More Than Ready Fee $135K +GST
Saturday, 18 April 2009: Champion 2YO Sire More Than Ready (Southern Halo) has bucked the trend of top stallions having reduced fees, with Vinery today announcing he will stand for $148,500.
Vinery Stud resident sire More Than Ready is on target to break his previous best total 2YO earnings established only last year.
More Than Ready's 2YO progeny have so far earned over $4.1 million and include winners of both the Golden Slipper and Magic Millions – a repeat of his 2008 deeds.
At last count, the Halo-line stallion has sired 15 individual winners among them five stakeswinners – Phelan Ready, More Joyous, Common Interest, Readyor and $1.6 million yearling Colour.
Vinery Stud General Manager Peter Orton today announced that More Than Ready's fee has been set at $135,000 (plus GST).
"The demand for More Than Ready this season dictates a modest rise in his fee,' Orton said.
"His yearlings have sold extremely well in the past two years, even with the current downturn in the market.
"We were mindful of the challenges facing breeders at this time and have set our fees accordingly.”
Both Red Ransom ($60,000 plus GST) and Testa Rossa ($35,000 plus GST) remain unchanged despite both stallions again producing higher class runners than ever before, while Vinery's five remaining stallions are subject to significant discounts.
Mossman $12,000 + GST
Excites $8000 + GST
Benicio $8000 + GST
Dubleo $5000 + GST
Bel Danoro $4000 + GST
Vinery stallions stand on delayed arrangement where service fees are not payable until June 2010 and a full refund applies should the mare not produce a live foal.
- Vinery Release
Ready and more than able...
Ready and more than able
Golden Slipper Day at Rosehill is one of the biggest days of the Australian racing calendar, so it is no surprise that the Sydney Turf Club has been able to benefit from long-standing sponsorship deals for some of the main races on the card, most notably with the insurance firm AAMI supporting the Golden Slipper and BMW also being established backers of what was historically known as the Tancred Stakes, writes John Berry.
In the current economic climate, though, no sponsorship can be taken for granted, so the Sydney Turf Club were duly delighted late last month to welcome Vinery Stud on board as sponsors of the Group One Storm Queen Stakes for three-year-old fillies, now known as the Vinery Stud Stakes. How fitting it was, therefore, that the sponsors' largesse should have been rewarded on Saturday with the Golden Slipper victory of Phelan Ready, a son of Vinery's star stallion More Than Ready.
It was easy to understand why Vinery should be happy to sponsor at Rosehill. The historic property - formerly known as Segenhoe Stud, and regarded as the oldest thoroughbred stud in the land - houses an impressive stallion roster which has come up with a stream of big winners recently, many of them at Rosehill. Last year's Slipper was won by another son of More Than Ready (Sebring) while last month's Coolmore Classic there was taken out by Typhoon Tracy, a daughter of another long-standing Vinery shuttler, Red Ransom. Now, of course, More Than Ready has the distinction of siring consecutive winners of the Golden Slipper. This remarkable achievement comes on top of having sired the past two winners of Australia's other hugely valuable two-year-old prize, the Magic Millions Classic at the Gold Coast in Queensland. Last season More Than Ready completed this double with different horses, the Magic Millions race being won by Augusta Proud, but this year he has only needed one son to win both prizes, Phelan Ready having become only the second horse in history (following Dance Hero in 2004) to complete this lucrative double.
Ironically, in advance of Saturday's race, most pundits would have regarded second favourite More Joyous as More Than Ready's best chance of taking a second successive Slipper. From the top-class family descending from dual Oaks winner Denise's Joy, which produced a Group One winner on Golden Slipper Day last year when Tuesday Joy won the BMW, More Joyous made a stunning winning debut at Rosehill on 17 January which saw her promoted to Slipper favouritism. She remained at or near the head of the market throughout, especially after she ran out an easy winner of the Group Two Riesling Slipper Trial two weeks ago, and eventually started second favourite behind Real Saga. However, she failed to sparkle: ridden very prominently, she knocked up badly in the final 300m and will now be spelled. The interestingly-bred More Joyous remains a very exciting prospect and can be forgiven her poor run on Saturday as the frantic early pace on the heavy track probably favoured the back-markers (such as Phelan Ready, who came from last). That is not to say, though, that Phelan Ready's victory should be regarded as a fluke: he won by a thoroughly decisive 2.25-length margin, and it certainly isn't the case that he is merely a wet-tracker, because he had won the Magic Millions on a very fast surface. He is clearly a very good horse, and is yet another credit to More Than Ready.
