Proisir’s vintage crop
Rich Hill Stud’s Proisir’s current crop of three-year-olds already features three Group 1 winners from only 27 starters and Prowess will be looking to add to his remarkable season when she starts favourite in tomorrow’s Vinery Stud Stakes at Rosehill
Just four days after Rich Hill Stud had announced Proisir’s (Choisir) service fee for the 2022 breeding season, the Roger James and Robert Wellwood-trained Prowess won her maiden by nine lengths at Wanganui.
That win gave Rich Hill managing director John Thompson a moment to think about whether the NZ$17,500 (plus GST) service fee they had posted would prove a bargain for breeders, given the promise he was seeing from the sire’s then two-year-old crop.
Six weeks later, that feeling was confirmed when another of Proisir’s daughters, Legarto, won by three lengths on debut at Matamata and then again when his son Pier repeated the dose at the same track in August.
“All of a sudden, the likes of Legarto, Prowess and Pier won their maidens so well and we thought, he’s got a good bunch coming through. You couldn’t have predicted they were as good as what they turned out to be,” Thompson told ANZ Bloodstock News.
“Unfortunately, it was after we set his service fee last year. We raised it from $12,500 to $17,500, and he’d shown signs, especially with some good horses in Australia, but in hindsight, we could have put it up a bit more.”
That trio of horses have formed the backbone of what will prove to be a game-changing current three-year-old crop for the son of Choisir (Danehill Dancer). Legarto and Pier gave Proisir a feature New Zealand Group 1 double in the 1,000 Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) and 2,000 Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) respectively in November and Legarto backed that up with victory in a dramatic Australian Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) earlier this month.
Prowess, third behind Pier in the 2,000 Guineas, returned to win the rich Karaka 3YO Classic (RL, 1600m) in January and etched her own Group 1 against the older horses in the Bonecrusher New Zealand Stakes (Gr 1, 2050m).
Add in Listed winner Waitak and the prevailing group of Proisir’s three-year-olds features four stakes winners, including those three Group 1 winners, from just 27 runners, with 15 winners in total.
Judged on prize-money, it is already the most successful three-year-old crop in New Zealand in 12 years, with Proisir’s progeny having earned close to NZ$2.2 million on home soil in their classic year.
Added to that is his burgeoning success in Australia, where Proisir has had a trio of three-year-old winners from four starters, among them Legarto.
So, what has been the key to the sudden surge in fortunes for Proisir? It is certainly not because of increased numbers, with only 64 foals from that fourth crop, which was his lowest to that point. For Thompson, it was a matter of quality over quantity when it came to the mares that went to him in 2018.
“What I put it down to is that when you first start out with a stallion at $7,500, if anyone rings up, you take whatever mares you can get,” he said.
“As time has gone on, you get a better idea of what mare is best suited. You start to notice horses, like Prowess, who was a high-priced yearling, she was a beautiful horse at the time, she was such a good physical type.
“People really got an idea of what type of mares best physically suited him and that made a big difference. You are really breeding an athlete, rather than putting a mare to him that may not suit physically.”
Thompson also believes trainers have now got a much better idea of how to get the best out of their Proisir stock.
“People seem to really understand the horses now. With the right mare, he can get a good two-year-old but, generally speaking, his horses just improve between preps remarkably. Prowess and Legarto are good examples, where they had one start as back-end two-year-olds and were then saved for their three-year-old year,” he said.
The statistics back up that observation. Despite the boom on his progeny, Proisir is yet to have a two-year-old runner in either New Zealand or Australia this season. Across all his crops, he has had 12 two-year-old winners, none of them at stakes level, from 52 runners. That stat rises to 80 winners (eight stakes winners) from 177 runners when they turn three.
What is also notable is Proisir himself did not debut until he was three, graduating from a Hawkesbury maiden win on August 1 to win a Group 3 at his third start and then finish runner-up, behind (It’s A) Dundeel (High Chaparral), in the Spring Champion Stakes (Gr 1, 2000m) at his fourth start.
With nearly NZ$3.6 million in total progeny earnings in New Zealand in 2022/23, he looks set to end Savabeel’s (Zabeel) eight-year-reign as New Zealand Champion Sire (Grosvenor Award).
That prize-money haul is already the second highest ever for a New Zealand-based sire, and he has another four months to bridge the gap to Savabeel’s high-water mark of NZ$3.95 million from the 2018/19 season.
The major contribution from his older crops this season has been from his first-crop daughter Levante, now a four-time Group 1 winner, who has proven a flagbearer for the Rich Hill resident, with Tarzino Trophy (Gr 1, 1400m) winner Dark Destroyer his other top-flight victor.
With five individual Group 1 winners this season having earned seven Group 1 wins between them, Proisir is the leading producer of top-flight winners in Australasia in 2022/23 by whichever way you want to cut it.
Group 1 winners by sire in Australia/New Zealand – Season 2022/23:
| Sire | G1 wins | Individual G1 winners |
| Proisir | 7 | 5 |
| Street Boss | 6 | 1 |
| I Am Invincible | 4 | 2 |
| All Too Hard | 3 | 1 |
| Extreme Choice | 2 | 2 |
| Satono Aladdin | 2 | 2 |
| Pride Of Dubai | 2 | 2 |
| Per Incanto | 2 | 2 |
| Shocking | 2 | 2 |
| Written Tycoon | 2 | 1 |
| Rubick | 2 | 1 |
| Redwood | 2 | 1 |
“To have a stallion based in New Zealand, doing what he is doing, augurs well,” Thompson said. “It’s a sign of a serious upgrading stallion, which he has turned into.”
Prowess can add to that record further should she run up to her favourite tag in the Vinery Stud Stakes. As Proisir’s most expensive yearling up until this year, expectations were always high and the quality Hallmark Stud-bred filly, who cost NZ$230,000 at Karaka in 2021, has lived up to those expectations with six wins from her eight starts.
However, there is a little bit of history to defy as a New Zealand-trained filly hasn’t won the Rosehill feature since her co-trainer Roger James captured the race with Sixty Seconds (Centaine) in 2002.
Proisir is also represented in the other Rosehill feature, the Tancred Stakes (Gr 1, 2400m) by the Queensland-trained Tappy’s Lad.