Stud News

Seventh consecutive title for Savabeel who ends ‘special’ season as Australasia’s leading sire of stakes winners

Waikato Stud’s perennial champion stallion Savabeel (Zabeel) has added a seventh consecutive New Zealand sire premiership, in a season that stud principal Mark Chittick has described as ‘special’ for his exploits on both sides of the Tasman.

A seventh title in a row is a feat only bettered by the 11 consecutive stallion premierships won by Foxbridge (Foxlaw) between 1941 and 1951 and sees him trail only St Leger (Doncaster) (eight titles) and Volksraad (Green Desert) (eight titles), in addition to the Trelawney Stud foundation stallion, for a total number of premierships. 

Savabeel’s 11 individual stakes winners in New Zealand this year has fuelled his domestic challenge, seeing him once again, for a sixth successive year, claim the title with a margin of more than $1 million after amassing NZ$2,987,392 and, while Little Avondale Stud’s Per Incanto (Street Cry) ran him to within two on the leading sires by winners list (56-54), his dominance on home soil showing no signs of abating. 

However, a further eight individual stakes winners in Australia sees his tally of 19 individual stakes winners in Australasia this season as a figure only matched by Coolmoore’s stalwart Fastnet Rock (Danehill), whose 14 stakes winners in Australia were added to by five in New Zealand.

“Look, he is a champion sire and, as we say, it’s his seventh time, but this really has been a very special season with 19 stakes winners of 30 races, the most by any stallion in Australasia this season, and then four individual Group 1 winners and three of them have come off Waikato Stud,” said Chittick to ANZ Bloodstock News yesterday.

Led by NZ Oaks (Gr 1, 2400m) winner Amarelinha in New Zealand, as well as dual Group 1 winner Probabeel and Rosehill Guineas (Gr 1, 2000m) scorer Mo’unga in Australia, Savabeel’s elite-level winners have arrived over distances from seven furlongs to a mile and a half.

“They are serious horses (his Group 1 winners). Amarelinha just annihilated them in the Oaks and Mo’unga is top class. They are top, top racehorses. He is an incredible sire, whatever age or distance, but his peak is between that 1600 and 2400 metres sort of thing,” said Chittick.

Savabeel’s three-time champion sire Zabeel (Sir Tristram) claimed a fifth leading broodmare sire honour this year, a position he has wrestled back having last topped that chart in 2018, and this year Savabeel claimed a first Group 1 winner as damsire, with Kuroshio’s (Exceed And Excel) Savatoxl running triumphant in the Goodwood Handicap (Gr 1, 1200m) at Morphettville.

“He is turning 21 and we are starting to see him creep up the broodmare sires’ list as well and as more of his broodmares go to stud I think that will happen more and more,” added Chittick, with Savabeel having recorded a second top ten finish by that metric.

“This year was his first as the damsire of a Group 1 winner as well. All in all, it is quite incredible really.”

Chittick had previously intimated that the stallion would have his numbers capped to around 100 this year, having covered 120-plus mares in 15 of his 16 years at stud, with the stallion remaining in rude health heading into this year’s covering season.

“We did a little bit of filming a couple of days ago and we had some people here for parades yesterday. He’s healthy and he’s still the great great horse at heart which is what he’s always been like,” he said.

For how long can Savabeel dominate? His nearest New Zealand-based rival this year was Per Incanto, while third and fourth lie Tavistock (Montjeu) and Waikato Stud’s Sacred Falls (O’Reilly), two stallions who have cruelly been taken too early. 

One stallion with a notable breakthrough season was Savabeel’s barnmate Ocean Park (Thorn Park), whose three Group 1 winners this season, Tofane, Kolding and Ocean Billy, won over distances from seven furlongs to two miles. 

Ocean Park finishes sixth on this season’s general sires chart, with 35 winners from 96 runners and $1,431,763 in prize-money as well as three individual Group 1 winners that between them claimed six Group 1 races.

Kolding landed the George Main Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m) and Hill Stakes (Gr 2, 2000m) last spring, and added the All Aged Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m) in April, a race Tofane won the season prior, while the mare added two further Group 1 wins in Queensland through the Stradbroke Handicap (Gr 1, 1400m) and Tattersall’s Tiara (Gr 1, 1400m). 

“He has had a wonderful season. I think he’s had ten individual stakes winners,” said Chittick.

“I had the Wentwood boys here yesterday and they bred Kolding. We were actually trying to answer whether a stallion out of a single crop, which is actually his second crop, had ever left two three-time Group 1 winners before. Obviously being Kolding and Tofane. 

“I don’t know whether that has been achieved before, it probably has, but still it doesn’t come to mind straight away.

“It is a huge effort to have two triple Group 1 winners out of the same crop. It is quite incredible.

“These crops at the moment of his that we have been selling at the yearling sales are not his strongest crops in numbers and quality, so certainly last season, a little bit the season before, he served his best numbers and his best quality. He is a horse who can serve a good book of numbers, handle it well and he’s easy to manage and I do think we’ll see him going from strength to strength in the next little while.”

Chittick has high hopes for the first foals of Super Seth (Dundeel), as the stud eagerly awaits their first arrival of the season.

“We haven’t got a foal, full-stop, which is quite good. I don’t like getting into it too early,” said Chittick.

“Once again, we paraded him yesterday. He is really letting down, he’s really maturing and the old story when you’re a studmaster and you acquire a fantastic animal looks wise and everything. 

“You just hope he leaves foals like himself and that is really nothing we can do about that. We get what we’re given, but if he leaves them like himself we are in a good position.”

 

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