‘I’m hopeful, but I wouldn’t be declaring it just yet’ – Widden’s Zoustar on the verge of claiming maiden sires’ title
Widden Stud can start celebrating their first Australian champion sire in 32 years after Zoustar (Northern Meteor) all but secured the title with seven weeks of the season remaining on Saturday.
Zoustar had looked set for the premiership in early March, when he snatched the lead from the bolter Pride Of Dubai (Street Cry) – sire of The Everest (Gr 1, 1200m) winner Bella Nipotina – with I Am Invincible (Invincible Spirit) looking unlikely for a fourth-straight title.
But what seemed likely to be a procession from then on hit a major obstacle when Pride Of Dubai’s British son Dubai Honour came back to Sydney for a Group 1 victory and second-placed finish which put his sire back on top.
However, the Coolmore stallion’s challenge faltered, especially with his daughter Pride Of Jenni failing to fire at the Brisbane carnival, allowing Zoustar to regain the front-running with a full head of steam last month.
The deal was effectively sealed on a glorious day for Zoustar at Eagle Farm on Saturday, when a few centimetres for Joliestar in the Kingsford–Smith Cup (Gr 1, 1300m) meant so much.
Not only did the mare’s victory allow trainer Chris Waller to break his own record with his 19th elite-level win of the season, but her first-placed prize–money of $600,000 booted Zoustar to a break at the top of the sires’ table which should prove insurmountable.
For good measure, Phillip Stokes’s Zaszou tipped a further $92,000 into her sire’s coffers three races later by claiming the Helen Coughlan Stakes (Listed, 1200m).
On Sunday morning, Zoustar had $23,613,727 in the bank for progeny earnings for the season. That put him $1.68 million clear of plucky Pride Of Dubai on $21.9 million, who’s put up a heroic campaign for a stallion standing this year at $27,500 (inc GST) – his efforts being modestly “rewarded” with a $5,500 fee increase.
Yarraman Park’s I Am Invincible sits third on $20.69 million – $2.9 million shy of Zoustar – just ahead of Snitzel (Redoute’s Choice) on $20.61 million. While those two may yet nudge out Pride Of Dubai to as low as fourth place by season’s end, the almost $3 million they need to catch Zoustar is surely too much to ask.
More riches remain on offer in the remainder of the Brisbane carnival, with three majors included. Next Saturday’s $3 million Stradbroke Handicap (Gr 1, 1400m) offers $1.8 million to the winner, while the $1 milion JJ Atkins (Gr 1, 1600m) dangles a $600,000 first prize.
Australia’s last Group 1 of the season, the $700,000 Tatts Tiara, carries a $420,000 first prize. I Am Invincible and Snitzel would need to sire the winners of all three to even have a remote chance of hauling in Zoustar, who’s showing no signs of slowing on the winners’ rate.
Zoustar is locked in a tight battle with I Am Invincible on the score of winners, with 178 to Vinnie’s 180, and sits second for stakes winners with 15, behind Snitzel’s 17, while I Am Invincible and Written Tycoon (Iglesia) have 14 apiece.
But the seemingly guaranteed sires’ title, by earnings, will come as a fitting laurel for Zoustar, who’s had improving finishes of eighth, fifth and second in the past three seasons, and could now be set for a period of dominance.
The 14-year-old is the flagbearer for the next generation of Australian stallions. I Am Invincible is 20 years old, with Snitzel and fifth-placed Written Tycoon 22, and the sixth-placed Fastnet Rock (Danehill) 23 and retired.
Founded in the 1870s, Widden has had modern champion sires in Marscay (Biscay), who won in 1991 and 1993, Vain (Wilkes) in 1984, and Bletchingly (Biscay) for three Kingston Town-fuelled years from 1980 to 1982.
The Australian breeding institution also stood the great Todman (Star Kingdom), while it also enjoyed a period of utter dominance from 1910 to 1939, when it owned 17 champion sire titles in 29 years through first Maltster (Bill Of Portland), with five, Valais (Cicero) with five, and Heroic (Valais) with seven.
But the farm has endured a long wait for its first champion sire since Marscay’s second title – just months before Antony Thompson took over as the stud’s owner, aged 21.
Thompson has felt the cold edge of this industry’s fates often enough to not yet be declaring Zoustar home and hosed. Indeed, it was a large dose of bitter misfortune which led him to buy the horse in the first place.
