Arrowfield stamp on Magic Milions favourites

They helped to make the Millions magic as racehorses, and now Redoute’s Choice ‘s sons Not A Single Doubt and Snitzel are set to put their stamp as sires on the 2011 Magic Millions Classic & Guineas.

Not A Single Doubt’s 2YO daughter Karuta Queen is the TAB Sportsbet $3.30 favourite for the $2 million BMW-sponsored 2YO Classic ahead of Snitzel’s daughter Schiffer ($5.50).

In the $1 million 3YO Guineas Snitzel’s son Top Drop ($4.40) is the new favourite, following the news that Squamosa (by Not A Single Doubt) has returned to the spelling paddock.

Pictured: Karuta Queen with her owners Glenn & Viive Williams at the Neville Layt stables, December 2010. Grateful thanks to Glenn & Viive for the photo.

Karuta Queen’s extraordinary, record-breaking trial on Boxing Day at Queanbeyan, where she posted 49.93 seconds for 900 metres and defeated her two rivals by 21 lengths, has only sharpened the anticipation of her appearance at the Gold Coast on 15 January.

Boxing Day was fruitful for Snitzel’s pair too. Schiffer, second on debut to Karuta Queen in the Wyong Magic Millions 2YO Classic on 5 December, franked that result with a second-up maiden win at Randwick.

Top Drop, a city winner last season, won on the same card after three second placings, including good efforts in September’s AJC Stan Fox S. G2, and the Wyong Magic Millions 3YO Stakes.

Favouritism, of course, is temporary; results are permanent. However, starters are a pre-requisite for victory and it is a feather in any young sire’s cap to produce one leading chance, never mind two, in the major events on Magic Millions day.

But Not A Single Doubt and Snitzel are not just any young sires. They currently occupy second & third positions on the 2010/11 Australian 2YO Sires’ list with six individual winners from 11 starters between the two of them.

Snitzel is third on the 2nd Season Sires’ list, while Not A Single Doubt holds the same place on the 3rd Season Sires’ list.

Both are Magic Millions Sale graduates, and themselves competed with distinction in the centrepiece of the Magic Millions programme, the 1200-metre Gold Coast 2YO Classic.

A $210,000 yearling, Not A Single Doubt won his first three starts and became the first stakeswinner for Redoute’s Choice when he claimed the AJC Canonbury S. LR on 20 December 2003. Three weeks later he ran second – beaten less than a length – in Dance Hero’s 2004 Magic Millions 2YO Classic. The result was a triumph for Arrowfield with all three placegetters sired by the stud’s stallions: Dance Hero (by Danzero ), and Not A Single Doubt and Marie Madeleine (both by Redoute’s Choice). Danzero is represented among this year’s Magic Millions Guineas favourites by the Gold Coast-trained Startsmeup ($8.00).

Snitzel was purchased by Gerald Ryan for $260,000 from the Yarraman Park draft at the 2004 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale and, like Not A Single Doubt, he won his first three starts. At his fourth start he was part of a stunning Redoute’s Choice-dominated result in the 2005 Magic Millions 2YO Classic, dead-heating for third with Al Samer with Bradbury’s Luck the winner.

Snitzel went on to win four more races, includng the 2006 MRC Oakleigh Plate G1, beating Virage de Fortune and Takeover Target.

This season Not A Single Doubt has left stars from each of his first three crops: 4YO Group 3 winners Doubtful Jack and, in Singapore, Always Certain; 3YO Group 3 winner (and G1-placed) Squamosa & G3-placed Castlethorpe (in South Africa); and Karuta Queen from his 2008 crop. There’s plenty of talent in the supporting cast too, as a review of his city winners since 1 November shows: 4YOs So So Sure, Sure Diversion & Tai Sing Yeh (in Hong Kong), 3YOs Flourishing & Unanimously, plus the 2YO filly Jackpot Queen, second on debut at Randwick in the $250,000 Inglis Nursery.

Snitzel’s Australian black type performers in 2010/11 are all 3YOs: Melbourne stakeswinner Zelsnitz, G2-placed Top Drop, G3-placed Chance Bye & stakes-placed Yorkshire Lad, with smart 2YOs Hot Snitzel and Saramenha adding city wins in the past two months.

Both sires are well-represented in Sessions 1-5 of the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale : Snitzel has 20 catalogued lots, and Not A Single Doubt has twelve.