Sire Analysis Part 2: Don’t judge them too soon

Cover image courtesy of Coolmore

There are as many ways to define a leading sire as there are sires in existence. For the purposes of this article, ‘leading sire’ has been defined as a stallion who has been in the top ten of Australia Sires Championship at least once in the last ten years.

For the 100 available positions that this gives (10 sires over 10 years), there are only 28 individual stallions who have achieved this.

Table 1: Leading sires in last decade showing how many times they’ve been in the top 10 of Australian Sires Championship table

This table also has the season of their first 2-year-olds and which stallion was the Champion First Season Sire in that season. TTR wrote about this last week:

Too quick to judge?

By looking at the date of the first stakes winner sired by each of these 28 stallions, we can determine if a stallion shows promise early. Essentially, how soon does the data show an indication that a stallion can achieve becoming a leading sire.

The range of outcomes for these 28 stallions was much wider than expected with only three siring their first stakes winner within 100 days of their first crop turning two, all the way out to Street Boss (USA) who took 724 days to sire his first Southern Hemisphere stakes winner with Thiamandi winning the G3 Bletchingly S. on 26 July 2014 of his 3-year-old season.

He had sired a 3-year-old Grade 1 winner by then with his first Northern Hemisphere-crop almost a year prior in August 2013 with G1 King’s Bishop S. winner Capo Bastone (USA).

Quickly out of the blocks

The three fastest on our list are Exceed And Excel, Choisir, and Pride Of Dubai who might surprise several readers with this figure, given that he’s now seen as a sire of high-class older horses like Bella Nipotina, Pride Of Jenni, and Dubai Honour (Ire).

“It’s a good group to be in, however, it’s just a moment in time and nothing more. There are very few races at that time of year and even less stakes races for 2-year-olds, even if all three have turned out to be very good sires,” Coolmore’s Colm Santry said.

“I’d be more interested in how many of leading sires waited until they were three. Most of our best stallions tend to have their best stakes winners at three, because the older horses get, the harder it is to win a stakes race. You don’t need to be a good horse to win a pre-Christmas stakes race. You’re only running against a tiny portion of the population, maybe two or five per cent and they might all be no good yet. It’s the easiest time to get black type.”

Table 3: Timing of the first stakes winner for these 28 sires

One quarter of the 28 sires in our ‘leading sires’ group sired their first stakes winner after their first crop had turned three. However, the largest group at 54 per cent of sires was to sire their first stakes winner in January, February or March of their Southern Hemisphere 2-year-old season.

“Sirelines are important too. If you want to win a stakes race at two, running against a small part of the population, there are sirelines you need to chase to achieve that, but they might not train on and become elite individuals,” said Santry.

Is the first stakes win an indication of class?

The first stakes winner doesn't necessarily indicate the full quality and class of a stallion. It’s a milestone for a stallion to achieve his first stakes winner, one that says a stallion isn’t going to be a complete failure, but it’s not enough to make a stallion into a leading sire over time.

“If you want a miler or a good older horse, you need a leading sire like Pierro, High Chaparral, So You Think. These sires have progeny who go on into their 4-year-old season, and they have to run against the older horses. The older horses are the best of any generation as they are good enough to stay in training," said Santry.

Basically, if a horse is slow or unsound, owners won’t invest in keeping them in training, so the outcome is that it’s the very best horses who stay in training for longer.

Winning stakes races versus winning Group 1 races

By taking a sire’s lifetime stakes winners and their lifetime Group 1 winners, this looks at how often they convert a stakes winner into a Group 1 and this can be one way to indicate class.

Table 4: Conversion rate of career stakes winners into career Group 1 winners

Of the 28 sires who have been in the top 10 on the Australian Sires Championship list in the last decade, 10 have a conversion rate over 20 per cent. And most of them are not really known for their 2-year-olds.

“The perception needs to be changed. An awful lot of good stallions appear at with their first 3-year-olds and often by then the sires who had one or two early runners are gone. The best horses continue to grow and improve, look at our brilliant champions like Winx and Makybe Diva, Bella Nipotina. They keep improving with age," said Santry.

“The best of them all, perhaps the greatest sire in history in this region, was Zabeel. He was a champion 3-year-old and a Guineas winner, yet people were selling their stallion shares in him when his oldest were three. He was completely written off at the end of his career but he’s an outstanding example of a horse who excelled when his first crop turned five.”

Zabeel (NZ)’s first stakes winner was the wonderful Octagonal (NZ) who won the G2 Todman S. in March 1995, but like Pride Of Dubai whose first stakes winner came early, Zabeel didn’t put himself forward commercially until later. By the end of 1997, Zabeel’s first crop were 4-year-olds and he had three Group 1 winners, Octagonal, his brother Mouawad (NZ) and G1 Adelaide Cup winner Cronus (NZ) which was hardly the stuff to inspire the market.

