An Impact Fierce, Real & Deep
Deep Impact's 43rd Group 1 winner Fierce Impact strides clear of the field to win the MC Toorak H. G1. (PHOTO: Darren Tindale)
Seven consecutive domestic Sire Premierships and a commanding lead on the 2019 list firmly establish Deep Impact, who died in July, as Japan’s dominant sire of the decade.
His global supersire status has grown steadily alongside the recognition of Japan as a breeding & racing powerhouse. Deep Impact’s standing received another boost last Saturday when his 6YO son Fierce Impact swept to victory in the $500,000 MRC Toorak H. 1600m G1.
Fierce Impact takes out the Toorak Handicap with an excellent ride and training performance. @CWilliamsJockey @mcsmithracing pic.twitter.com/kisZ00fWSG
— Racing.com (@Racing) October 12, 2019
Trained by Matthew Smith for a group of owners including Frank and Christine Cook, Seymour Bloodstock and Mark Pilkington’s Australian Racehorse Breeding, Fierce Impact is Deep Impact’s third Group 1 winner from only 16 Australian runners.
The great sire’s Group 1 winners outside Japan now number ten and they offer strong proof of the breed’s adaptability to diverse racing conditions: two-time Horse of the Year Gentildonna, Vivlos & Arrowfield’s freshman sire Real Steel (all victors in Dubai); European stars A Shin Hikari, Beauty Parlour, Saxon Warrior & Study Of Man; and the Australian trio of Fierce Impact, Tosen Stardom (2017 Toorak H. & Emirates S.) and Real Impact (2015 George Ryder S.)
Notably, three of the four Australian Group 1 wins have been in the 1401-1600m category, where Deep Impact’s progeny have registered 81 Group & Listed wins. They have posted a further 57 stakes victories from 1601m to Real Steel’s favoured distance of 1800 metres.
The career of Champion Sprinter-Miler Mikki Isle, currently serving his second book of mares at Arrowfield, strengthens the case for Deep Impact as a premium source of all-round class rather than a specialist Classic and middle-distance sire. All six of Mikki Isle’s Group wins, including the Group 1 NHK Mile and Kyoto Mile Championship, were at 1400 or 1600 metres, and he was three times Group 1-placed at 1200 metres.
Most persuasively for Australian breeders using Real Steel in particular, Deep Impact’s SW/Runners strike rate with mares that have Danehill anywhere in the first three generations of their pedigrees is 15 per cent. (This includes Mikki Isle, whose damsire is Rock Of Gibraltar). That figure is well above the outstanding 10.5 per cent Deep Impact has achieved across all his runners to date.
