Singspiel's The Stay-at-home Type But Progeny Are Still On The Way Down Under

Sydney Morning Herald

Friday October 20, 2006

JOHN HOLLOWAY

SHEIK Mohammed's stallion band totals 46 - and 19 of these bluebloods are standing at studs in NSW and Victoria for the southern hemisphere breeding season. Sadly, one of Darley's most spectacular Down Under successes, Singspiel, is missing again after his 2001 sojourn to Australia almost ended in disaster.

Singspiel suffered a severe bout of travel sickness on his first trip here, forcing Darley to put on hold any future overseas engagements.

Despite serving only a limited number of mares in his initial season at Aberdeen, Singspiel's progeny showed tremendous potential. So much so that from his only crop to race here he is leading the premiership for stallions that debuted that year.

Horses such as Rewaaya, Oh Oklahoma, Belmonte, Dream Ballad, Operetta Lass, Pavlova and Aztec Smytzer have made Singspiel a stallion of note (he is also a super European sire) and Darley has decided to give Australian buyers the opportunity to purchase more of his crop in the years to come.

Darley's Australian manager Ollie Tait said this week that six highly credentialled broodmares owned by Sheik Mohammed had been served to southern hemisphere time in England with the view to transporting them to Australia.

"We have also made available southern hemisphere coverings to a number of other Australian breeders and Singspiel's yearlings will continue to grace the major sale rings in the future," Tait said.

The earnings for Singspiel's crop in Australia this season total more than $720,000 from 29 runners with 10 individual winners. While Rewaaya was responsible for a solid second in the group 1 Toorak Handicap at Caulfield last Saturday behind Red Dazzler, Singspiel's flag flew in two other continents with wins by Dark Islander in a group 3 event at Santa Anita in the US and by Nordic Thunder, which won a listed race at Longchamps.ROCK OF JAPAN: There is speculation Coolmore's boom sire Rock Of Gibraltar will not be returning to Ireland for the 2007 breeding season, with the son of Danehill tipped to move to Japan for the northern hemisphere season.

Rock Of Gibraltar has been an instant success in Australia with his two-year-old Murtajill scoring a great Breeders Plate win, followed up by Superfly's good third in the Gimcrack Stakes. He has also proven himself in Europe with 12 winners from his first crop of two-year-olds and on Saturday has the much boomed Eagle Mountain a hot favourite for the group 1 Racing Post Trophy at Newbury in England.

Coolmore has obviously received a too-good-to-refuse offer to switch "The Rock" to Japan but it is expected he will continue to shuttle to its Hunter Valley stud.EARLY IMPRESSION: Another stallion that had success in two continents last Saturday was Coolmore's shuttler Johannesburg.

Springboks gave Johannesburg his first Australian winner at Rosehill for owner-breeder John Muir, while at Belmont Park in the US his flying juvenile Scat Daddy scored his third win from four starts to give the sire his first group 1 success.

Scat Daddy goes into the $US2 million ($2.65) Breeders' Cup Juvenile on November 4 with outstanding credentials for trainer Todd Pletcher whose win with the colt gave him a record 93rd stakes victory for the season.

Muir offered Springboks at the Inglis Easter Sales in April but his reserve price of $100,000 was not realised and he decided to race the colt himself, with Graeme Rogerson training the colt for a pick-up of $39,000 at Rosehill.

FRESH STARS: Lightly raced stallion Reset's first yearlings will sell next year, along with those of two other Darley freshman stallions, Exceed And Excel and Dubai Destination, and the vibes are extremely positive.

"We have five Exceed And Excels, four Dubai Destinations and three Reset yearlings included in our draft for the Magic Millions and all are the right types to bring good money on the Gold Coast," Tait said. "Their weanlings were all extremely popular at sales earlier this year, while the Dubai Destination yearlings have all been soundly accepted and a number fetched big money at the Tattersall's Sales at Newmarket earlier this month."

Tait revealed Darley had a colt foal born a week ago from Miss Finland's mother Forest Pearl.

BRANCHING OUT: Arrowfield boss John Messara declared this week his gun stallion Redoute's Choice had 40 bookings to northern hemisphere time next year with breeders from England, Ireland, France, Japan and the US declaring they will send mares to Scone for the matings.

"There's no doubt Redoute's Choice is getting his rightful recognition worldwide and actually I am giving serious consideration to taking on the European market by also using some Arrowfield mares to be mated to northern hemisphere time," Messara said.

KNOCKOUT BLOW: One of the best races last weekend was at Newmarket in the $600,000 Dewhurst Stakes, regarded as Europe's equivalent to our Golden Slipper.

The race featured another clash between England's top two colts, Teofilo, by Galileo, and Holy Roman Emperor, by Danehill, along with 13 other two-year-olds.

It was a roughly run affair with both colts suffering interference with Teofilo coming again in the last bound to score a head win over his arch rival to remain unbeaten after five starts.

INDIAN FAREWELL: Indian Ridge, the 21-year-old elder statesman standing at the Irish National Stud, suffered a fatal heart attack on Tuesday. The sire of eight group 1 winners during his career served a full book of 70 mares in the 2006 northern hemisphere breeding season.

johnhollysenior@yahoo.com.au

© 2006 Sydney Morning Herald

Back to News Index | Back to Home