Snitzel moves to career-high of $247,500 as Arrowfield release 2023 fees

Cover image courtesy of Joan Faras

Arrowfield has enjoyed yet another stellar season across the board with its stallions - the kind of success which might normally see a flurry of significant fee increases across a seven-strong roster such as theirs. However, just three will see a fee increase for 2023, and all are relatively modest ones.

“It’s a response to the general economic situation,” said Arrowfield Group Chairman John Messara. “Of course, that’s affected the middle and lower ends (of the yearling market). We’re playing it a bit conservative.”

The greatest increase on the Arrowfield roster comes at the top. Snitzel will stand for $247,500 (inc GST) in 2023, up from $220,000 (inc GST) last year, as he enters his 18th season at stud. Last year’s was a return to a previous career-high, having stood for $220,000 (inc GST) in both 2018 and 2019, but dropping to $165,000 (inc GST) in the two years between.

That dip wasn’t due to results though, but a previous deployment of the same caution employed this year, the more drastic adjustment reflecting the huge uncertainty in the face of the COVID pandemic.

The sire of 19 individual Group 1 winners, yet another of which - In The Congo - has retired to stud duties this year, Snitzel added a single Group 1 winner to that tally throughout the year, and it was a very important one.

After he accounted for the first juvenile stakes race of the year, the G3 Breeders’ Plate, with Empire Of Japan, he added the most high-profile more recently, the G1 Golden Slipper S., with Shinzo. His impressive rate of siring stakes winners hasn’t slowed this season, so far adding 17 to bring up a lifetime haul of 134.

Naturally, interest in his progeny in the yearling market remains as high as ever too. This year his average yearling price of $522,733 (for 75 sold) was less than $5000 behind his career-best in 2022.

Messara agreed that wider economic impacts appear to have failed to impact the top end of the yearling market. So, with a four-time Champion Sire on his hands, was a fee increase for Snitzel this year coming Slipper winner or not?

“The Slipper does help the situation,” Messara chuckled. “We were sort of going to do that anyway because he is going very, very well and he’s in great demand.

“We looked at all the other leading stallions and we thought we’ve got to recognise what he’s achieved, not least another Slipper winner and 17 stakes winners. It’s nothing more complicated than that.”

High achievers

The next most significant fee increase comes for Dundeel (NZ). It’s been a terrific season for the 13-year-old. Overall, he’s the sire of six Group 1 winners and 24 stakes winners, but exactly one third of the latter count were added this season.

Heading those is Chris Waller’s brilliant juvenile Militarize (NZ), the impressive Group 1 Sires’ Produce-Champagne S. double winner.

Dundeel covered 124 mares in each of his last two seasons, at the same $66,000 (inc GST) fee that he’s stood at since 2019. That will now rise to $82,500 (inc GST) for 2023, however the elite-level juvenile form reverenced by the Australian market is only partly to account for that raise.

“(It’s) an indication that we see his progeny doing even better on the track in the next three or four years,” Messara explained. “We’re very confident (in him) and we felt that fee will be easily sustained.”

It’s been a similarly good year for Maurice (Jpn), one of two Japanese-bred stallions which will shuttle to Arrowfield again in 2023. He doubled his Australian stakes winner tally to four, whilst in his native Japan he gained a fourth Group 1 winner last November courtesy of Geraldina (Jpn) in the G1 Queen Elizabeth II Cup, with Jack D’Or (Jpn) taking his total to five at the start of this month in the G1 Osaka Hai.

Locally, last year’s G1 Doomben 10,000 winner Mazu has continued to run with great credit at the elite level, finishing third in both The Everest and G1 TJ Smith S., and 3-year-old Kibou confirmed his promise when taking out the G3 Up And Coming S.

All good signs for the relatively young stallion, but Messara confirmed that it’s an absence of runners - through no fault of his own - which has kept Maurice to the same fee of $82,500 (inc GST) for 2023.

Unable to shuttle due to COVID restrictions, only a single, imported mare accounts for his 2020 Southern Hemisphere-bred coverings, meaning there won’t be many Maurice 2-year-olds running next season.

