sorted in alpha order)