Group 2 winner Graff to stand at Kitchwin Hills
Group 2-winning and Group 1-placed sprinter Graff (Star Witness) will stand at Kitchwin Hills in the Hunter Valley this year after connections made the call to officially retire the talented entire.
Graff, who joins Sooboog (Snitzel) on the Kitchwin Hills roster, will stand for an introductory fee of $13,200 (inc GST) this year.
“He is a lovely horse and at one point in his career everyone would have thought he was a $20 to $25 million stallion and when you think about his race career, he was such a good horse,” Kitchwin Hills’ Mick Malone said yesterday.
“He was an undefeated two-year-old by Star Witness … and as a three-year-old he comes out and wins the San Domenico and in three starts he’s run in a Run To The Rose, a Golden Rose and an Everest, which just shows the opinion of him as a young horse.”
Bought by renowned yearling judge Alan Bell for $200,000 at the 2017 Magic Millions Gold Coast Sale from the Widden Stud draft, Graff was a dual winner at two and a San Domenico Stakes (Gr 3, 1100m) winner a three, a victory which saw him start favourite in the 2018 Golden Rose Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m).
He ran third in the Golden Rose before running fifth in The Everest (1200m) later that year and the following autumn he ran fourth in both the Black Caviar Lightning Stakes (Gr 1, 1000m) and Newmarket Handicap (Gr 1, 1200m) at Flemington.
He won the Caulfield Sprint (Gr 2, 1000m) last year when trained by Danny O’Brien and connections were attempting a Queensland campaign with Tony Gollan, but they pulled the pin on the rising six-year-old after the Doomben 10,000 (Gr 1, 1200m) a fortnight ago.
Graff is a brother to the stakes-placed filly Steel Diamond and a son of Group 3 winner Dinkum Diamond (Keep The Faith), herself a half-sister to dual Group 3 winner Dawn Passage (Dawn Approach). His second dam Raja Lane (Devaraja) was also a Group 3 winner.
“Any horse who can sprint here like he could is on any stud farm’s radar,” Malone said.
“Another string in his bow is you can breed him to any mare. Everyone walks around and wondering why we haven’t seen these sons of Snitzel, or a really good son of Fastnet or a really good son of Exceed And Excel, and it’s because they just don’t get the chance to breed to the most prolific line of mares that work here which is Danehill.
“They’re trying to inject their own line of Danehill into all these mares and often it doesn’t come off. Often when you do get that out-cross stallion it’s often from Europe and they’re really hard to find the right ones that work here.”
Australian Bloodstock’s Jamie Lovett, who bought into Graff after his 2019 spring campaign, was delighted to find a home at stud for the sprinter who was trained by Kris Lees for the majority of his career.
“There’s a good pool of breeders who have bought into the horse because they want to use him and they will obviously do that,” Lovett said.
“The fact that he’s standing at Kitchwin Hills. To get them into the Hunter Valley, you know you’re a live hope, and you only have to look at Star Turn and that line, it’s certainly working.”
Lifetime breeding rights at a cost of $26,400 (inc GST) are being offered in the stallion, which provides breeders with two nominations each in years one and two and a lifetime nomination thereafter,
If a breeding right holder sends a mare in year one by Fastnet Rock (Danehill), Snitzel (Redoute’s Choice), Exceed And Excel (Danehill) or Not A Single Doubt (Redoute’s Choice), they will receive an extra nomination to be used at their discretion.
Kitchwin Hills is also committed to buying mares to support Graff who is available for inspection today at the Magic Millions sales complex on the Gold Coast.