Diameter
Diameter (Brazen Beau) provided another huge tick for his undersung sire and elevated his dam up another rung as a bonafide star of Darley’s breeding barn in taking Saturday’s important Fernhill Mile (Listed, 1600m).
Godolphin’s Chris Waller-trained two-year-old colt became the third stakes winner from just five runners for his mother Circular (Street Cry), who profiles in a sweet spot for broodmare success. She’s from a superb family and won worthy black type in Flemington’s Matron Stakes (Gr 3, 1600m), and only expended herself on the racetrack 20 times, heading to the breeding barn far from fully spent.
Continuing the pattern of all things rounded, Diameter follows in the wake of the mare’s second runner Parisal (Astern) – cleverly named after a round boat found in India – who won two Group 3s and a Listed, and her third runner, Cylinder (Exceed And Excel).
An outstanding sprinter and now a Darley sire, Cylinder won the Newmarket Handicap (Gr 1, 1200m) plus three Group 2s and a Group 3. He also placed a further twice at the top tier – including with his second in the Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m) 15 minutes before Parisal won Moonee Valley’s Typhoon Tracy Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m).
Saturday’s success of Diameter – who’ll strive to become Brazen Beau’s (I Am Invincible) fourth elite winner in this weekend’s Champagne Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m) – was loudly cheered by Darley, perhaps more so than some other stakes wins.
For he, like Cylinder and Parisal, hails from one of the blue army’s most successful families, and probably the best they inherited in their buy-out of Woodlands Stud in 2008.
Circular’s dam Hexameter (Octagonal) is a three-quarter sister to the Ingham brothers’ mighty Lonhro (Octagonal) and his triple Group 1-winning brother Niello, plus a third black type-winning full-sibling in the mare Shannara.
So it’s through Octagonal (Zabeel) to Hexameter that we get all these shape names in the lineage, but is there another common thread wrapping around Circular’s three stakes winners?
Is there perhaps the repeat of a common ancestor at play? Yes, but not really. The only horse doubled up on both sides of each of the three pedigrees is Danzig (Northern Dancer).
Poor old Danzig. His influence can’t be denied, but he really is everywhere, all the better to be taken for granted, especially when one of your sons is the GOAT that was Danehill.
Also, Cylinder, Parisal and Diameter have three quite different sires. Yes they were all sprinters – but what Australian sires weren’t?
“We have Exceed And Excel – a big, strong, powerful horse,” Darley’s head of stallions Alastair Pulford tells It’s In The Blood.
“Astern is much more like his own sire Medaglia D’Oro – lengthier than Exceed And Excel, and not as muscular.
“And Brazen Beau is smaller and stronger, less scope, and a real sprinting type which, being inbred to both Danzig and Bletchingly, you might expect.”
So, in all likelihood, the most powerful common factor behind these three stakes-winning half-siblings is, quite simply, the involvement of one of the most valuable things you can have in a breeding barn these days – a mare by Street Cry (Machiavellian).
“I think it’s just that Street Cry as a broodmare sire matches with anything,” Pulford says of Darley’s former shuttler.
“Street Cry as a broodmare sire is just absolutely phenomenal, and his influence just keeps growing and growing. He just improves any stallion his daughters are put to, and brings the best out of anything.
“Circular is just yet another Street Cry mare who’s producing at the top level.”
Street Cry’s influence is growing immense, especially considering Winx’s dad died aged just 16 and after only nine Australian crops.
He’s the leading broodmare sire of Group 1 winners this Australian season with five, two more than Exceed And Excel (Danehill), thanks to Beiwacht (Bivouac), Attica (Lonhro), Tom Kitten (Harry Angel), Treasurethe Moment (Alabama Express) and Saturday’s Queen Of The Turf Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m) queen Idle Flyer (Dundeel).
Street Cry sits fifth by earnings on this season’s Australian broodmare sire table. That’s two spots below his best finishing position on that table – recorded after another star grandson Romantic Warrior (Acclamation) won the Cox Plate (Gr 1, 2040m) in 2023 – but Street Cry currently sits equal-first by stakes winners (11), along with Fastnet Rock (Danehill) and Exceed And Excel, and with the latter shares the most stakes wins (17).
And all this comes with Street Cry having only 283 runners on that table. Fastnet Rock has 604 and Exceed And Excel 468, while the other two above Street Cry on the earnings chart are Redoute’s Choice (Danehill) with 581 starters, and Snitzel (Redoute’s Choice) with 527.
Overall, Street Cry as a broodmare sire has 197 stakes winners from 2996 runners, at a healthy SWTR ratio of 6.57 per cent.
