Analysis of the G1 winning 3YO’s for this season has made us realise how many horses on this list took giant strides from two to three, so we are looking into the crystal ball to find some juveniles we believe could end next season as G1 performers if not G1 winners.
Click here for the story on 3YO G1 winners for 2024/2025.
Over the next couple of months while the Australian stakes racing calendar is quiet we're going to take a look at a few horses who have caught the eye - horses bred to progress and come into their own in the upcoming 3YO features of their generation, be they the sprints or the Classics!
Our first equine cab off the rank is Buccleuch, a son of So You Think's promising young sire Peltzer, trained out of the stables of Patrick and Michelle Payne.
Good horses usually don't take long to break their maiden even when they are immature and performing on raw ability - and that’s been the case with Buccleuch.
At just his second start the gelding was runner up at Flemington to highly regarded stakes-winning gelding Highvol in May and followed that up with a facile maiden win at Echuca.
Sent back to Flemington on Saturday for an open juvenile over 1420m he showed serious potential when striding clear for Billy Egan to win by more than two lengths.
On Saturday, he gets the chance to end the season as a stakes-winner as he will run favourite in the Listed VRC Taj Rossi Series Final (1600m).
Physically, Buccleuch is still a big, slightly awkward youngster, and he is yet to grow into his frame.
That makes his achievements to date pretty impressive and they are a great indicator of a horse who is set to progress in leaps and bounds during the coming Spring.
Few breeders in Australia come with better credentials or are held in higher regard than the Tait family, and their famous red silks have been carried by some great horses over the decades.
Buccleuch was born and raised on the lush paddocks of the Taits’ Twin Hills Stud at Cootamundra.
Bred by Sandy Tait, Buccleuch is a member of Peltzer's first crop and he is certainly doing his bit to advertise the merits of that handsome son of champion So You Think and the winning Elusive Quality mare Miss Otto.
Brilliant and undefeated at three starts in his juvenile year against good company, Peltzer wasn't stepped up to stakes level until three and quickly showed he was right at home there.
A G2 winner of the Stan Fox Stakes 1500m and runner up in the G2 San Domenico Stakes 1100m, Peltzer also claimed the G3 Eskimo Prince Stakes 1200m and the Bondi Stakes over the famous Randwick mile.
He was fourth in both the G2 Run To The Rose 1200m and the G2 Hobartville Stakes 1400m from his ten starts at three before retirement.
Peltzer’s rivals on the track were a highly rated crop of colts - they included boom sires Ole Kirk and Golden Slipper winner Farnan, Anders ( Peltzer's conqueror in the San Domenico) and Doubtland - both now domiciled at Widden - as well as North Pacific, King's Legacy, Prague and Rothfire. Of that group only the brilliant Rothfire was gelded and raced on, with a great deal of success at G1 level too, the marvel is still going strong.
Peltzer was right in the thick of things in this extremely high quality group of males and is giving good indication that same competitiveness will continue in the breeding shed. And he is truly “bred to breed on.”
It's to be expected, and proving to be the case, that he will sire horses like himself which are precocious enough to win in good company at two - it's not difficult at all to imagine that mated with the right mare he could sire a juvenile of Slipper / Sires/ Champagne winning quality.
It's even easier to envisage him in that capacity as a broodmare sire in future years - So You Think is already the damsire of Golden Slipper /Sires heroine Fireburn and High Chaparral is noted for speed through his daughters. With Elusive Quality, Flying Spur and Mill Reef all carried by Peltzer's dam there's a heap of genetic firepower there for breeders to tap into if their quest is a stakes winning two year old that will train on and be even better at three.
Peltzer's European family is supporting the overall structure of his pedigree beautifully, being simply pure class and one of the Aga Khan's most valued and prolific female lines.
It descends from the Umidwar daughter Emali, whose grand dam Black Ray also founded the tail female line of Mill Reef so that's the genetic “double up” powering Peltzer's immediate family.
Pelzter’s sixth dam is Emali's daughter Aimee by the incredible speed sire Tudor Minstrel, the English Champion Two Year Old of 1946.
?With Derby winners as both sire and broodmare sire, Tudor Minstrel was bred to excel over a staying trip but he threw strongly to his speed-biased dam line and a mile was his limit. As a breeding stallion this scintillating speed was Tudor Minstrel's gift to pass on which he did to the highest degree, particularly through his daughters.
Aimee played her part with distinction, most notably as the grand dam of the champion racer and stallion Blushing Groom by Nasrullah, who became a true breed-shaping sire by every marker.
Runaway Bride, the dam of Blushing Groom, was out of Aimee by Wild Risk and is a half sister to 1966 Prix de Minerve winner Flaming Heart by Sheshoon - this is the branch from which Peltzer descends.
