Snitzel keeps setting the sire standard in Australia

MAYBE it is a sign of the times, but the multiple champion sire Snitzel, a son of Redoute’s Choice (Danehill) will cover for a fee of A$165,000 this coming season, a significant drop from the $220,000 charge levied for the past two years.

This will be his 15th season at stud, and the Arrowfield flagbearer’s stud fee was as low as $22,000 in his fourth year covering.

Snitzel currently leads the sires’ championship, and should he hold that position he would be winning the title for the fourth season in a row, a feat only previously achieved by Danehill (Danzig). Snitzel has set many of the benchmarks for a stallion in Australia, in many cases beating the standards set by his grandsire. When Snitzel won his first general sires’ title in 2016/17 he joined his own sire and grandsire in so doing, a feat never before achieved.

John Messara is chairman of Arrowfield Stud and he recently announced that the reduced fee for Snitzel for the coming season was due to market uncertainty caused by the coronavirus crisis. Last month Snitzel was responsible his 28th son or daughter to realise $1 million or more at public auction, while also recording his 100th individual stakes winner.

While a career record of 40 stakes winners would be an excellent achievement for most sires, Snitzel reached that mark at the weekend with his two-year-olds, a category in which he has had few equals. On Saturday his daughter Macroura won the Listed Scone RC Woodlands Stakes over five and a half furlongs. In becoming her sires fortieth juvenile stakes winner she also was blacktype winner number 102 overall.

Homebred by Aquis Farm, Macroura is now expected to be aimed at the Group 1 J.J.Atkins Stakes on June 6th, though this would represent a jump also in trip to seven furlongs. Macroura is the fourth two-year-old stakes winner this season by Snitzel, and that tally has only been matched by I Am Invincible (Invincible Spirit).

Cleverly-named

The cleverly-named Macroura is a daughter of Zenaida (Zabeel), and a Zenaida macroura is a member of the dove family, known as the mourning dove or the rain dove. A total of 48 named foals have been bred on the Snitzel/Zabeel cross and this has produced three group winners and now a pair of listed winners.

Trained by Ciaron Maher and David Eustace, Macroura was extending her unbeaten run to three with this listed race success. She is the first foal of her dam who is a winning half-sister to Vosne Romanee (Electronic Zone), a New Zealand-bred late developer who was at his best as a seven-year-old, his performances at that age earning him the accolade of Horse of the Year a decade ago.

In that landmark season he won, as an outsider, the Group 1 Kelt Capital Stakes in October, added the Group 1 Zabeel Classic in late December and rounded off with victory in March in the Group 1 New Zealand Stakes. He was named after a wine region in France, so it was probably appropriate that he would get better with age!