1/ Move over Snitzel! I Am Invincible is laying down the gauntlet to Arrowfield Stud's champion sire who set a record last year for seasonal progeny earnings of $29 million with I Am Invincible a very distant second best on $15million. We're two months into the new season and I Am Invincible is setting the pace and is the first sire to crack $3million in earnings with Snitzel in second on $2million.
I Am Invincible is running hot with 14 winners in seven days and among those winners are Group I winners Oohood and Viddora, plus Group II winner I Am a Star and Group III ATC Gimcrack Stakes winner Catch Me, the first two year-old stakes-winner of the season…. maybe a sign of things to come as these two year-olds are his first bred from the increased fee of $55,000.
He is the leading sire by winners (51) and stakes-winners (9), so whatever way you look at it I Am Invincible is hot. If you've dived into him again this year at a fee of $192,500 you would have to be feeling as though it was money well spent.
2/ The Everest picture is growing less and less clear by the day as popular horses either fail to fire or pull up lame . We now have a new favourite in Sant Ana Lane, whose sire Lope de Vega (IRE) no longer shuttles here, so if he wins that massive chunk of prizemoney will have no real bearing on our General Sires List.
Viddora may give I Am Invincible a shot at the title, while Snitzel has Redzel and Trapeze Artist to run for him, but Fastnet Rock might have the last laugh with his royally bred mare Shoals (pictured Steve Hart) , who has an uncanny knack for pulling out her A game when it counts. She's had four starts in Group I races for three wins and a second.
3/ Flight Stakes was a cracker with four outstanding fillies in a blanket finish. Three of the four, Oohod, Fiesta and Miss Fabulass were all proven in elite company, but there was Nakeeta Jane right there with them having just her third race start and her first run out of maiden class.
So You Think already has four Group I winners to his credit and I'm tipping by the end of this season Nakeeta Jane will have added to that total.
4/ Smart Missile and Sepoy were both sent packing from the Hunter Valley this year . Darley switched Golden Slipper winner Sepoy to Victoria and dropped his fee to $11,000, while Arrowfield got rid of Smart Missile completely, relocating him to Twin Hills Stud at Cootamundra with his fee set at $13,200.
Lo and behold, the two Group III Guineas Prelude races at Caulfield on Sunday went
the way of the unbeaten Smart Melody (Smart Missile) and rapidly progressive
colt Native Soldier (Sepoy) proving that just because a stallion might be seen
commercially as disappointing it doesn't mean he won't still get a good horse.
Priced the way they are this season, both stallions represent value.
5/ Danehill Sire Dominance? There were five Group I races run over the long weekend and none were won by the progeny of Danehill line sires. In fact, since the start of the season we've had 11 Group I races run and only one of them, the Golden Rose, has been won by a Danehill line horse and that was Redoute's Choice colt The Autumn Sun.
Footnote: This story has been a day late coming out owing to a busy weekend of competing our Daybreak Farm team of off the track jumpers. Pictured below is Daybreak Lunar Rise, the 2012 Group III VRC Carbine Club Stakes winner gaining his first jumping ribbon at Dapto Show!
