Breed to Race – Let’s Take a Look at Victoria

If you missed that story , read it here.

Victoria is not short of stallions priced between $5,000 and $10,000, but finding the best of them that can give you a realistic chance of producing a winner or even a stakes-winner can be like looking for the needle in the haystack for many broodmare owners.

Rangal Park's Danerich has long been the best friend of the Victorian breed to race mare owners and it's not hard to see why given he's never stood for more than $8,800, has an impressive 65% winners to runners and has left eight stakes-winners including a $1million earner in Lord of the Sky.

He's turning 17 this year but has good fertility and stands at a fee of $6,600.

A Group I winner and Group I sire, Starcraft relocated to Rosemont Stud from Arrowfield in 2014 and in the last few years Victorian breeders have really warmed to him after a tepid response in his first couple of seasons down south.

With 59% winners to runners and 20 stakes-winners, Starcraft has also enjoyed success in Hong Kong as a sire and his progeny still command a good price in the sale ring with his lone Inglis Easter entry this year fetching $180,000.

He might be turning 19, but when Starcraft gets a good type it's a cracker and a horse bred to race, might find itself a horse headed to the sale ring!

Magic Albert's Group I winning son Ilovethiscity only ever had modest books of mares until last year when he covered 70 as people started to catch on that he might have something to offer after his daughter El Dorado Dreaming won the Group I ATC Champagne Stakes.

She has since placed in the Group I ATC Coolmore Classic and Surround Stakes proving herself a genuinely top class filly and Ilovethiscity has added another stakes-winner to his tally in Moonlover, a winner of over $500,000.

Standing at Noor Elaine Farm this spring at a fee of $6,600, Ilovethiscity is true in type to his sire Magic Albert and grand-sire Zeditave.  He is completely free of Danehill blood and has 63% winners to runners.

Sun Stud's Squamosa i s the first son of Not a Single Doubt to go to stud and back when he retired in 2013, his sire was standing at a fee of $33,000. 

Fast forward to 2019 and Not a Single Doubt has emerged as an elite sire and commands a fee of $110,000, so with the benefit of hindsight, Squamosa was probably entitled to a bit more respect than he got as a Group I placed Group III winner.

Squamosa has been priced at $6,600 throughout his career and is the same again this year and with 61% winners to runners and two stakes-winners including recent Flemington stakes-winner Order of Command makes plenty of appeal.

Breeders are waking up to him though, he has covered 308 mares in his past three seasons as compared to 189 in his first three seasons.

Blue Gum Farm's Turffontein was a Group I winning sprinter and is another Danehill free option priced affordably at $8,800.

He runs at 55% winners to runners and has five stakes-winners including current million dollar earner Widgee Turf as well his earlier stars Fontein Ruby and Fontiton.

A live chance in the Group I BRC Stradbroke Handicap this weekend, Widgee Turf was bred from a mare that you would have to say was non-commercial having only gone to stud as an 11YO and she had him when she was 16. After enjoying retirement from stud duties for another five years she went back to Turffontein last spring and according to studbook appears to be in foal!

It would be easy to keep going with this story as there are many other sires in Victoria of similar profile, however in selecting these five we hope to have given food for thought to some mare owners in their quest to produce a winner.