“He’s going to have a dearth of runners,” Messara noted. “So, we thought: ‘Let’s be conservative.’”

After covering 156 mares in 2021, Maurice was raised to $82,500 (inc GST) in 2022 and covered 165 that year.

Emerging talents

After his first runners hit the tracks this year, another that has enjoyed time in the limelight is five-time Group 1 winner The Autumn Sun. Bred and sold by Arrowfield, and by their breed-shaper Redoute’s Choice, his progeny were always expected to improve into their 3-year-old careers.

Nonetheless, his handful of runners to make the tracks this season were headed by G3 Black Opal S. winner Autumn Ballet, and he also had Tulsi place third in the G1 Sistema S. over in New Zealand. Interest certainly didn’t wane in the sales ring either, with Silverdale Farm’s filly out of Via Africa (SAf) (Var {USA}) catching Messara’s eye at the Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale this year and becoming the biggest pinhook in Australian history at $1.8 million, one of two seven-figure lots at that sale for the sire.

The Autumn Sun covered 159 mares last year, close to his first year high of 167, and will remain at $66,000 (inc GST) for 2023.

Two of the Arrowfield roster are still awaiting first runners, the closest to racecourse action being Dundeel’s son Castelvecchio. A G1 Champagne S. winner at two, he backed that up with victory in the G1 Rosehill Guineas, finishing runner-up in the G1 Cox Plate in between. His first crop of yearlings were well-liked at the sales this year, with 52 sold at an average of $111,605, and his fee for 2023 is unchanged at $27,500 (inc GST).

A year behind him, returning for his third season at Arrowfield Stud, is Japanese shuttler Admire Mars (Jpn). The embodiment of Messara’s international outlook, the son of Daiwa Major (Jpn) was a Champion 2-Year-Old Colt in Japan, won three Group 1s over a mile, including the Hong Kong Mile, and is out of a French Group winner.

Gallery: Arrowfield Stud's stallions in 2023

After covering 103 and 90 mares in his first and second years respectively, Messara reports that breeders were taken by his first foals, and he returns at the same fee of $22,000 (inc GST) for 2023.

“I like them,” Messara said confidently. “And, customers like them too. They’re admired, as the name would indicate, so we’re admiring Mars.”

It’s Showtime

The third horse Arrowfield is increasing this year is Showtime. Having stood at $11,000 (inc GST) in his first four years, the emergence of his first runners this season has been more than ample cause for a raise according to Messara, and he will stand for $16,500 (inc GST) in 2023.

A Group 2 winner by Snitzel, who has been the cheapest stallion on their roster since he started, he covered 66 in the last two years. But, Messara has been buoyed by this year’s results and he earned a notable comparison from the Arrowfield supremo.

“Showtime is the quiet achiever at the moment,” he said. “We put him in at a cheap price… He never cracked his Group 1, but he was a very, very good horse, and he’s a good-looking horse too.

“We went with him a lot like we did with Not A Single Doubt in the early days. From a handful of runners he’s had some winners and a couple of stakes horses. He’s giving indications that, supported properly, he could end up being a proper stallion.”

With his three winners this season coming from just nine runners, led by Listed Cinderella S. winner Show Royale, Messara confirmed that supporting him properly is exactly what Arrowfield plans to do this year.

“Well, that’s how he started; Not A Single Doubt was a Listed winner, but we knew he had Group 1 ability, he was just never able to crack through. When he went to stud, $12,500 was about the fee we could stand him at, and he stood there for a good few years before he finally made it, because you don’t get the very best mares at that price, of course.

“We don’t stand stallions which we don’t feel that we can support very strongly. And, our mares play quite a significant role in helping to make those stallions.

“We’ve got something like 300 mares and seven stallions, so you’re going to be looking at 30 or 40 mares to each stallion - very big.”

It’s not just numbers that the stallions have on their side too, as Arrowfield is not afraid to relinquish mares that don’t prove up to their standards.

“The 270 are bloody good mares and they’ll support those stallions… We’ll be right behind our roster, as we are every year.”

Table: Arrowfield Stud's stallion roster for 2023, *all prices inclusive of GST