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Snitzel Earns Fourth Straight Sire Title

Arrowfield Stud’s Snitzel (Aus) (Redoute’s Choice {Aus}-Snippets’ Lass {Aus}, by Snippets {Aus}) has become just the sixth sire in the 137-year history of the Australian Sires’ Premiership to earn four or more consecutive champion sire titles. With the current season Down Under wrapping up on Friday, Snitzel joins his grandsire Danehill (who won nine titles, six consecutively, in the 2000s), Star Kingdom (1960s), Delville Wood (1950s) and Valais and his son Heroic (1920s and 30s) as sires to earn a quartet of premiership titles.

Snitzel’s achievement is made all the more impressive by the fact that he is a Danehill-line sire among a Danehill-saturated broodmare population. Competition on the racecourse and in the stallion ranks in Australia have also been at their highest during Snitzel’s era; the region has been the subject of heavy global interest and investment. During the 2019/20 season, a record 11 sires in addition to Snitzel on the sires’ table earned in excess of A$10-million. Snitzel’s A$17.7-million is more than A$2-million clear of I Am Invincible (Aus) and Pierro (Aus).

Snitzel is also the leader by stakes winners (18) and stakes wins (25). His stakes winners in 2019/20 were headed on earnings by his Magic Millions 2YO Classic and G2 Percy Sykes S. winner and G1 Golden Slipper runner-up Away Game (Aus), while I Am Excited (Aus) took the G1 Galaxy H. to become his 14th winner at the highest level. Splintex (Aus) became his 100th stakes winner when winning the G2 Arrowfield 3YO Sprint. Snitzel’s stakes winners this season came from six crops and 14 training yards and won black-type races from 1000 to 2400 metres. Six were homebreds, while others were sold from as little as A$90,000 and up to A$1.05-million.

Snitzel earns an additional accolade in becoming the only three-time winner of the Australian 2-year-old sires’ premiership in the past two decades. His 2-year-olds this season earned A$4.7-million and his 28 winners included four stakes winners.

In the sales realm, Snitzel was responsible for his fourth Inglis Easter top lot, this time the A$1.8-million colt out of First Seal (Aus).

“Only the very best stallions can do what Snitzel does, he is absolutely amazing and we are all extremely proud of him,” said Arrowfield’s Chairman John Messara. “I’m grateful for the support he receives from his shareholders, breeders, buyers, owners and trainers and look forward to seeing them all enjoy more success with Snitzel’s progeny, because there is plenty more to come.”

Snitzel’s three prior championship seasons have also included some remarkable accomplishments. Snitzel was three times runner up for the premiership, including in 2013/14 when he and Redoute’s Choice achieved the first sire/son quinella on the table, and three years later he defeated former champion sires Street Cry (Ire) and Fastnet Rock (Aus) to take the honours for the first time with A$16.2-million in the bank. That season he broke Danehill’s national record of 26 stakes winners in a season and Without Fear’s 40-year-old 2-year-old record of 32 wins in a season. He registered a 2-year-old Group 1 trifecta for the first time Down Under since 1982 in the G1 Sires’ Produce S., and also earned the 2-year-old and 3-year-old premierships.

The following season saw records by Snitzel for prizemoney in a season (A$29.2-million), winners (137), wins (307), stakes winners (26) and stakes wins (43). He also defended his titles in the 2-year-old and 3-year-old premierships. A significant slice of that prizemoney was earned by Redzel (Aus) in the inaugural running of The Everest, but so strong was Snitzel’s season that he didn’t need that, nor the money earned by his four Group 1 winners, to take the premiership.

In 2018/2019, Snitzel’s A$24.2-million haul put him A$6-million clear of I Am Invincible and earned him his third straight sire title. Redzel defended his Everest title, Exhilarates (Aus) won the Magic Millions 2YO Classic and a new mark was set for a Snitzel yearling when James Harron paid A$2.8-million for Corumbene Stud’s colt out of Ichihara at Inglis Easter now named Mount Fuji (Aus).