Aimee also produced Flaming Heart’s non-winning full sister Afasheen - and she became second dam of 1990 Prix Saint-Alary (FR-G1) winner Air de Rien, 2002 Queen Elizabeth II Stakes (ENG-G1) winner Where or When, 1998 Champagne Stakes (USA-G1) winner The Groom is Red, and 2000 Emirates Singapore Derby winner All the Way. She is the third dam of 4x G1 winning South African champion racer and sire Badgers Drift.
Flaming Heart lacked for absolutely nothing as a producer either and under Peltzer's first four dams we find a plethora of black type.
Within these four generations we find multiple European G1 winners and supremely gifted three year olds Shareta ( Prix Vermeille, Yorkshire Oaks, runner up in an Arc); Shawanda (Champion 3YO Filly Ireland, Prix Vermeille, Irish Oaks) and her son Encke (Champion 3YO Stayer Europe and GB) and the well-named Watch Me (Royal Ascot Coronation Stakes, Prix Rothschild); Sharaya ( Second Top 3YO Filly of France, Prix Vermeille) and a host of others which were G1 placed and /or multiple stakes winners.
Peltzer is out of 1400m winner Miss Otto by the noted speedsire Elusive Quality, a half sister to the Australian-bred stakes placed Galileo daughter Miss With Attitude, dam of South African multiple stakes winner Crown Towers by Camelot.
They were daughters of the tough mare Sizzie ‘Em by Flying Spur, a two time winner at 1600-1800m in Adelaide.
Another of her daughters, the stakes placed Oui Si Attitude by Bianconi clocked up eight wins from 1300-1800m and is the dam of Peltzer's close relation the Adelaide Guineas winner So We Are ( So You Think).
Going back to Peltzer's ancestress Aimee we can look at another daughter of Tudor Minstrel who exerted a powerful influence at stud and who looms large in the pedigree of Buccleuch.
Her name was Mixed Marriage and she became the dam of Sharpen Up's sire Atan and ancestress of champion sires Tentam, Known Fact and the incredible Gone West.
One of the most gifted sons of this noted sire of sires was Peltzer’s damsire Elusive Quality, and thus we can admire the way his dam's pedigree is topped and tailed by the enduringly precocious influence of Tudor Minstrel.
Then there's the related nicks So You Think brought to bear on the mating, and there are very many!
Notably Sharpen Up’s son Kris and Mill Reef's son Shirley Heights through the excellent Darshaan, are the dominant influences in High Chaparral's distaff pedigree, while So You Think's grand dam Astral Row was a mare particularly rich in the blood of the 22-d family to which Peltzer belongs and of the wider 22 family in general.
So You Think has a strong nick with Flying Spur - his G1 winners Think About It (Kingsford Smith / Stradbroke Hcp) and Nakeeta Jane (Surround Stakes / placed Flight and Randwick Guineas against the boys) are bred on this cross as are 19 other winners by the sire.
Nakeeta Jane’s second damsire is the Blushing Groom son Nashwan, while So You Think's recent G1 Queensland Oaks heroine You Wahng is out of a mare by Flying Spur's best son Casino Prince (out of Lady Capel by Last Tycoon one of the most prepotent sources of Mill Reef)
So You Think's brilliant dual G1 placed sprinter Gentleman Roy is from La La Land by Last Tycoon.
So You Think has worked well too with Peltzer's damsire Fastnet Rock, providing G1 Tatts Tiara winner Palaispan and stakes winners Banana Queen and Majestic Colour from mares by “The Rock” who is from the same family as elite broodmare sires Round Table and Foxlaw carried by So You Think's dam, and Atan carried by High Chaparral.
It's the tribe of Elusive Quality's sire Gone West (whose third dam is Tudor Minstrel's daughter Mixed Marriage - the dam of Atan) - and of Aureole the sire of champion St Paddy (Epsom Derby, GB St Leger, Eclipse Stakes in record time etc.).
St Paddy's daughter Safiah is Peltzer's third dam.
This is the wider family of Buccelech's damsire Johannesburg and his dam Myth who not only carries 6 lines of the blood she traces tail female to State - by Nijinsky out of Round Table's full sister Monarchy, and thus a five star nick for So You Think.
Let's look now at Buccleuch's female family.
Bred and retained to race by Sandy Tait, Buccleuch was foaled and raised at Twin Hills Stud and was the fourth foal and second winner from the talented French-bred Fastnet Rock daughter Golden Fastnet, a dual winner in France and Listed placed, and a half-sister to Group III winner Wind Chimes (Mastercraftsman), at stud in Australia.
Wind Chimes topped an Inglis Digital Sale when selling for $305,000 in foal to Wootton Bassett (GB) to Ben Kwok, who will no doubt take a keen interest in the progress of Buccleuch!
Golden Fastnet sadly died last year. Her tough 2019 Pierro filly Strangeless is a multiple winner and is still racing.
