The widely accepted marker of a promising stallion is if they can jag a Group 1 winner early in their stud career but what are the less obvious metrics?
BRUTAL (pictured) joined the elite Group 1 club after just 65 runners when NEPOTISM stormed to victory in the Champagne Stakes during the Sydney autumn.
But perhaps more significant in assessing BRUTAL’s stallion credentials is the average price of his yearlings.
Yearling prices not only reflect the sometimes-misguided perception of a budding sire but also the quality of mares they are mated with.
BRUTAL himself only raced once as a 2yo and in the unforgiving breeding world, he was not afforded the same opportunities as say, a Golden Slipper or Blue Diamond winner.
This goes a long way to explaining why the average price of his yearlings to date is only $44,740 which is lower than any other top 12 second season sire, half of whom are yet to produce a Group 1 winner.
You can bet that average price will spike at next year’s sales. Not only because he now has a Group 1 winner to his name but his impressive strike rate at metropolitan and stakes level.
After producing a double in Hong Kong over the weekend, 32.25% of BRUTAL’s career winners have come at stakes or metropolitan level. This puts him on par with fellow second season sire CASTELVECCHIO whose average yearling price is nearly double ($80,873).
In a game where you are constantly trying to identify who or what is undervalued, the case of BRUTAL is abundantly clear and it won’t be long before the market adjusts.
Thanks to Joe Pride’s astute judgement, he encouraged us to buy into BRUTAL’s progeny this year and so we acquired two yearlings tailor made for his training style. We might add it’s a training style that has him equal 4th on the Sydney Trainers’ Premiership with Ciaron Maher (from 164 less runners!).
See details of the two BRUTAL ‘babies’ below:
BRUTAL x SO MAGIC colt – closely related to top juvenile WITHIN THE LAW ($4450 inc GST per 2.5% share)
BRUTAL x ACTUARIAL filly – out of a winning SO YOU THINK mare whose only foal to race is a winner by non-commercial stallion SHOOTING TO WIN ($3550 inc GST per 2.5% share)