Mare quality and stallion performance

Discovering a top-class stallion is literally like striking gold. A successful stallion can sustain a stallion farm for decades and help generate so many other business opportunities along the way. The fortunes earned are even greater if the stallion in question is found among the bottom tier of new recruits. And that tends to happen more in big markets with strong regional breeding communities.

Australia is a case in point. The make and shape of the broodmare population in Australia – where there are very few dominant owner breeders as in Europe – means that a good stallion can come from almost anywhere. And they often do.

Just look at the career of one of the nation’s current elite sires, I Am Invincible. He started out covering at an advertised fee of $11,000 (inc GST) for his first four seasons at Yarraman Park. He was leading first-season sire with 15 winners, a tally well above the norm for a freshman sire at the time. That first crop featured five juvenile stakes winners, including Brazen Beau. Six years later I Am Invincible’s fee had reached an all-time high of $247,500 (inc GST).

Nothing succeeds like success as they say and a stallion that can make a big impression with his first 2-year-olds is going to attract plenty of attention from mare owners.

Queensland success

Two more recent examples of stallions that made the right first impression from humble beginnings are the 2017/18 leading first-crop sire Spirit Of Boom and Better Than Ready, the leading freshman a year later.

Spirit Of Boom sired three more first-crop juvenile winners than I Am Invincible and the same number of stakes winners, while Better Than Ready managed as many as 23 individual winners, the most in recent history and only seven shy of the record 30 sired by the great Without Fear (Fr).

What is different about these two stallions is that they are based in Queensland so don’t have the same access to quality mares as their counterparts in New South Wales or Victoria. The numbers bear this out with Spirit Of Boom and Better Than Ready respectively covering 39 and 37 elite mares in the first four years, compared to the 61 by I Am Invincible, this despite standing within the same fee range in their early years. As a reminder, elite mares are those that are among the top 15% of all mares in Australia.

Predictably, both Queensland stallions received a hike in mare quality in their fifth season, Spirit Of Boom attracting 63 elite mares – nearly double the number of his first four years put together – and Better Than Ready 27, his best-ever tally too.

Given the way the modern commercial market works, it’s inevitable that there is a fall off in mare quality in years two, three and four, so all things being equal we are entitled to expect quieter times from both in the next few years at least until their better-bred crops start competing.

Emerging stallions

Of course, emerging stallions don’t always have to start on the bottom rung of the latter. In fact, they are statistically more likely to succeed if they can gain access to good mares from the start. There are a number of current horses that started out with much higher expectations and the breeders have liked what they have seen so far, so much so that they have bestowed even greater opportunities upon them.

Table: Young sires and their elite mares

Zoustar was always going to be a hot commodity when he retired to stud, as his $44,000 (inc GST) opening service fee indicated. And after a very bright start with his first 2-year-olds, his fee rose in 2018 and was up again in 2019 following the brilliant exploits of his first 3-year-olds, notably triple Group 1 heroine Sunlight. On the back of these successes, it is no surprise to learn that Zoustar’s current yearlings and foals are from his best-ever books of mares.

Arrowfield’s Dundeel (NZ) is another who commenced his stallion career with quality books as his $27,500 (inc GST) service fee suggests. He too has wowed breeders with his first set of 3-year-olds and was rewarded with his best-ever book in his sixth year at stud, covering more than twice as many elite mares as he did when he first went to stud; 91 in year six compared to 42 in year one.

And then we have Coolmore’s Rubick who hit the jackpot, siring G2 Todman S. hero Yes Yes Yes with his first juveniles. The net result was that his number of elite mares shot up later that year to double the number he served in year one.

But will better mares make a difference? Or is it the case that good sires will produce the goods whatever the standard of their mares? Well, the evidence is overwhelming. Even the best of stallions benefit from blue-blooded partners. I Am Invincible gets 11.6% stakes winners from his elite mares and only 7.4% from the rest. Even the great Snitzel relies on his better mares, siring 13.2% stakes winners from them and 8.1% from the rest. And his own sire Redoute’s Choice is similarly indebted to his elite partners, as they have produced 13.7% stakes winners versus 9.0% from the others.

Spirit Of Boom is now up to 12 stakes winners, produced at a rate (5.1%) well in advance of the expectations of his early mares. By my calculations, he’s only ever had eight starters out of what could be classed as elite mares, and one of them – Sugar Boom – is already a stakes winner. Better Than Ready, meanwhile, had a slightly quieter time with his 3-year-olds last season. The fact that Zoustar, Dundeel, and Rubick started out at higher fees perhaps puts them on a sounder footing, but then again they’ll be held to a higher standard.

What’s certain is that all five stallions have the ammunition to see them do well in the coming years.