There are few stallions in Australia more deserving of a first Group 1 winner than All Too Hard, who across his career at Vinery has built a reputation as a prolific producer of winners, with 201 from 326 runners to the track, including 15 stakes winners.
In G1 Australian Guineas winner Alligator Blood, he now has that headline horse to go with his tremendous consistency, and given the 3-year-old is a gelding, it is likely to be the first of several victories at the elite level for the David Vandyke-trained galloper.
That success was complemented by the victories of Dawn Dawn in the G2 Guy Walter S. at Randwick and the win of Hard Rock Girl in the Listed Cinderella S. at Morphettville in what was the most significant day in the stallion's career.
Alligator Blood winning the G1 Australian Guineas
The combination of quality and variety of winners was the perfect recipe for Vinery Stud's General Manager Peter Orton to be bearing a broad smile at the Inglis Melbourne Premier Sale on Sunday.
"Over the last few months he's had a plethora of winners, which is good. But the market is always looking for that top horse, so to get a horse of the calibre of Alligator Blood is fantastic as a flag bearer," he said,.
"But we want to know there are others about and so to have two other stakes winners on the day was really important for us. And variety, he's had two 2-year-old stakes winners this year and the perception is they take a bit of time, which is true too, and to have a mare winning as well. The variety he puts into his stock is really good."
"The variety he puts into his stock is really good." - Peter Orton
But for Orton, Saturday's results won’t alter the approach he takes with the stallion, with the intention that he will stand at a similar fee to the $27,500 (inc GST) he stood his eighth season at stud in 2020.
"It just underpins him. The market ebbs and flows and you have to adjust as you go along. He's a horse that will maintain his fee around where it is. He’ll get good support and he’ll get a balance of mares," he said.
"I think what happened yesterday, and what has happened the past few months, is not something that has just exploded, but it underpins what we feel about the horse. There's a lot of industry support for the horse, those that believe in him and he has franked that support."
All Too Hard will likely stand at a similar fee to his 2019 $27,500 (inc GST) price
Getting the mix right
All Too Hard, a four-time Group 1 winner on the track, has been very well patronised since his first season, with books over 150 in his first four years, and books of 146, 134 and 107 the past three seasons.
Orton feels breeders, trainers and the market are only now getting a proper handle of how to get the best out of his progeny.
"In this market, the approach to first-season sires has always been very aggressive. He picked up an amazing group of mares in his first year, he covered 50 Group winners and 15 Group 1 winners. But they aren't necessarily the ones that throw the good horses," he said.
"I actually believe he has come back into the better end of the middle market, that's where those mares with a depth of pedigree are. He has done very well from that.
Vinery's Peter Orton
"He's a lovely big horse. He helps a lot of mares physically and breeders know there is a lot of avenues and he can go in a lot of directions, and that's important.
"The industry is now understanding that he does get 2-year-old winners but they are better off being given time. It's an education process - we all work it out as we go."
Alligator propels sire to new heights
Alligator Blood's heroics this season have seen All Too Hard propelled to new heights and he is now inside the top 10 on the sires' list in Australia for both winners and prizemoney with 82 winners and his progeny earning over $7.3 million.
The momentum created from a headline horse can prove career-defining for a stallion.
"It’s good as All Too hard gets the benefit as he goes along. Alligator Blood is his own animal and he's obviously become a bit of a talking horse," Orton said.
"Breeders invest a lot in this industry, so to start with, you want to know that the stallion you go to has got the capability. Top stallions all have the capability to throw top horses themselves. Winners are good, but you have to get the top end, that's the nature of the business."
Peter Orton sees a lot of All Too Hard's will to win in Alligator Blood
As for comparisons between the sire and his star, Orton sees a couple of significant similarities.
"There's a champion factor in there. What he did yesterday was amazing. If you go back to All Too Hard and think about what he was, he was a 3-year-old who got up and did things as a 2-year-old," he said.
"When we bought him, we won three Group 1s with him and he had a virus on the morning of the Australian Guineas. He would have won that by six lengths.
"He could have gone on for another year, but we paid a lot of money for him and that's always difficult. He would have won another five or six Group 1s, he was that calibre of horse. The attitude is what you see. All Too Hard's will to win as a colt was spectacular and that is what I see in Alligator Blood as well."
