A spectacular source of winners, Yarraman Park's I Am Invincible could in 2016-17 become the first sire in Australian history to have progeny win 300 races in a season.
Brian Russell writes - Now consistently being represented by winners of more than thirty races each month, he had had to the first week of January in 2016-17 year 93 winners (80 Aust) of 145 races (126) and $6.3million ($4.6million). They win everywhere with a 48.8 % winner to runner rate and include in the current year in Australia six stakes winners and four others stakes placed.
He is the leading sire nationally by wins with a clear margin, equal third by winners and sixth by money and appears to have good prospects of leaping up the money board with two well fancied candidates set to contest the $2million Magic Millions 2YO Classic at the Gold Coast on Saturday.
Both unbeaten fillies who graduated from the Yarraman Park paddocks and each enjoying mass ownership, they are the Waterhouse-Bott trained Invincible Star, a 2.25 lengths winner of Group 3 Ottawa Stakes at Flemington on November 1 at her only start, but prepped for a big showing in the Classic with 5.5 lengths trial win at Wyong on December 28, and the Toby Edmonds Gold Coast conditioned Houtzen, a dazzling winner of her two outings. Ridden by Jeff Lloyd, Houtzen lived up to odds-on favouritism in her to outings to date with scintillating wins at Doomben (4.0 lens) on December 24 and the Gold Coast (4.5 lens, class record time) on January 7.
Houtzen is favoured to win the Classic on Saturday's $10million Magic Millions race day program, one on which it would not surprise if I Am Invincible supplied the winners of both of the $2million races, the 2YO Classic and the 3YO Guineas. Another multiple owned daughter, the Kurt Goldman, Goulburn NSW trained Eckstein appears a strong Guineas candidate. She has raced seven times and since mid October has won all four outings, the latest at the Gold Coast on January 7,
Bred by James and Fiona
Middleton's Redbank North, a major agistment farm at Jugiong in central western
NSW Eckstein is from Comrie, an unraced daughter of Choisir, Eckstein is inbred
to Bletchingly 4x4 and Danzig 4x5, the latter sire also appearing in the
breeding of Houtzen (4x5) and Invincible Star (4x4).
Also carrying a 5x5 of Bletchingly's sire Biscay, Invincible Star was bred by Arthur Mitchell, conductor of Yarraman Park with brother Harry, using Romany Flyer, a home bred mare by the Danehill sire Catbird who won once in 13 starts, a maiden at Tamworth by a nose
Arthur Mitchell had a stint as president of the Scone Race Club, a position held in recent years by Scone businessman Noel Leckie. Also a broodmare owner, Leckie is the breeder of Houtzen, a product of Set to Unleash (by Zabeel sire and from an unraced Redoute's Choice mare) and also of Voodoo Lad, a 5-year-old gelding from I Am Invincible's first crop in the Darren Weir stables who has won nine races (three stakes) out of 18 starts and earned $670,000.
Voodoo Lad (dam by shuttled Gilded Time) ran three times at two in 2013-14 for two wins and a third in country racing. He was one of 17 winners (five successful in stakes) who established I Am Invincible as an exciting young sire.
The king of that first crop was Brazen Beau (also doubles up Bletchingly and Danzig), a Group 2 winner and Group1 second in Brisbane at two and anointed Champion 3YO Colt in Australia in 2014-15, a year he won two Group1s at Flemington and finished second in the Lightning on the same track and in the Diamond Jubilee Stakes at Royal Ascot.
Now a Darley dual hemisphere sire,
Brazen Beau has had two seasons at their Northwood Park stud in Victoria,
kicking off in 2015 with a book of 139, and 109 on debut in 2016 at their
Dalham Hall Stud, Newmarket UK.
He is one of 17 stakes winners supplied by I Am Invincible in his first four crops and among 302 named foals (includes some yet to be tested 2yos), 265 runners,182 winners of 443 races (31 stakes wins) and $19.5million. The bulk has been in Australia, but he has had winners also in New Zealand, South Africa, Hong Kong, Singapore and Korea.
An imposing looking 16.2 hands bay with black legs, I Am Invincible is one of the eight successful stakes performers among the 148 winners (67.3%) left here by his sire Invincible Spirit (Irish National Stud), a son of the Danzig sire Green Desert, from four visits to the Chatswood Stud in Victoria in the period 2003-06. - Brian Russell Media