Snitzel’s rates of 9.8% stakes winners to runners and 75% winners to runners, average earnings per runner of A$142,000 and career average earnings index of 2.48 indicate he is the dominant sire of his era, but nonetheless Messara said he “truly believes the best is yet to come for him, with all that we have learned about him, his extraordinary vigour and the mares that have visited him in the past four seasons.”

Messara added, “Redoute’s Choice proved what was possible by leaving The Autumn Sun, Alabama Express and King’s Legacy in his 15th, 16th and 17th crops. That’s well within Snitzel’s capability too.”

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Daughter of Intercontinental Debuts at Deauville

Observations on the European Racing Scene turns the spotlight on the best European races of the day, highlighting well-pedigreed horses early in their careers, horses of note returning to action and young runners that achieved notable results in the sales ring. Thursday’s Insights features a daughter of Breeders’ Cup heroine Intercontinental (GB) (Danehill).

4.20 Goodwood, Mdn, £16,500, 2yo, f, 7fT
MISS CHESS (IRE) (Zoffany {Ire}) bids to build on her debut third at Yarmouth earlier this month on the same card that her G1 Prix de Diane-winning half-sister Fancy Blue (Ire) (Deep Impact {Jpn}) takes part in the G1 Nassau S. The Phoenix Ladies Syndicate’s €220,000 Arqana Deauville August Sale graduate is a relative of High Chaparral (Ire) and represents the Ed Vaughan stable in this maiden won in recent times by Rhododendron (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) and Amazing Maria (Ire) (Mastercraftsman {Ire}). Amongst her opponents is Jeff Smith’s Iconic Queen (GB) (Invincible Spirit {Ire}), a Ralph Beckett-trained half-sister to the G1 Juddmonte International heroine Arabian Queen (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}).

8.50 Deauville, Debutantes, €22,000, 2yo, f, 6fT
NOT IN DOUBT (GB) (Sea the Stars {Ire}) is one of the day’s intriguing juvenile runners as a daughter of the 2005 GI Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf heroine Intercontinental (GB) (Danehill). Andre Fabre introduces the Juddmonte homebred and also Lady Bamford’s Love Child (Ire) (Dark Angel {Ire}), a 700,000gns Tattersalls October Yearling Sale Book 1 graduate who is a half-sister to the G2 Prix Niel and G2 Prix Chaudenay winner Brundtland (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}).

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Grand Finale To Summer Sale

The third and final session of Goffs UK’s Summer Sale on Wednesday provided the sale’s highlight when The Million In Mind Partnership’s unbeaten hurdler Grand Roi (Fr) (Spanish Moon) (lot 318) fetched £400,000 from Aidan O’Ryan and trainer Gordon Elliott. The pricetag is the second-highest ever achieved from the annual Million In Mind reduction.

Another pair of horses in training shared the day’s second-highest price of £82,000: Fabrique En France (Fr) (Yeats {Ire}) (lot 340A), who was supplemented off a point-to-point second at Ballycahane on July 3 and bought by Olly Murphy and Aiden Murphy; and Sky Pirate (GB) (Midnight Legend {GB}) (lot 448), a two-time winner over hurdles bought by Wasdell Group.

From 186 horses offered on the day, 158 (85%) were sold for an aggregate of £2,369,850. The average was £14,999 and the median £7,000.

Commenting on the day’s trade and the Summer Sale as a whole, Goffs UK Managing Director Tim Kent said, “The three-day Summer Sale has been a success from start to finish and today’s trade has been no different. This unique sale was similar in format to our traditional Spring Sale and managed to attract a diverse buying bench that was prepared to spend at all levels of the market either in person, on the phone or online. It is this varied selection of horses that helps to attract these buyers each year and I would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to all vendors, of stores and horses in training, who have supported us during these unprecedented times and helped Goffs to conduct a very successful sale under a unique set of challenges.”

