Redoute's Choice now leads the Australian General Sires' table

A brilliant Group race double at Eagle Farm today by his three-year-old daughters Melito and Mirrasalo has put Arrowfield’s champion sire Redoute’s Choice on top of the current Australian General Sires’ earnings list.

Melito (ex Cloister by Marauding; bred by Reavill Farm Thoroughbreds Pty Ltd) lined up in her ninth Group One race of the season and scored her second Group One victory with a dominant, front-running performance in the $500,000 Qld Tatt’s RC Winter S. 1400m G1. Melito was a $600,000 yearling at the 2008 Magic Millions Premier Sale and is prepared by Gerald Ryan for Reavill Racing.

Melito is one of three Group One winners by Redoute’s Choice this season, following Dariana (ex Beldarian by Last Tycoon) who won the BRC Queensland Derby G1 on 12 June, and Allez Wonder (ex Luna Tudor by Military Plume), winner of the MRC Toorak H. G1 on 10 October.

Mirrasalo (ex St Therese by Dehere; bred by Arrowfield Pastoral Pty Ltd & Belford Productions) became Redoute’s Choice’s 63rd stakeswinner, and 14th individual Australian stakeswinner this season when she scored an equally dominant win in the $200,000 Qld Tatt’s RC Tattersall’s Cup 2200m G3. Mirrasalo was sold for $700,000 from the Arrowfield Stud draft at the 2008 Australian Easter Yearling Sale and is trained by Paul Messara for Peter & Catherine Campbell’s Bennelong Bloodstock Pty Ltd.

Between them, the two fillies boosted Redoute’s Choice’s 2009/10 Australian stakes tally by $448,000. Along with prizemoney from minor placings by Sikka, Halleys, Go For Home, Dancefloor Prodigy & Burgundy Prince, they have taken Redoute’s Choice’s total to $8,404,002, earned by 263 runners. That’s $212,290 more than his arch-rival Encosta de Lago, who has been represented by 314 runners in Australia this season.

The magnitude of the reversal becomes clear when it’s remembered that yesterday Encosta de Lago held a lead of $209,510.

Redoute’s Choice is also the season’s current leading sire in Australia by individual two-year-old winners (14), and three-year-old winners (54); while his 14 individual stakeswinners place him at the top of that list too.

He has previously been Champion Australian Sire (by earnings) in 2006, Champion Australian Sire of Two-Year-Olds (2005 & 2006), and was Champion Australian First Season Sire in 2004.

Capping an extraordinary day at Eagle Farm for Redoute’s Choice was his first stakeswinner as a broodmare sire, two-year-old gelding Shamillion (Shamardal-One In A Million) who won the 1400-metre BRC Australia Post S. LR in the style of a horse likely to return as a competitive three-year-old.

Redoute’s Choice will stand the 2010 season at Arrowfield at a fee of $176,000 (inc. GST).