It’s early days for the current juvenile season with only a tiny percentage of the crop seen in action so far, but as we head into the Christmas holiday period three of the top five sires on the two year-old sires list are all first season horses and that’s good news for Kia Ora Stud, Yulong and Vinery Stud.
Kia Ora Stud’s Farnan sits on top of the list with just the one winner and it’s North England, who finished a close third in the Group III ATC Breeders Plate before coming out to win the $1million ATC Golden Gift, which is one of the contentious ‘Black Type circus’ races having been advertised as Group III ( a status it deserves) but not acknowledged as that by Arion and the auction houses.
The two colts that beat North England in the Breeders Plate are King Kirk(Ole Kirk), sadly no longer with us, and Tempestuous, who presented only fairly at Wyong before the Magic Millions 2YO Classic there last week and raced accordingly to fade and finish fourth.
Ole Kirk filly O’ Ole won that race (Restricted Listed) to become the second winner and second stakes-winner for Vinery Stud’s Ole Kirk and she came into that race off a fifth to North England in the Golden Gift after her debut second in the Group III ATC Gimcrack Stakes.
The other first season sire in the mix is Yulong based Lucky Vega (IRE), a Group I winning juvenile by Lope de Vega that has hit the jackpot with his first Aussie runner Within the Law.
Two starts for two lucrative wins in a pair of $500,000 Inglis sales races for Within the Law has got him off to a flying start and given him a stakes-winner with those races afforded the Restricted Listed status that does bestow Black Type on the winner.
There have been nine stakes-winning two year-olds so far this season and ironically the best two year-old, North England, despite having the best form of all of them doesn’t get Black Type thanks to this ongoing bone of contention.