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Memorable Week For Kilbrew Breezers

Exactly a month before Steel Bull (Ire) (Clodovil {Ire}) won the G3 Molecomb S. he was parading around the sales ring as one half of the Kilbrew Stables draft at the Goffs UK Breeze-up Sale, which had been delayed from its traditional late April slot.

Andrew and Riona Lynch of Kilbrew Stables took just two horses to Doncaster and in fact it was the other one, a colt by Mehmas (Ire), who was initially the star package as he vastly exceeded his yearling price when selling for £165,000 to King Power Racing. Steel Bull, fetched the more modest sum of £28,000 from his trainer Michael O’Callaghan, though that was still an improvement on the £15,000 he cost at Tattersalls Ascot as a yearling.

Together, the pair has now provided a week to remember for the Lynch family. First out was Steel Bull to win a Naas maiden on July 22. Five days later the Mehmas colt, now known as Mystery Smiles (Ire) and trained by Andrew Balding, won convincingly on debut at Windsor before Steel Bull regained the upper hand during O’Callaghan’s bold raid on Glorious Goodwood.

Andrew Lynch is better known as a jump jockey, his career highlights including winning both the G1 Arkle Trophy and G1 Queen Mother Champion Chase on Sizing Europe (Ire) at the Cheltenham Festival. But he is quickly making his name in the breeze-up world and operates in tandem with his wife Riona from their farm in Co Meath.

“It’s been unbelievable,” said Andrew on Wednesday. “To be honest we were a bit disappointed with the price of the Clodovil colt because we thought quite a lot of him and there was a good bit of interest in him. Three or four people said they were going to follow him in and they actually never did. So we were disappointed with that but they must be sick over it as well. I’ve been raving about him since February, I felt he was a good horse.”

Reflecting on a trying season as sales were delayed and then relocated, he added, “At the beginning of the year when the pandemic arose we were worried and we didn’t know what way the market was going to be. But we were lucky enough to have a few good horses and good results, so we were probably the luckier ones, I suppose.”

Kilbrew Stables also brought four horses to Newmarket for last week’s Tattersalls Ireland Goresbridge Sale, an auction which should have taken place only a few miles from their home in Ashbourne.

“You don’t mind going anywhere if you have a chance to sell a horse and, to be honest, we were glad that the sales moved to England and that we were lucky enough that they were able to get clients there,” Lynch commented. “We’ve only been doing this in a small way for the last three or four years and we’ve gradually been having a few extra horses each year. We had seven altogether and six went to the sales. We also have a Zoffany (Ire) filly who just scraped her knee on the Wednesday before she was due to travel to Newmarket so she was withdrawn, but we think a lot of her, she was up there with the two boys.”

Like many jump jockeys, Lynch has been dealt his share of bad luck with injuries and he has been sidelined from race riding since February 2019 with a bad shoulder dislocation, though he has been able to ride out the breezers on his home gallop.

“I’m waiting to see the specialist in the next week or so but at least I have had something to keep me busy by doing this,” he said.

While the delays to the sales have been frustrating for the consignors, the Lynch team has clearly done an excellent job in keeping the youngsters under their care in good shape mentally and physically and in having them ready to run so soon after their turn in the ring.

Lynch continued, “In general terms a breeze-up sale is meant to be for that purpose, the horses should be ready to go and run a couple of weeks later, and they should be able to run well and, if they’re lucky enough, win. You hope that the horses should be able to take the work and be forward enough to run even in the back end [of the season] if that’s what the owners and trainers want them to do.”

He added, “Obviously we had them for a few months longer than normal but they progressed the whole time and Michael [O’Callaghan] has done a good job with Steel Bull, both in bringing him along and placing him in the right races. We were thrilled to bits by him even winning his maiden but to go on and win a group race at Goodwood a week after is just incredible.”

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