Might And Power (NZ) was a group winning 3-year-old who’d yet to hit his straps. Jezabeel (NZ), from his first crop, had won a Listed race at two but hadn’t been seen at three or four. Her Melbourne Cup was to come later in 1998, when Zabeel’s first crop were 5-year-olds.

“Many of these amazing stallions that are perceived to be uncommercial, like Pride Of Dubai, All Too Hard, and lots of other good value horses like that, even Pierro, they are siring Group 1 winner after Group 1 winner and yet they are not straightforward in yearling market place.”

Is Easter the first judging point?

With three-quarters of our group of leading sires having sired their first stakes winner by Easter, is Easter the earliest time we can judge a stallion? The data shows that 25 per cent of leading sires didn’t get their first stakes winner until after Easter of their first crop’s juvenile season, so it would be harsh to write off any horse by this point. However, with 75 per cent of leading sires getting one good horse by now, it does seem to be the earliest point in time where the market can start to make some calls.

“We always looked at Northern Meteor as the benchmark. He was written off in the marketplace with his early runners, and then we saw an abundance of stakes winners around Easter and suddenly he was the hottest thing ever,” said Widden Stud’s Matt Comerford.

Northern Meteor’s first stakes winner, The Voice, won the G3 Thoroughbred Breeders’ S. in April, followed quickly by Zoustar who won the G2 BRC Sires’ Produce S. and Romantic Touch won the G1 JJ Atkins S. soon after that.

Zoustar achieved his first stakes winner in January when Sunlight won the R. Listed Magic Millions 2YO Classic.

“A lot of Zoustar’s quality horses came after Sunlight, commercially Sunlight helped, but as far as being in the top 10 sires and a Champion 2-year-old and Champion 3-year-old sire, he’s taken a bit of time to build that momentum. He was fortunate to have Sunlight, but the others took more time.

“People took the punt on him thanks to her. Sometimes the market writes off a horse before they’ve even had runners. You can see it in their book sizes in their third and fourth seasons. It gripes everyone to see this, and so studs do discounts and deals to keep the numbers strong to a horse.

“And then you have horses like Rebel Dane and Gold Standard who’ve covered less than a 100 mares in their first few years at stud. Rebel Dane’s statistics in his first two crops were amazing, and people flooded to him, then they’ve abandoned him again. I bet Pride Of Dubai has similar ups and downs in his book sizes.”

Rebel Dane had 28 foals in his first crop for Group winner Subterranean, and 26 in his second which included G1 Golden Slipper winner Fireburn. He then had two tiny crops of 7 and 8 foals respectively before Fireburn arrived at the races. His next crop, while Fireburn was a spring 2-year-old went up to 34 foals, and after her win, he’s had 74 and 38 foals in his next two crops.

“Another thing to look at is price, and whether a horse is siring progeny that train on. The hardest thing to try and do is be a 3-year-old and beat the older horses. That’s real class. Portland Sky did that, and you could justifiably say that he was more talented than the rest of his crop because of it.”

Not A Single Doubt’s unusual pathway

In second slowest, after Street Boss, is Not A Single Doubt who took 708 days to sire his first stakes winner. His first stakes winner, Doubtful Jack, came in July of his 3-year-old season, and yet, Not A Single Doubt became known as a sire of juveniles. It’s an unusual statistic for a horse with his reputation.

“I think he had plenty of winners but he was just a horse that got better and better as he went along. He was phenomenal sire, and those first few crops were useful but not spectacular,” said Arrowfield’s Jon Freyer.

“Some horses take their time to develop. Look at Castelvecchio, he’s a case in point. He was 10th or so on the first season sires list and now he’s leading the second season sire list. You can’t judge sires too quickly and you ought not judge them on one crop.

“Look at the bottom few on this list, Street Cry, High Chaparral, Not A Single Doubt, they were all capable of getting champions. It tells you that the first crop before Christmas isn’t super important.”

Table 5: The eight slowest of the leading sires

All Too Hard took almost a year to get his first stakes winner, and now he has five Group 1 winners. Street Cry (Ire) and High Chaparral (Ire) both have 23 Group 1 winners.

“Not A Single Doubt was something of an anomaly, a consistent winner getter, then he was struggling to get mares until Doubtful Jack arrived and he got a full book. That allowed him to keep the momentum going.

“Street Cry missed a couple of seasons early, and Maurice lost a season due to COVID. It means a stallion can lose their momentum and they need to restart. It’s almost like they become first season sires again.”