Dundeel – his best season yet
Dundeel's career-best record in 2023/24 is headed by Group 1-winning colts Celestial Legend & Militarize. (PHOTO: Joan Faras)
Dundeel’s rise has continued in 2023/24, his best season yet with $15.9 million total prizemoney, 148 winners, 9 stakeswinners (as at 17 July) and his second top 10 finish on the Australian General Sires’ Premiership.
His year was capped by a pair of Group 1-winning 3YO colts, from the first of his best-bred crops, a major yearling sale average of $326,000 and his third million-dollar yearling, the $1.7 million colt out of Tides. His multiple Group-winning daughter Hope In Your Heart became Dundeel’s top-priced broodmare when purchased by Arrowfield for $750,000 at the Inglis Chairman’s Sale.
Dundeel joins barnmate The Autumn Sun in a select group of 8 sires that have posted two or more Australian Group 1 winners this season.
Between them, his sons Celestial Legend and Militarize filled the quinella in the Randwick Guineas, were first & third in the Doncaster Mile, third in the George Ryder and won the Golden Rose.
Hall of Fame trainer Les Bridge has no doubt about Celestial Legend’s class, saying after the Doncaster, “This is some horse. I’ve had a lot of good horses, but this horse is unbelievable…He is a superstar.”
Militarize heads the current Australian Timeform 3YO Ratings compiled by Racing and Sports with a figure of 124+.
Newgate Farm’s Henry Field summed up Militarize when announcing his retirement to stud.
“He donkey-licked them in the ATC Sires’ and the Champagne. He came back as a three-year-old and his turn of foot in the Golden Rose – another stallion-making race – was just phenomenal. He’s a beautiful horse by Dundeel, an elite sire, and out of a Dubawi mare so he’s an outcross.”
Dundeel’s Stars of 2023/24
PHOTO CREDITS: Martin King/Sportpix, Darryl Sherer, Darren Tindale, Bronwen Healy & Trish Dunell
Dundeel and Snitzel are the only active sires that, in the past decade, have had more than one Group 1-winning colt in an Australian season. (Dundeel also achieved that distinction with Castelvecchio & Super Seth in 2019/20; Snitzel has done it three times.)
The other 17 stakes performers on Dundeel’s 2023/24 record are headed by Group winners Ain’tnodeeldun, Sunsets & Tannhauser and three fillies that illustrate his effectiveness across age and distance categories: New Zealand-based 5YO middle-distance mare Aquacade, Sydney-winning 3YO Konasana and 2YO Femminile, winner of the 1400-metre Oaklands S. LR at her second start.
Femminile and Flemington Listed winner Epimeles take Dundeel’s tally of 2YO stakeswinners to 7, headed by Castelvecchio, Militarize & Yourdeel – all Group 1 winners at that age.
Dundeel’s 483 rising 4YOs, 3YOs, 2YOs & yearlings bred on a $66,000 fee, and 178 mares covered last year at $82,500, give him all the ammunition he needs to rise further up the stallion rankings and rapidly increase his record of 8 Group 1 winners among 30 stakeswinners.
