FOALS FROM OUR FIRST SEASON SIRES

from 2023 Summer | NSW Breeders Update

SIRE TREND PREDICTIONS FOR 2023 SALES

Article by Trevor Marshallsea | Photos courtesy of Stud Farms

The 2022 foal crop is on the ground, and as our photo gallery shows, there’s no shortage of beautiful babies from first season sires among them.

It’s one of the hottest perennial questions in breeding: Which first-season sires will be the most popular come yearling sale time? If the numbers are any guidethose chosen the most by discerning mare owners and pedigree buffs - some appear extremely well placed to start with a bang.

King’s Legacy - who fulfilled his $1.4 million yearling sale price by winning the Group 1 ATC Sires ProduceChampagne Stakes double - was Australia’s mostpatronised first season sire of 2021. Coolmore’s $33,000 stallion covered 212 mares for 130 live foals, with a fertility rate of 80.5 per cent.

Newgate Farm’s North Pacific, an $800,000 yearling who won a G3, came in next with 202 covers at $22,000, for 131 live foals.

Considering service fees, 2020 Golden Slipper winner Farnan was in high demand, covering 192 mares at $55,000 for Kia Ora stud, with 125 live foals. Widden Stud’s G3 and Listed winner Anders left 121 live foals from 184 covers at his $16,500 fee, Vinery’s dual toplevel victor Ole Kirk yielded 113 live foals from 170 covers and his initial $55,000 fee, and Darley’s $66,000 first year sire Bivouac had 119 foals from 157 matings. Amid so much anticipation around new stallions, it’s interesting to look back on the early years of some of the stud stars of today.

I Am Invincible was already initially well-patronised, for a horse who never won a G1, at his modest starting fee of $11,000, with 96 live foals from his 2010 debut spring. But that rose to 163 from his 2018 season, when his fee had reached $192,500, before its current peak of $247,500.

Four-time champion sire Snitzel came from relatively humble beginnings, from 87 live foals off a $33,000 first season charge in 2006, peaking at 185 offspring six years later at the same fee, before averaging 122 foals when his fee reached a new high of $220,000 in 2018-19. His Arrowfield barn mate, Japanese sire Maurice, has grown from an initial crop of 83 live foals in 2017 to 122 on the ground in 2022, while another shuttler - Darley’s Street Boss - has risen from just 46 offspring from his 2009 debut (albeit injury-affected) to 91 in 2022.