Four 2022/23 titles for Arrowfield sires
Australia's 2022/23 Champion 3rd Season Sire Maurice, also a current top 10 sire in Japan. (PHOTO: Joan Faras)
Four Arrowfield stallions, past and present, headed Australian Sires’ lists in 2022/23: Snitzel, Redoute’s Choice, Maurice & Scissor Kick.
The Stud record of major sire premierships (General, 2YO, Broodmare) now stands at 23, won by six stallions in the past 30 years.
Snitzel’s fourth Champion 2YO Sires’ title was secured with $5 million prizemoney – a new record. His 15 Australian juvenile winners last season were headed by his second Golden Slipper G1 winner Shinzo, Group winners Amur & Empire Of Japan and Listed winner Hip Hip Hurrah.
Snitzel and his legendary grand-sire Danehill are the only stallions to win four or more titles in that category over the past 50 years.
Their linkman Redoute’s Choice sealed his fourth Broodmare Sires’ title after adding $201,000 in the final three days to hold off Encosta de Lago and set a new earnings record of $32.3 million. Between them these two old rivals have dominated the top two spots on the Broodmare Sires’ list since 2018.
However, Redoute’s Choice already belongs to a super-elite group of 8 stallions that have won all 3 major Premierships in the past half-century. (The others are Danehill, Sir Tristram, Marscay, Bletchingly, Vain, Marscay & Showdown).
Godolphin’s glorious colt Anamoe (ex Group 1 winner Anamato) topped the 12 stakes-winning major contributors to Redoute’s Choice’s 2022/23 record. Three of those stakeswinners – Group 2 winner Bank Maur and 2YOs Azula & Namesake – are by Maurice, who added Champion Third Season Sire honours to his Second Seasons Sires’ title of 2021/22.
The Japanese superstar did it with 63 winners, 5 stakeswinners and $10.7 million prizemoney, almost half of that total earned by his outstanding son Mazu, the Sydney Sprint Series winner who was also twice Group 1-placed and third in The Everest. Mazu is already locked up for the 2023 Everest, after Arrowfield & The Star negotiated a two-year deal with his Triple Crown-managed owners.
The $9.5 million earnings of Giga Kick, Everest winner and two-time Group 1 winner were more than enough to secure Scissor Kick’s place on top of the 3YO Sires’ table.
It is, of course, a bittersweet coda to Scissor Kick’s four-season career at Arrowfield before his export to France in 2019.
On the General Sires’ table, Snitzel (4th), Scissor Kick (14th) and Maurice (15th) were joined by Dundeel (6th), whose 7 stakeswinners including dual Group 1-winning 2YO Militarize and $13.4 million earnings made up his best season – so far – in Australia.
The 2023 Arrowfield roster was immediately represented among Tuesday’s first trial winners of the new season. At Te Rapa, Castelvecchio’s first-crop son Cognoscenti and Snitzel’s son Unbridled Joy were joint winners of one of New Zealand’s first 2YO trials. The Autumn Sun’s daughter Tulsi, already a Group 1-placed juvenile winner, won her trial at the same venue.
Data Source: Arion Pedigrees