He’s also firing as a paternal grandfather. His most prominent sire son Street Boss sits at a career-best fifth on the Australian general sires’ table this season, the Darley sire’s star performers being elite victors Tempted, Tentyris, Pericles and recent Australian Derby (Gr 1, 2400m) hero Green Spaces.
One spot below him is another Street Cry in Per Incanto, while a third – Pride Of Dubai – finished third last season thanks to Pride Of Jenni, Bella Nipotina and Dubai Honour.
For her part, Circular – who’s now in-foal to Too Darn Hot (Dubawi) – is described as a fairly typical Street Cry mare, one of average size with plenty of depth and substance, who you could imagine fitting with most stallions.
“She’s got good bone, and is a lovely, strong, balanced mare,” Pulford says.
“She was good on the racetrack, but she wasn’t elite. She won $285,000, which is decent. But she was a good Group 3 or Saturday metro-class mare, and probably the difference in ability between those and the really topline mares isn’t big enough to make a difference at stud.
“Any mare that can win at Sydney level on a Saturday, at that high Benchmark level of 84 and above, or gets to stakes class, is definitely worth breeding from, because they often get a really good horse.”
And in turn, Street Cry is proving a highly successful nick for Brazen Beau. With three stakes winners from nine runners, at 22 per cent, it’s his strongest with more than four runners.
If Street Cry’s success is being shouted out loud, Brazen Beau, by contrast, has been quietly doing his thing, and doing it well.
He’s not the first horse most would come up with when thinking of Darley stallions, reflected in the fact he covered only 42 mares at Darley’s Northwood Park, Victoria, last season at $27,500 (inc GST).
Perhaps that stems from the fact he’s had just three Group 1 winners from 11 crops – in one-timers Another Prophet, On The Bubbles and Zapateo – and because his fertility percentages have at times dipped into the 60s.
Yet his numbers on the track paint a far more rosy picture, particularly this season, and especially right now.
Brazen Beau has had five stakes winners in seven weeks, and two stakes runners-up.
Cinsault took Rosehill’s Millie Fox Stakes (Gr 2, 1300m) on the same day that Power Beau won Adelaide’s City Of Marion Stakes (Listed, 1200m). Two weeks later two-year-old filly Medicinal won Flemington’s Ottawa Stakes (Gr 3, 1000m), before another double came last Saturday through Diameter and three-year-old filly Mating Call, who won the SAJC Auraria Stakes (Gr 3, 1800m).
That recent quintet has helped the dual Group 1-winning Brazen Beau match his best season for stakes winners, with the five recorded in his second campaign of runners in 2019-20.
The 14-year-old has 32 black type victors worldwide at a healthy 5.24 per cent of runners, considerably above the widely held pass mark of around four per cent. In Australia, he has 22 at 6.11 per cent.
“There’s very few stallions going better than Brazen Beau at the moment,” says Pulford.
“He doesn’t have huge numbers – he never has; that’s just the horse. But he gets a stakes winner or more with every crop, and he’s had two two-year-old stakes winners for us this season. That’s the sort of thing Street Boss does for us.
“He’s definitely under the radar. Statistically, he’s still the best son of I Am Invincible at stud, with numbers running. Home Affairs is doing great things with his first crop obviously, but with three-year-olds or older, Brazen Beau is the best.
“Other than one quiet season, he’s always had a good two-year-old crop, and he’s the sort of stallion that gets mares up and going.
“And his stock do train on as well. Zapateo was at her best as a later mare. He’s always got a couple of good ones running around, and he’ll continue to do so.
“Plus at 6.1 per cent stakes winners to runners – that compares favourably to plenty of stallions who stand for a lot more. At his fee of $25,000, he’s exceptional.”
Meanwhile, Diameter is rated a $23 chance for the Champagne Stakes. As the only entrant who’s won over the distance, he could be over the odds.
The colt’s pedigree does have a few things going for it aside from the presence of a Street Cry mare.
One is Sir Ivor (Sir Gaylord) at 6f x 6m, and in strong places. Brazen Beau’s third sire Green Desert (Danzig) has Sir Ivor as his damsire, while down below the American-bred stallion is the third sire of Octagonal, Circular’s damsire.
Another influential US stallion, Never Bend (Nasrullah) is at 7f x 6m, 7m in useful places – respectively feeding into the dams of Green Desert, Street Cry and Straight Strike (Mr. Prospector), who’s Circular’s third damsire. This of course brings a presence in both sides of Never Bend’s blue hen dam Lalun (Djeddah).
The most present mare is Nogara (Havresac), with 12 spots from columns seven to nine, while another Italian – Nearco (Pharos) – heads the stallions’ roster with 18 appearances.