More Than Ready comes from the sire-line established by Royal Charger, a son of Nearco who was born during the Second World War and who was placed in the 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket in 1945. A successful sire in both Ireland (where he took up duties in 1947) and America (whither he was exported in time for the 1954 season), Royal Charger has been the male-line ancestor of numerous good horses over the past sixty years. The many good winners which he sired when standing in Ireland included Copenhagen, who became a champion sire in New Zealand, but his most influential son has proved to be the Irish-bred but American-raced (he was exported as a yearling) Turn-to. This horse in turn sired two great stallions: Sir Gaylord (from whom stemmed Habitat and Sir Ivor, and thence Sir Tristram and Zabeel) and Hail To Reason (sire of Roberto, who in turn produced such influential stallions as Silver Hawk, Kris S, Dynaformer, Lear Fan, Red Ransom, Brian's Time, Real Shadai, Al Mufti and At Talaq). However, over the past twenty years this line has gained even greater importance thanks to a different descendant of Hail To Reason: his grandson Sunday Silence, the greatest sire ever to stand in Japan.
As Sunday Silence's influence has become ever more obvious, it has highlighted the merit of his sire Halo, a US Grade One winner whose dam Cosmah was a half-sister to Northern Dancer's dam Natalma. As sons of Sunday Silence now become more available outside Japan, the Halo line is going to become an even bigger factor internationally; but, by standing More Than Ready, a grandson of Halo, Vinery has stolen a march on its competitors by making such a good representative of this line available to Australian breeders.
Sunday Silence was, of course, not the only son of Halo to succeed at stud - the likes of Saint Ballado, Devil's Bag, Sunny's Halo and, to a lesser extent, Don't Say Halo spring immediately to mind - but More Than Ready's sire Southern Halo, with 47 individual Grade One winners to his credit, has to be regarded as Halo's second most successful sire-son. A Grade One place-getter (in the Swaps Stakes at Hollywood Park), Southern Halo was exported to Argentina at the outset of his stud career, but proved so dominant there that he was brought to Kentucky as a reverse shuttler for a couple of seasons in the 1990s.
More Than Ready was the most successful horse sired by Southern Halo in America, enjoying a great three-year-old campaign in 2000. His best runs included a win in the Grade One King's Bishop Stakes at Saratoga, second place in the Vosburgh Stakes at Belmont and fourth place in the Kentucky Derby. He took up stud duties the following year at Vinery in Kentucky, and later that year enjoyed his first season of shuttling. He was clearly an attractive stallion prospect, with his dam Woodman's Girl (a winning daughter of Woodman) being a half-sister to Del Mar Oaks winner Bail Out Becky (by another Royal Charger-line stallion, Red Ransom) and coming from the immediate family of Hollywood Gold Cup winner Cutlass Reality. For many Australians, however, he would have presented a very unfamiliar profile, but happily he enjoyed good support, most obviously from Vinery's own mares. These included the impeccably-bred Group Three winner Mannington, and she duly produced a bay colt who, named Benicio, went into training with Lee Freedman, from whose stable he won a maiden at Bendigo as a two-year-old and the Victoria Derby as a three-year-old. He now stands alongside his sire at Vinery, and will receive a further boost to his status if his close relative Friesan Fire can win next month's Kentucky Derby.
In one sense, Benicio's VRC Derby victory might have been a red herring, because it now seems as if More Than Ready's forte is instilling speed and precocity into his stock. A more typical member of his first crop was the Group One-winning juvenile Carry On Cutie, winner of the Champagne Stakes at Randwick in 2005. Similarly speedy was the third Group One winner to come out of this crop: the Vinery-bred colt Perfectly Ready, who won the Goodwood Handicap over 1200m in Adelaide towards the end of his three-year-old campaign and who now stands at stud at Brighthill Farm in New Zealand, where his first crop are currently foals. More Than Ready's successes this season, in addition to the big wins previously highlighted, have included Group Two wins at Randwick by Olonana and Fritz's Princess, over 1000m and 1100m respectively.
More Than Ready has not yet broken through at Grade One level as a sire in America, but it is surely only a matter of time. His seasons in Kentucky have produced a Grade One winner in Puerto Rico (Forbidden Prince) but probably the best of his American-sired offspring is Ready's Image, the 4-length conqueror of Tale Of Ekati in the Grade Two Sanford Stakes at Saratoga in 2007. The previous year had seen his daughter Ready To Please take the Grade Two Fantasy Stakes at Oaklawn Park, while another daughter, Ready's Gal, is a Grade Two winner in Canada and a dual Grade Three winner (and Grade One runner-up) in the States. The best of More Than Ready's US-sired offspring to have raced in Europe have been La Chunga (winner of two Group Three races at York) and Love Of Dubai, victrix of last year's Premio Regina Elena (Italy's equivalent of the 1,000 Guineas) at the Capanelle.
More Than Ready's status looks set to climb further, and his fee in Australia looks sure to buck the overall trend by rising again for the 2009 covering season. The good news for Australian breeders is that he is now merely one of two Southern Halo stallions available at Vinery: a less expensive alternative is Dubleo, a US Grade Two winner who is very closely related to last year's American champion first-season sire Tapit. Dubleo's first crop are currently two-year-olds, and to date he is responsible for one winner from six individual runners, his daughter Dibaba (a stablemate of Phelan Ready) having become a metropolitan winner when scoring by 4.5 lengths on her debut at Doomben.
