Fireball
Snitzel over Charge Forward, and a close-up doubling of Redoute’s Choice are to the fore in the sparkling and strongly Australian-flavoured pedigree of Inglis Millennium (RL, 1100m) winner Fireball.
Chris Waller’s colt became the late Snitzel’s (Redoute’s Choice) 167th individual stakes winner, and his 64th juvenile black type victor, with a powerful display to win Saturday’s $2 million feature under James McDonald, staying unbeaten at his second start and rising to the fourth line of betting for the Golden Slipper (Gr 1,1200m).
He also bolstered Snitzel’s chances of pushing for his fifth Australian general sires’ title, despite his death last June aged 22. He’s now more than $2 million clear at the top of the table, with two Arrowfield star sons of Redoute’s Choice (Danehill) filling the top two, The Autumn Sun ranking second.
Snitzel is also well clear on the score of stakes winners with nine for the season, two ahead of a three-way tie for second between I Am Invincible (Invincible Spirit), Street Boss (Street Cry) and Written Tycoon (Iglesia). Snitzel’s nine include elite-level victors Baraqiel and Transatlantic.
And the late superstar remarkably occupies top five spots on both the two-year-old (second) and broodmare (fifth) sire tables, as well as the three-year-old standings (fourth).
Occasionally, you have to stop and smell the stats and take stock of what a historically significant sire he was, and continues to be.
And in Fireball – bought by James Harron and Tony Fung’s colts syndicate for $460,000 at Inglis Easter – we see not only some classic Snitzel breeding, but a few paths well proven in colonial breeding.
Bred by Michael O’Keeffe, the colt descends from one of the better families of the late breeding legend Geoff White, who was responsible for his third dam Countess Christie (Marscay), a triple stakes-winner who threw another black type victor.
Countess Christie’s dam was White’s American mare Brilliantdeduction (Capote), who won a US Listed and was a half-sister to two more black type victors including the 16-time winner Thumbsucker (Great Sun).
And Brilliantdeduction’s dam – Fireball’s fifth – brings huge class. My Dear Plum (Royal Intent), foaled in 1969, was the dam of three stakes winners and four stakes-placed horses from just 11 foals.
Fireball is the second foal and only runner out of the Charge Forward (Red Ransom) mare Advance Party. Bred by Cressfield Thoroughbreds and associates, she was bought by O’Keeffe for $75,000 at Inglis Classic and trained by Bryce Heys.
Incidentally, O’Keeffe and Heys were very active again at the Classic sale this week, buying four lots together under the Ellerslie Lodge banner including the sale’s fifth and sixth most expensive yearlings – an Arrowfield colt by Castelvecchio (Dundeeel) for $390,000, and a Home Affairs (I Am Invincible) filly offered by Mullaglass Stud, for $380,000.
Advance Party was nothing too special as a racehorse, winning two at the NSW provincials from 19 starts for O’Keeffe and Heys.
But it was the bloodlines behind her O’Keeffe was particularly keen on.
In putting her to Snitzel, he’s tapped into a particularly rich cross.
Charge Forward ranks in the top five among Snitzel’s many nicks, with an 18 per cent stakes winners to runners ratio, at four from 22.
The quartet includes one of Snitzel’s three Golden Slipper winners in Estijaab, as well as outstanding but troubled speedster Remarque.
Putting Snitzel over Charge Forward effects a reinforcement in that it repeats a successful American family.
Charge Forward’s second dam is Dream Appeal (Valid Appeal), a mare Arrowfield’s bloodstock manager Jon Freyer bought in Kentucky in the 1980s. Her sire’s second dam is the stakes-producing Scotch Verdict (Alsab), who also comes in strong to Snitzel, as his fifth dam.
“That cross of Snitzel’s line back to Charge Forward’s grandmother is at play in Fireball,” Freyer tells It’s In The Blood. “It’s a nice knit with any of those Charge Forward mares with Snitzel for that reason.”
Fireball also bears a decidedly close 2m x 3f of Redoute’s Choice, thanks to Snitzel up top and Advance Party’s unraced dam Luanne.
“Inbreeding to Redoute’s Choice works well here,” Freyer says.
“Not many people try Redoute’s at two-by-three, but it certainly hasn’t been a negative. It’s been a positive cross with Zoustar as well. When Zoustar is crossed back to mares with Redoute’s Choice it’s worked really well.”
Doubling Redoute’s Choice in pedigrees has now produced 21 stakes winners by ten different stallions, including reigning champion sire Zoustar (Northern Meteor) and Snitzel sons Russian Revolution and Shamus Award.
Zoustar has Redoute’s Choice as his damsire. One example of the cross with him is his dual Group 2-winning mare Haut Brion Her, who’s out of a Redoute’s mare for a 3f x 2f of that great stallion. Zoustar over Redoute’s Choice has borne 11 winners from 12 runners, though Haut Brion Her is its only stakes winner.
Some more great Australian names are littered through Fireball’s pedigree.
He’s inbred to Bletchingly (Biscay) at 5m x 4f, 6m. The first and last come through Redoute’s Choice’s damsire Canny Lad, the middle peg through Charge Forward’s dam, Sydney’s Dream.
Biscay is thus repeated four times, through Bletchingly’s three spots and Marscay’s one, at 6m x 5m, 7m, 5m.
Elsewhere, repeats of Redoute’s help enrich the Lunchtime spread, with that imported British son of Silly Season at 6f, 4m x 7f, via Canny Lad and as the grandsire of Snitzel’s dam Snippets’ Lass (Snippets).
Canada’s superstar Northern Dancer (Nearctic) adds zest with six appearances at 5m, 6m, 6m, 5m x 6m, 7m. Redoute’s Choice is inbred to him, and so is Snippets’ Lass.
Usefully, Northern Dancer is present through four different sons – Danzig and Nijinsky in Redoute’s, and Grand Chaudiere and Storm Bird in Snippets’ Lass.
Northern Dancer’s presence ensures a strong smattering of his wonder dam Natalama (Native Dancer), seven times through the sixth and seventh removes and once in the eighth.
Another great broodmare, 1919 throw Selene (Chaucer) is the most apparent female in the first nine generations, with nine mentions, eight of them in the ninth column. Selene threw six stakes winners including the ultra influential sire Hyperion (Gainsborough) and Pharamond (Phalaris).
Hyperion is the equal top sire in the pedigree with 15 spots – along with Nearco (Pharos), while Pharamond is there six times.