The Left Field Success

There are plenty of stallions that produce Group I winners, but very few stallions that produce more than one out and out champion.

A quick look at the Australian General Sires List by earnings after three weeks of the season sees Street Cry (IRE) out in front making play and while it's easy to say, 'that's because of Winx', there is a lot more to the late Street Cry than just Winx.

At the recent South African Horse of the Year Awards, his Australian bred three year-old daughter Oh Susanna made history when taking out honours as Champion 3YO Filly, Champion Middle Distance Galloper and South African Horse of the Year.

The Justin Snaith trained filly won the Group I Kenilworth Sun Met becoming the first filly to win the priced feature in more than 100 years.

Exceptional stuff that stamps her as one of the best fillies in the world, never mind South Africa.

But before Winx and before Oh Susanna there was an American filly called Zenyatta that really put Street Cry into the stratosphere after his top class son Street Sense got the ball rolling by winning the Group I Breeders Cup Juvenile and then the Kentucky Derby at three.

Zenyatta was the Winx of her time winning her first 19 starts in succession before closing out her career with a controversial second in the Group I Breeders Cup Classic.

Street Cry died prematurely in 2014 when he was just 16 and to this point has sired 122 stakes-winners (8% stakes-winners to runners), 20 of them Group I winners.

These are the statistics of an outstanding stallion, but as we head into the breeding season it's worth considering that Street Cry was hardly an obvious pick for Australian breeders to succeed in the way that he has.

He was a dirt tracker, whose best win was the Group I Dubai World Cup and his sire Machiavellian, was best known in Australia for being the sire of noted failure Vettori (IRE), so it's not hard to see why most breeders did not know what to make of him.

He covered 72 mares for Darley in his first season at a fee of $38,500, then his fee was dropped to $16,500 for his next three seasons resulting in bigger books of 100 plus mares.

When his first progeny started racing here in the 2006/2007 season Street Cry finished 21^st on the First Season Sires List with three minor winners and then improved somewhat to be tenth the following year on the Second Season Sires List. His second crop contained Group I stars Whobegotyou and Shocking, who turned things around for Street Cry the following season and the rest is history.

At the time of his death in 2014, Street Cry stood at a fee of $110,000.

AS we head into the breeding season, I guess the moral to this story is that success can take time to unfold and the obvious choice is not always the best.