Arrowfield Stud have a power packed stallion roster headlined by champion sire Redoute's Choice and two of his most successful sons in Snitzel and Not a Single Doubt.
The first is a legend and the other two are both very good, but is Snitzel really a $50,000 better sire than Not a Single Doubt?
When service fees were announced earlier this year, Snitzel was hiked up to
$88,000, while Not a Single Doubt remained at $33,000.The fee increase for Snitzel came on the back of a booming autumn that saw him post new Group I winners Wandjina, Sweet Idea and Hot Snitzel – he was hot, no doubt about it!
Problem is, since the start of the new season he's been cold.
We are four months in and Snitzel is yet to sire a stakes-winner.
He clocks in at 17th place on the Australian General Sires List, while Not a
Single Doubt has been red hot siring 63 winners including six stakes-winners to
be up running fourth behind only Street Cry (IRE), Pentire (GB) and Fastnet
Rock.
The icing on the cake came for Not a Single Doubt when his four year-old son Good Project scored a surprise win in the $1million Group I WATC Railway Stakes last Saturday in Perth, so he now has 29 stakes-winners in total which is only three short of Snitzel.
Their overall statistics are also very comparable.
Snitzel has 69% winners to runner, while Not a Single Doubt has 67% and Snitzel has 6.4% stakes-winners to runners, while Not a Single Doubt has 5%.
When you take into account the difference in quality of mare - Not a Single
Doubt stood at just $13,750 for his first six seasons, while Snitzel was at or
near the $33,000 mark for his first seven seasons barring 2009 when he dropped
to $22,000 – it's not hard to argue a case that there is really very little
between them.
Ironically, Snitzel's best performer, Cox Plate and Australian Guineas winner Shamus Award, actually came out of his 2010 crop conceived from his lowest fee!
The current success of Not a Single Doubt is being driven by big books of mares covered in 2010 and 2011 that see him with an army of quality three and four year-olds out doing the business.
His current crop of two year-olds is comparatively small (just 75 foals), but they've hit the ground running with three winners from six runners putting him on top of the 2YO Sires List.
While the pendulum is certainly swinging the way of Not a Single Doubt at this point in time, don't read too much into it as Snitzel has his biggest foal crops in the pipeline.
He has 122 three year-olds and a staggering 185 two year-olds with another 175 yearlings sure to fill commercial sales catalogues in 2016.
Snitzel has had just the six two year-old runners so far this season for one Doomben winner Spot the Diff, who will run again this Saturday, but expect them to come out like a plague of Christmas beetles in the next month or so.
Come the autumn it will be no surprise if Snitzel has not cast off his current lull to be back at full throttle … just in time for Inglis Easter where his stock averaged a whopping $378,810 last year!
The icing on the cake came for Not a Single Doubt when his four year-old son Good Project scored a surprise win in the $1million Group I WATC Railway Stakes last Saturday in Perth, so he now has 29 stakes-winners in total which is only three short of Snitzel.
Their overall statistics are also very comparable.
Snitzel has 69% winners to runner, while Not a Single Doubt has 67% and Snitzel has 6.4% stakes-winners to runners, while Not a Single Doubt has 5%.
When you take into account the difference in quality of mare - Not a Single
Doubt stood at just $13,750 for his first six seasons, while Snitzel was at or
near the $33,000 mark for his first seven seasons barring 2009 when he dropped
to $22,000 – it's not hard to argue a case that there is really very little
between them.Ironically, Snitzel's best performer, Cox Plate and Australian Guineas winner Shamus Award, actually came out of his 2010 crop conceived from his lowest fee!
The current success of Not a Single Doubt is being driven by big books of mares covered in 2010 and 2011 that see him with an army of quality three and four year-olds out doing the business.
His current crop of two year-olds is comparatively small (just 75 foals), but they've hit the ground running with three winners from six runners putting him on top of the 2YO Sires List.
While the pendulum is certainly swinging the way of Not a Single Doubt at this point in time, don't read too much into it as Snitzel has his biggest foal crops in the pipeline.
He has 122 three year-olds and a staggering 185 two year-olds with another 175 yearlings sure to fill commercial sales catalogues in 2016.
Snitzel has had just the six two year-old runners so far this season for one Doomben winner Spot the Diff, who will run again this Saturday, but expect them to come out like a plague of Christmas beetles in the next month or so.
Come the autumn it will be no surprise if Snitzel has not cast off his current lull to be back at full throttle … just in time for Inglis Easter where his stock averaged a whopping $378,810 last year!
