No surprise to Newgate as Brutal’s progeny continue to flourish on the track
There’s a young stallion making waves at Newgate Farm and it might not be who you’d think.
The hottest sire on the roster this month isn’t Extreme Choice (Not A Single Doubt), Capitalist (Written Tycoon) or another of the farm’s usual suspects – it’s $16,500 (inc GST) stallion Brutal (O’Reilly), who’s been surging up the charts with a series of strong results.
Since last Saturday week, the nine-year-old has had six winners from 23 runners, plus a new black type performer with New Zealand’s Brutiful Lass (Brutal) running third in Otaki’s Castletown Stakes (Listed, 1200m).
The past weekend brought Brutal two fresh victors in the space of an hour, with Bruzani scoring at Donald and Without Compare at the Gold Coast.
More importantly, the Doncaster Mile (Gr 1, 1600m)-winning stallion’s stellar week kicked off with an eye-catching double at Sha Tin.
Jamie Richards’ rising star two-year-old The All Out made it two wins from two starts – at odds-on both times – while the David Eustace-trained three-year-old Truly Fluke lived up to his early promise by breaking through at his third outing.
That pair are among three winners from just four Hong Kong runners for Brutal, a start which is sure to generate high demand for the stallion in the territory, where his own father O’Reilly was immensely popular through siring 67 winners including three in black type.
Adding the fact Brutal’s first elite winner produced one of the most impactful juvenile performances of the season – with Team Hawkes’s Nepotism taking the ATC Champagne Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m) – it’s easy to see why Newgate are becoming increasingly warm on the stallion’s future.
“We’re over the moon about him – the horse is doing a fantastic job,” the farm’s assistant stud manager Jackson Biers told ANZ News.
“He’s got his Group 1 winner, with Nepotism, who arguably put up the best performance of what has been a very open two-year-old year.
“He’s doing a fantastic job in Hong Kong. Three winners from four winners is very exciting, especially when his own sire was an important sire there.
“Thus far in what is early days, Brutal is really producing the goods. So we’re very excited about his future, and there’s plenty more to come.”
Overall, Brutal has 34 winners from 86 runners, with 19 of them males and 15 fillies. Aside from Nepotism, his other stakes winner is Team Hayes’s Jenni’s Meadow, who’s won a Melbourne Listed and run second at Group 2 and Group 3 level, while Nathan Doyle’s versatile dual winner Harlem Queen has a second and two fourths at the top tier – respectively in the ATC Flight Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m), and Randwick’s Spring Champion Stakes (Gr 1, 2000m) and the VRC Oaks (Gr 1, 2500m).
A winner of five of his only ten starts from 1200 metres to 1600 metres – including a five-length Caulfield victory on debut at two and his Doncaster triumph at only start number seven – Brutal made a solid start to stud life last term. He finished seventh on the Australian first-season sires’ table, and equal fourth on the score of his nine winners.
This term, he sits 12th among second season sires, by earnings and winners.
For a sire who stood his first two seasons at $27,500 (inc GST) and his next two at $22,000 (inc GST) before his 2024 drop to his current fee, such results have Newgate delighted with his progress.
“After his first year, everybody was a little surprised by the fact he’d had a bunch of two-year-old winners, being by O’Reilly out of a Spectrum line mare,” Biers said.
“People probably expected his offspring to be three-year-olds, or longer distance horses.
“But he’s banged out a good number of two-year-olds in both seasons, and his first Group 1 winner is a two-year-old, albeit one who won over a mile.”
That horse, Nepotism, is well on his way to stamping Brutal’s ability to sire a star performer. After debuting with a 1.12-length third at $41 in the Todman Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m), Nepotism won Rosehill’s Baillieu Stakes (Gr 3, 1400m) before rising to the 1600 metres to take the Champagne narrowly as the $3.90 favourite.
“He came from almost last on the turn at Randwick, and he was one of the few horses on that day to make ground out wide,” Biers said.
“You can tell the Hawkes stable are pretty excited. They’ve got some pretty smart horses in their stable at the moment, with the Blue Diamond winner [Devil Night] and the TJ Smith Stakes winner [Briasa], but the feeling from them is that Nepotism is as a good as any of them.”
The view from Hong Kong is causing just as much excitement.
“Jamie Richards’ horse, The All Out, looks pretty smart and is two-from-two,” Biers said. “There was a good feeling in the ranks up there that the horse looked very good, and the market’s been proved right both starts.
“David Eustace’s horse Truly Fluke looks smart as well. David told me when he was down for the Easter sale that he had a Brutal that he thought looked a very good horse, and so far he’s been proven right.
“Brutal throws a big, strong, solid type of horse that the Asian market tends to gravitate towards. So people who’ve got big strong colts who vet clean, hopefully they’ll be rewarded handsomely.”
Brutal, whose average yearling price rose slightly this year to $54,573, is on track this spring to roughly match last season’s book of 154 covers. Biers said breeders had become more attuned to the type of mares to send to the stallion.
“Typical of all stallions, the quality of books drops in their second and especially the third year at stud, and we definitely saw that with Brutal,” Biers said. “But he covered a good standard of mare last year, off the back of his success in his first season on the track.
“I think people have definitely worked out what to send to him. You’d probably need to send a mare with good quality about her. Being a son of O’Reilly out of a Spectrum line mare, he can throw them a bit plain. But what he can do is put good substance and shape and bone into mares.
“In two crops, he’s been proven to throw proper Group 1 horses, and he’s now also adding that string in that he’s got good horses for the Hong Kong market as well. Versatility is a great thing in a stallion, and if you’ve got a range of markets where people can sell their horse, it’s a positive thing.
“He’s also really well priced. It’s well documented that the market’s been tough the last few years, especially this year, and if you can breed to a horse at a very competitive fee and hopefully get well paid in the ring, that’s what we’re all here for.”