Following the arrival of Buccleuch in 2022, Golden Fastnet delivered two more foals - her 2023 colt by Hallowed Crown and her last foal, a 2024 filly by Prized Icon giving promise of things still to come.
Golden Fastnet and Wind Chimes are out of juvenile stakes winning Johannesburg daughter Militante, dam of four winners.
The next mare on the page is stakes placed Fusaichi Pegasus product and Buccleuch's fourth dam Pharapache by the great Lyphard. She was a race winning producer of UK G2 winner and twice French G1 placed Westphalia (Danehill Dancer) and stakes winners Cliquot and Stockholder ( both by Bertrando)
Buccleuch's high quality female line is that of Blue Hen Alora, also ancestress of champion racer, Derby winner and legendary broodmare sire Quest For Fame (by Blushing Groom's Rainbow Quest) so again, bloodlines which give every indication that what we have seen of Buccleuch is just a glimpse of a talent which will blossom at three.
Another member of his wider family is our own three year old superhorse and Classic sire, The Autumn Sun.
The Tait family have bred some of Australia’s greatest racehorses and their famous red and white colours are a familiar sight in feature races.
Baguette, Tie The Knot and Spinning Hill all carried those silks to multiple G1 victories.
Thanks to those and other great horses and in recognition of longstanding success and contribution to the industry at both a national and global level the Tait family was inducted into the Australian Racing Hall of Fame in 2014.
In the past 40 years, the family has bred and raced some of the best horses in the land, so a lofty benchmark has been set for the current Twin Hills Stud owner Ollie Tait, who continues the legacy of his grandparents, his father Sandy Tait and his auntie Jill Nivison.
And Buccleuch has some very big hoofprints to fill if he is to become another G1 winner in the red and white!
Let's look at a few more aspects of the pedigree behind this promising young horse.
Well there is his 5m x 3m duplication of Danehill. Not really all that long ago some were decrying the idea of inbreeding to the great son of Danzig, as they had also foretold doom from inbreeding Danzig himself and Northern Dancer before that.
But eventually greatness always wins out - the really great stallions (and mares!) not only tolerate duplication they will reward it handsomely - when quality individuals are the mating subjects, that's always a given of course.
So now, Danehill x 2 is everywhere in good horses and Flying Spur seems to be a particularly amenable subject for this pattern as does Fastnet Rock.
Another influence increasingly coming to the fore in Danehill / Danzig duplications is Buccleuch's third damsire, Kentucky Derby hero Fusaichi Pegasus, who shuttled to Australia for seven seasons from 2001.
The controversial “ Fu Peg” - fiercely defended by some and derided as an over rated flop by others, he was neither great nor terrible immediately - but now his star rises and shines most brightly as he appears in the further removes of pedigrees.
Which is really where he was bred to shine and it would all come in good time for the son of Mr Prospector and a Danzig mare, herself the daughter of a mare by Halo.
These are important sex balancing lines for Danehill and marry well with his son Flying Spur - out of Mr Prospector daughter Rolls from Grand Luxe by Sir Ivor (Halo's tail male line) out of Fanfreluche by Northern Dancer himself.
Buccleuch is further bred to Northern Dancer 5m x 5m Nijinsky ( sex balanced by Johannesburg), and through his sons Hero's Honour, Lyphard and of course “big daddy” Sadler's Wells.
Just for good measure why not have a line of the mighty Storm Bird as well coming through Johannesburg!
This is all beautifully balanced and calibrated and has no random aspect to it at all - and I don't even have space to write about the other key linebreedings in Buccleuch's pedigree which are just as fascinating! They speak to the lifetime of experience and success behind the creation of this exciting young horse.
Physically, his sire Peltzer reflects the speed genes he carries and demonstrated on the track, being built more like a sprinter than a typical So You Think, and yet he retains the overall elegance, balance and the beautiful head of his magnificent sire.
Buccleuch is still immature in looks and has lots more growing to do over his winter break, but he's a handsome fellow and gallops with a good ground covering stride. Most importantly, he has shown he possesses what every good racehorse needs - the ability to rapidly shift gears.
So where might we see Buccleuch aimed in the spring?
Well to me it's a pedigree that jumps off the page as one you'd imagine belonging to a genuine 1600-2000m Guineas contender - the Caulfield, Randwick or Rosehill Guineas all look like they could be on his radar.
Perhaps a Derby?? but he may prove to be a little too brilliant for that - although certainly bred to run 2400m if he were trained that way.
But the sharper Guineas winners not infrequently end up in the Cox Plate…..
Many challenges remain to be met and overcome before Buccleuch finds himself in anything like that sort of company, but if you have bred a horse by the dual Group winning son of a two time Cox Plate champion from a mare with a female line of this quality, why would you not dare to dream a little?
Peltzer stands at Twin Hills this spring at a fee of $11,000.
