How Classic staying races are holding their ground in a speed-obsessed market

Cover image courtesy of The Image Is Everything

Australia's racing industry has a longstanding love for speed, yet the emphasis on staying races in the 3-year-old Group 1 calendar shows that these stamina tests remain a crucial part of the Classic narrative.

Mick Price, with co-trainer Michael Kent Junior, trained Warmonger (NZ) (War Decree {USA}) to win the G1 Queensland Derby last year, by a mammoth 10.4l margin. Price is in New Zealand looking at yearlings ahead of the NZB National Yearling Sale and took time to chat.

“Since the Golden Slipper was invented in 1957, Australian racing market has shifted to people wanting early maturing faster horses. Whilst we respect the staying races, the commercial reality isn’t going to change,” said Price.

“People want a faster return, more excitement. The average ability of a person to concentrate has fallen online from 12 seconds to 8 seconds. If you don’t grab the attention, you’ve lost and to think that we are going to feed people staying races, with a horse who needs longer to mature, isn’t the way.”

Breaking down the prizemoney

With such an emphasis on speed in Australia, how do these races stack up in terms of prizemoney?

As expected, of the 72 juvenile stakes races only five are at a mile and the remainder are sprint trips. This is different to the rest of the world, where 2-year-olds at the end of the season can be seen to stretch to 2000 metres.

The Classic generation of 3-year-olds boasts 157 stakes races, including 19 at Group 1 level. Notably, seven of these are the stamina-demanding Derby and Oaks events, with the remainder split across sprints (three), mile races (five), and middle-distance contests (four).

Table: Split of race categories

The prizemoney reflects this emphasis on the Classics too, with 36 per cent of 3-year-old only Group 1 money going to the seven Derby and Oaks races. However, at Listed level, only eight per cent of 3-year-old Listed prizemoney is allocated to staying races, while a massive 72 per cent goes to sprints.

Training for Classic success

Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott are best known for their ability to produce brilliant juvenile winners, and yet the stable trained Major Beel (NZ) (Savabeel) who won the 2023 G1 Australian Derby. That year, he was joined by fellow New Zealand-breds Prowess (NZ) (Proisir), Sharp 'N' Smart (NZ) (Redwood {USA}), Pennyweka (NZ) (Satono Aladdin {Jpn}), Affaire A Suivre (NZ) (Astern), Dunkel (Dundeel {NZ}) and Kovalica (NZ) (Ocean Park) to take out the staying 3-year-old contests.

However, Australia’s breeding scene is still doing well in the middle distance and staying realm for young horses too, with all eight Group 1 races for 3-year-olds run so far this season going the way of Australian born horses. In 2023/24, Warmonger was the only Kiwi bred to win one of the seven Derby or Oaks races at Group 1 level.

Table: Winners of Australia's Oaks, Derbys and Guineas races

Across the full 2023/24 season, there was $31.5 million on offer for Australia’s juvenile stakes races, and this rose to $60 million for the 3-year-old only races (including the Classics).

Adrian Bott relayed how this prizemoney distribution impacted their buying strategy.

“Obviously, we focus heavily on 2-year-old racing and the early sprinter/miler 3-year-old races, and many of our public purchases are heavily skewed to that profile,” said Bott.

“As a trainer, it’s important to be represented across all races, and from a business perspective, when looking at the distribution of money and potential income (for stayers), it’s silly to ignore horses who can get you there. The other consideration is our owners. Certain owners have that (Classics) as their dream and goal, and their priorities matter to us as a stable, so when they come to the stable we want to give them options too.”

Major Beel is one of 26 Group 1 winners for the Waterhouse/Bott partnership.

“To be successful in the Classic races, you have to consciously pick horses for those races. It begins early with selecting the right type of horse, then conditioning and programming, and you want a style of horse who is physically in the Classic mould with a pedigree that gives you confidence that (the horse) will stay the trip.”

When asked if different sale reputations change the buying focus, Bott said, “We do look to New Zealand for more of that type of horse, given their record and history (with stayers), and those are the horses that land produces - the pedigrees of those horses are well-established to suit that type of racing. So we do focus on that, but Major Beel, he has the NZ suffix and was reared over there with a Classic profile and we bought him at Magic Millions.”

“Likewise, we bought a nice filly from New Zealand Bloodstock a couple of years ago who won a 2-year-old stakes race, Tilianam. We weren’t necessarily looking to buy that type of horse there, but she was a nice individual.”

Tilianam (NZ) (Savabeel) won the Listed Lonhro Plate at her second start in 2021 and trained on as an older horse to win four more races and over $360,000.

Looking for several pathways to purchase

Warmonger was originally sold by Valachi Downs at the 2022 New Zealand Bloodstock National Yearling Sale for NZ$75,000 to Prima Park and Bevan Bloodstock. Prima Park sold him at the NZB Ready To Run Sale for NZ$165,000 to SJ Kennedy, and OTI and the Price/Kent stable purchased him privately after he won a trial as an April 2-year-old.

“As a speculator in the yearling market, if you buy too many stayers, it’s not great for your business. They are more difficult to sell on, sitting on your website for longer. I’ve trained Derby winners in most states (in Australia) but it’s a lesser part of our training model in Australia,” said Price.

“Warmonger, we bought him off a trial and paid a premium for that. Those horses are easier to on-sell to clients as they have shown ability, they are good in the soundness and throat department. I can say, ‘this is a possible Derby horse’, and my owners accept this more readily than with a yearling with a similar profile.”

Reflecting on the challenges posed by the traditional distances of the Derby and Oaks races, Price questions whether a change in approach would better suit young horses.

“In the spring, our Derby and Oaks should be 2000 metres. It’s the best distance to test speed and stamina combined and as a horse person, the spring is too soon to go further. The autumn Classics should be 2400 metres, but it's quite testing for a young 3-year-old to be banging around over 2500 metres.”

And yet, every year a horse will win the G1 Victoria Derby or the G1 Victoria Oaks, and more often than not go on to add more top level wins in the future. In the last three seasons, Australia has seen Hitotsu (Maurice {Jpn}) and Riff Rocket (American Pharoah {USA}) do this.