Danehill the backbone of Redoute’s Choice’s remarkable legacy
Last yearlings by champion Arrowfield Stud stallion to go through Inglis Easter sales ring this week
To understand the two-decade dominance and lasting legacy of Redoute’s Choice, you have to go back to 1989, seven years before the champion Australian stallion was born, when John Messara identified and orchestrated the purchase of the subsequent breed-shaping sire Danehill (Danzig).
The Arrowfield Stud principal, a former stockbroker, was attempting to find a way of accessing the potent Northern Dancer (Nearctic), believing the sire line was the one that could prove successful in Australia’s turf-based, speed-focused racing industry.
As he had in the markets, Messara applied an analytical approach to finding the right stallion to bring to the Hunter Valley. That process would eventually lead, ten years later, to Redoute’s Choice joining the Arrowfield Stud roster, but more on that later.
“We wanted a Northern Dancer line sire but we couldn’t afford a direct son of Northern Dancer – we were only Aussie battlers – so we had to find one of the grandsons,” Messara revealed in a sit–down interview at the Inglis Riverside Stables complex on Friday.
“We thought, ‘why don’t we go through every son of Northern Dancer and see which son of the sons we should go for’. We went through and analysed the Nureyevs – every one of them, the Danzigs, the whole lot of them. There were about seven or eight active sons at the time.”
Messara settled on Danzig as being the son of Northern Dancer to target after also strongly considering Nureyev. He formed the view that Danzig was the best fit because he believed Nureyev “probably wouldn’t suit Australia because he was highly strung and of lighter bone”.
“We went through all the two and three-year-olds of that time and the one we thought was really well bred to be a stallion was Danehill. Unfortunately, he was owned by Prince Khalid Abdullah of Juddmonte who was a very wealthy man.
“We thought we’d have a shot at it, but he probably wouldn’t sell him. As it turned out, they thought a bit the same of Danzig as we did: that he was good, but he was the poor man’s Northern Dancer, not one of the highly sought after ones, so we were able to buy him for a big price at the time.”
The price agreed upon to buy Danehill, Messara recalls, was US$8 million. Arrowfield purchased 50 per cent of the colt while he partnered with Coolmore who would take on the other 50 per cent.
Danehill would join the Arrowfield Stud roster in 1990, where he would go on to serve for 13 consecutive years, siring 175 southern hemisphere-bred stakes winners of which Redoute’s Choice was one, conceived in his sixth year at stud in 1995.
When Messara vowed to make a move for Redoute’s Choice just as he won a sterling duel against Testa Rossa (Perugino) in the 1999 Caulfield Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m), he already had Danehill’s sire sons Flying Spur and Danzero in his possession but he was convinced the Muzaffar Yaseen-owned, Rick Hore-Lacy-trained colt was potentially the champion stallion’s best.
By that time, Redoute’s Choice had already won the Blue Diamond Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m), and the Manikato Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) against older horses in his first start at three, but Messara’s attraction to the colt dates back to 1994.
“It is an interesting story, Redoute’s, and not many people know this, but I was the under bidder on his mum at the Melbourne sales, Shantha’s Choice,” he revealed.
“I loved the pedigree and I was beaten by Mr Yaseen and I noticed she was bought by Lee Freedman. I went straight up to Lee and asked him who had bought her and he told me it was Yaseen and Lee introduced me to him. I met Yaseen at that stage. I said, ‘I am really annoyed you beat me for this one, but anyway, good luck’. She only won a small race, but her blood was fantastic.”
Shantha’s Choice (Canny Lad) raced just twice as a late two-year-old for a win at Seymour and a second at Sandown before she was retired and, soon after, covered by Danehill as a three-year-old filly.
“At the time, Mr Yaseen was in (Victorian owner-breeder) David Moodie’s office and David rang me and said, ‘Look, Shantha’s Choice is retiring and I have recommended to Mr Yaseen that she goes to Danehill’,” he said.
“I think it was a bit late in the season and I said I’d fit her in whatever happens because I reckon she’s a beauty pedigree wise.
“So, I had a bit of a link. One, I sold him the nom to Danehill, two, I was the under bidder on the mother, so I think I had a good headstart when I went to see him about buying Redoute’s Choice.
“We had a very harmonious relationship with Mr Yaseen over those 15 years or whatever it was and when he decided to disperse all his stock he asked us to do it for him, which we did at the Magic Millions that year.”
Messara negotiated a $5 million deal to buy 50 per cent of Redoute’s Choice as a spring three-year-old, a valuation he says may have been the highest paid at the time for a colt in training.
And, as they say, the rest is history. Redoute’s Choice would go on to sire 178 individual stakes winners (so far) and produce more than 30 sire sons including reigning four-time champion sire Snitzel.
This week, the last yearlings by the three-time champion sire, also the reigning two-time leading Australian broodmare sire, will be sold at the Inglis Australian Easter Sale. There will be seven, six of whom are being consigned by Arrowfield Stud.
Arrowfield has been a leading vendor at Easter for many years, largely thanks to Redoute’s Choice and his sire sons, but Messara has also been the buyer as well, purchasing Miss FInland, who emerged from the sire’s third crop, for $450,000.
She was bred by Arrowfield and Sheikh Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum in partnership out of Forest Pearl (Woodman), with Messara instructing Badgers Bloodstock to bid for her on his behalf at the 2005 Easter sale.
Messara revealed that Angus Gold, Sheikh Hamdan’s Shadwell Stud representative, was under bidder on Miss Finland that year. At the same sale, Gold bought Redoute’s Choice colt Nadeem for $700,000 after going one bid more than Messara.
Highlighting the sire strength of Redoute’s Choice, Miss Finland would win the 2006 Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m) and VRC Oaks (Gr 1, 2500m) and was crowned champion filly. Nadeem would win the Blue Diamond Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) that year.
Incidentally, Shadwell Stud will disperse Australian-bred yearlings through the Yarraman Park Stud draft at this week’s Easter sale. Hamdan, the younger brother of Miss Finland’s co-breeder, died last month at the age of 75.
The economic impact on the thoroughbred industry by Redoute’s Choice, who died at Arrowfield Stud in March 2019, is estimated to be about $2 billion and while Messara has been a major beneficiary, the wider Australian industry has also ridden on his coattails.
“I suppose you could say our place is known as the house of Danehill and when you think about Danehill and the last quarter century, 20 of the last 25 sire championships were won by Danehill or his sons. That level of dominance is amazing,” he said.
“I see it not just as a Redoute’s legacy, but his dad Danehill also has a hell of a legacy. Danehill won nine championships in Australia and Redoute’s has won three, but he also won the two-year-old championships, he won broodmare championships, he won a bunch of them, but Danehill was the Big Daddy, he was the founder of the dynasty, there’s no question.”