Cover image: The racebook for the 1933 AJC Sires' Produce S.
Like the Derby and the Guineas, the Sires’ Produce S. has been written into the racing calendars of most states in Australia. There’s one in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide.
However, unlike the Derby and the Guineas, the concept of the Sires’ Produce S. seems to owe its genesis to Australia, not England, and a quick scan through history reveals that the race, the first of which emerged around the country in the 1850s or even earlier, was born out of colonial necessity.
In that era, the Australian colony wasn’t even 100 years old. Penal transportation, which had carved a new Australia out of the bush, would only end in 1868, and the earliest settlement at Sydney Cove was still a living memory. Organised racing was only about 30 years old, and the breeding industry relied heavily on the loins of imported stallions.
Racing men recognised a need to foster a homegrown industry. Shipping bloodlines from the mother country was risky and expensive, and from limited sires present in Australia, there had been considerable success in such races as Town Plates and Champion Sweepstakes.
Outlook, winner of the 1918 AJC Sires' Produce S. | Image courtesy of the State Library of Australia
How then to propagate a colonial breeding industry with a race that would encourage support of particular, commercial stallions? The concept of the Sires’ Produce S. was born.
It’s hard to pin down the very first Sires’ Produce in Australia. Conversation about the race was widespread through racing men in the 1850s, and this was reflected in the press, which in that era gave gallant coverage of horse racing and its issues. After all, horse racing was arguably the first of organised sports in the new colony.
Around the country, there were Biennial and Triennial Sires’ Produce S., and a Grand Produce S. as well as a Great Western Produce S., and in Sydney, an Australian Sires’ Produce S. The idea behind each of them was the same.
The 1933 AJC Sires' Produce S. showing the winner Hall Mark who also won the Melbourne Cup the same year
The Sires’ Produce races were designed to bring forward the colony’s first-class 2-year-old stock, which would compete for a handsome purse and would represent enrolled stallions, whose studmasters had paid to have them added to the race’s eligibility and who, as a consequence of the success of the concept, became ‘fashionable stallions’.
Later on, studmasters were paying a £10 fee to have their stallions enrolled in the Sires' Produce S., which was added to the prizemoney. Great discussion occurred every year about which stallions were on the list, particularly in the earliest years of the concept when stallions were limited.
By the 1860s, the concept had taken a firm hold. Such sires existed as Maribyrnong, the brilliant Panic (GB) and the beautifully bred Fireworks. A decade later, Yattendon was the Danehill (USA) of Australia, and there was no reason for the Sires’ Produce S. not to be a success.
And a success they were.
An 1868 wood engraving of Glencoe, winner of the first AJC Sires' Produce S. in 1867 | Image courtesy of the State Library of Victoria
The Australian Stud Book records the first AJC Sires’ Produce S. as occurring in 1867 when Glencoe won the race at Randwick over seven furlongs. Glencoe demonstrated the immediate success of the race as a cartwheel into the 3-year-old Classics because he went on to win the AJC St Leger the following year (along with the Melbourne Cup).
In Melbourne, the VRC Sires’ Produce S. is recorded even earlier. Its first edition is listed in the Stud Book as 1862, won by Musidora (The Premier {GB}), who didn’t win a ‘Classic’ by definition, but who proved her mettle as the dam of the brilliant Briseis (Tim Whiffler {GB}), a Melbourne Cup, VRC Oaks and VRC Derby winner.
By 1877, the race was in Brisbane. The then QTC Sires’ Produce S. was won inaugurally by Ada (Laureate), while in Perth, it emerged in 1911. Prolific winners of the WATC Sires’ Produce S. have included Eurythmic in 1919.
It reached Adelaide in 1945 as the SAJC Sires’ Produce S., and each rendition of the race in its various states of Australia have continued to this day.
Eurythmic, winner of the WATC Sires' Produce S. in 1919
It’s fair to say that the Sires’ Produce S. fulfilled its early role in drawing breeder support to colonial stallions, encouraging breeding men to send their mares to local stallions, rather than import new blood.
In particular, the Randwick race was a huge success, probably owing to geography more than anything. Foundation studs like Hobartville, Rouse Hill and Fernhill, where so many of the brilliant early sires stood, were just a jaunty ride from downtown Sydney, after all.
In 1867, in the important publication Bell's Life, the success of the AJC Sires' Produce S. was lauded, and carried around the country as a model for imitation.
‘Studmasters are evidently becoming more and more attached to our Produce Stakes, and I hope they will continue alive to the advantages of Derbys and Legers without added money,. All success, say I, to the AJC with their youngsters’ races, which have now arrived at such a prosperous state of stability.’