But he said if the dual Group 1 winner could complete his run to the title, it would be an enormously joyous occasion.
“I’m hopeful, but I wouldn’t be declaring it just yet, that’s for sure,” Thompson told ANZ Bloodstock News.
“But it would be immensely satisfying if he can win it. For a farm with a history like ours, and under my watch it’d be my first champion sire.
“That’s one of the many goals you set out to achieve, and it’s the hardest one to achieve.
“We try to breed Group 1 winners. We’ve bred a Horse of the Year in Dissident, and numerous very good horses and champions, and topped sales and those sorts of things.
“But as a studmaster, if you can have a champion stallion in your paddock it’s a very, very good day.
“Plus, he’s obviously still a young stallion, and a horse with the books of mares he’s seeing and the yearlings he’s producing now and the stables he’s finding their way to, you’d think the best is still to come.”
It was tragedy that led Thompson to buy Zoustar soon after the Waller-trained colt’s victory in the Golden Rose (Gr 1, 1400m) in September, 2013. That was the first of his two elite successes – amid six wins from nine starts in an injury-shortened career – before he took the Coolmore Stud Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) by two lengths two starts later.
Widden had been standing his equally speedy sire Northern Meteor (Encosta De Lago) – another Coolmore Stud Stakes winner – who they hoped might be their next champion stallion.
But they were only able to draw four seasons out of him before he succumbed to a long battle with colic two months before his finest son’s Golden Rose triumph.
“There was a bit of fate involved,” Thompson said. “We had recently lost Northern Meteor, and when he died it was really tough on everyone. It was a huge loss from a farm point of view, and an emotional point of view.
“We thought he was just a special horse. We were lucky to stand him for Goree Stud, and with only four crops he’s really left a mark. You think about what he could have been.
“After we lost him I saw Zoustar, from his first crop, and thought maybe something bad could turn into something good. I didn’t want to have had Northern Meteor and have lost him, and then not have his best son.
“Zoustar’s from a lovely female family, and the Encosta De Lago sireline was attractive as well.”
Just as Thompson neatly executed his purchase, if – or when – Zoustar does claim the title it would feel like an expectation realised, rather than just a hope.
After Zoustar finished 17th on the general sires’ table in 2019 with just two crops running, American analyst Bill Oppenheim conducted what Thompson calls a “deep dive” into the stallion.
“Bill said he was going to be a very good sire and had the makings of a champion stallion,” Thompson said.
“He took a look at the Australian industry, and how stallions were going, and going off Zoustar’s stats in the first two years, he called it then, very early on.
“So it would be huge to do it this season, particularly without an Everest winner. Zoustar would really deserve it, because he’s been rising through the ranks at a pretty good rate.
“Plus he’s the most beautiful, intelligent, genuine and kind horse you’ve ever worked with.”
Zoustar’s inexorable emergence has also been reflected in his yearling prices, with his average rising through the past three sale seasons from $420,000 in 2023, to $493,000 this year.
Standing this year for an unchanged $275,000 (inc GST) – equal third-highest in Australia with Too Darn Hot (Dubawi), behind Wootton Bassett (Iffraaj) at $385,000 (inc GST) and Extreme Choice (Not A Single Doubt) at $330,000 (inc GST) – Zoustar was valued at a stunning $78 million when a 1.6 per cent share in him offered by Qatar Bloodstock sold 12 months ago for $1.3 million. Another same-sized Qatar share sold for $1.1 million on April 30.
Bred by Racetree of Queensland, the stallion is owned by a group including eight major shareholders, with Widden the largest ahead of Qatar, Gerry Harvey and the China Horse Club, with others including Queensland breeding legend Basil Nolan.
Zoustar now has 55 Australian stakes winners from 740 runners at 7.4 per cent. Worldwide, bolstered by five shuttle seasons to Britain’s Tweenhills Stud until 2022, he has 69 black type victors from 1,037 runners, at 6.7 per cent.
He has ten stakes winners spread through Britain (four), the US (three), France (two) and Ireland (one), at 3.9 per cent of runners. Three of his 11 top-level victors have come in the northern hemisphere in Champion European 2YO Filly Lezoo, Breeders Cup Sprint (Gr 1, 5f) hero Starlust and his fellow US top-tier winner King Of Gosford.