Japan’s supersire Deep Impact goes global
Real Impact stood the 2016, 2017 & 2018 seasons at Arrowfield and his first Australian 2YOs will race in 2019/20. (PHOTO: Bronwen Healy)
It seems a little strange to say that 2018 is proving to be a breakout year for a stallion that has won his country’s last six General Sire Premierships.
Nevertheless, it’s an accurate description of Deep Impact’s enhanced global status after Classic victories by his sons Saxon Warrior for Coolmore in the Newmarket Two Thousand Guineas G1 on 5 May and Study Of Man for the Niarchos family in last Sunday’s Chantilly Prix du Jockey Club G1.
They are among Deep Impact’s eight Group 1 winners in four countries over the past 12 months, helping him into third position on the TRC Global Sire Rankings behind Galileo and Dubawi.
In fact, Deep Impact’s rise from Japanese to international dominance is a longer story and one that Arrowfield has played a small part in by identifying his sire Sunday Silence as “breed shaper” and breeding a few mares to him Southern time some twenty years ago. The resultant offspring included AJC Oaks winner Sunday Joy, herself dam of the incomparable More Joyous.
Arrowfield’s relationship with the Yoshida family & Shadai Stallion Station has been consolidated by the joint breeding venture with Katsumi Yoshida’s Northern Farm and stallion business, most recently the shuttling of dual Group 1-winning sprinter-milers Real Impact (pictured above) and Mikki Isle (pictured below). They are the first sons of Deep Impact to stand in Australia, and breeders using them are poised to catch the rising wave of demand for this dynamic Danehill outcross. Real Impact’s first Australian yearlings sell in 2019, while Mikki Isle’s first foals are due this coming Spring.
Arrowfield has doubled-down on Deep Impact by sending mares to his court in Japan, with the first group producing three fillies and two colts that are now rising 2YOs. Two of the fillies, out of Alverta and Charming Estelle, were sold for a total of $2.1 million at Inglis Easter, bought respectively by Waller Racing & Guy Mulcaster and Sheikh Mohammed bin Khalifa al Maktoum.
Critical to the Australian market’s enthusiasm for Deep Impact has been the top-level success in domestic racing conditions by his progeny. His half-dozen runners here so far include three Group 1 performers: dual Group 1 winner Tosen Stardom (at stud this year), ATC George Ryder S. G1 winner Real Impact and Ambitious, twice Group 1-placed this season.
Deep Impact is the sire of seven other offshore Group 1 winners since 2012: Gentildonna (Dubai), A Shin Hikari (France & Hong Kong), Vivlos (Dubai), Real Steel (Dubai) & Beauty Parlour (France), as well as Saxon Warrior and Study Of Man.
They are among Deep Impact’s 114 stakeswinners (10.1% of his runners) with Study Of Man his 37th lifetime Group 1 winner. Less than halfway through the 2018 season he is once again dominating the Japanese General Sires’ premiership with around $A36 million prizemoney – a cool $A16 million ahead of his closest rival Heart’s Cry (also by Sunday Silence).
