REDOUTE’S CHOICE, EVER AND ALWAYS THE KING

In the year 2000 John Howard was Prime Minister of Australia and the Sydney Olympics were a massive success. 

Tiger Woods was the world’s No. 1 golfer. Kevin Spacey won the Academy Award for Best Actor. Brew won the Melbourne Cup and Belle du Jour won the Golden Slipper. 

And Redoute’s Choice retired to stud. 

Eighteen years later John Howard is 78 and more than a decade out of politics. The Athens, Beijing, London and Rio de Janeiro Olympics have come and gone. 

Tiger Woods is ranked 89th in world golf and Kevin Spacey is the subject of criminal investigations. 23-year-old Brew is enjoying a happy retirement at Living Legends in Victoria, while Belle du Jour died almost 12 years ago.

And Redoute’s Choice? He’s the Sire of Champion Sire Snitzel, Not A Single Doubt, Stratum, Beneteau and six other Group 1-siring sons. 

Damsire of 69 stakeswinners, ten of them at Group 1 level – this season’s Classic-winning colts Ace High, D’Argento, Kementari & Levendi among them – and at short odds to become Champion Broodmare Sire in the next couple of years. 

Now starting to appear in the third generation of Group-winning pedigrees like Sunlight, Mossfun, Seasons Bloom, Houtzen & Luna Rossa.

And still adding to his own stupendous record, on the track and in the ring. 

Last week Redoute’s Choice posted his 76th million-dollar yearling, the colt out of Silla Regalis bought at Inglis Easter from Arrowfield’s draft for $1.5 million by James Harron. He followed the $1 million Cat by the Tale colt, bought by James Moore at Magic Millions. 

It’s the 15th straight year that Redoute’s Choice has been represented by at least one seven-figure transaction and across all 2018 Australian sales, he’s had 31 yearlings sell for an average price of more than $384,838, slightly above his sale average over the past decade. He remains among the four most commercially successful Australian sires, alongside Snitzel, I Am Invincible and Fastnet Rock. 

On Saturday the three-time Champion Sire took his stakeswinners to 154 when 5YO Richie McHorse won the Hawke’s Bay Cup LR in New Zealand for owner-breeders Brent & Cherry Taylor of Trelawney Stud. They also bred Allez Wonder, a fifth-crop daughter of Redoute’s Choice and winner of the 2009 MRC Toorak H. G1. 

Richie McHorse, named in tribute to the celebrated All Blacks captain Richie McCaw and trained by Chris Gibbs, is the best performer so far left by New Zealand Oaks G1 winner Boundless (by Storm Cat’s son Van Nistelrooy).

Fourteen years after his first stakeswinner Not A Single Doubt won the AJC Canonbury S. LR, Redoute’s Choice maintains his remarkable 12% Stakeswinners/Runners strike rate. Put another way, almost one in eight runners earns stakes-winning status, and two-thirds of them are Group winners, including 32 winners of 48 Group 1 races.