'Six of the best' includes Weetwood winner

Those six - almost a quarter of his current 26 stakes winners - were sired in his stay at Sun Stud, Innisplain - now Telemon Thoroughbreds - at a $15,400 service fee. Now it's escalated almost 10 times to $110,000!

The 'Six of the Best' comprise two Group 1 winners - Capitalist (Golden Slipper) and Luna Rossa (New Zealand), Group 2 winner Winning Rupert, Group 3 winner Sexy Eyes and two Listed winners Tyzone and Hot Dipped.

Four of those horses are no longer racing. Capitalist and Winning Rupert have each served two books of mares at Newgate Farm, Aberdeen, NSW. Luna Rossa is in foal to Fastnet Rock while Tasmanian Guineas winner Hot Dipped has only started once in August last year after resuming from tendon trouble 12 months earlier.

The remaining duo Sexy Eyes and Tyzone are both still racing. Both are recent black type winners and both met for the first time in Toooomba's premier race, the 1200m Weetwood Handicap held last Saturday. Victory went to Sexy Eyes while recent Listed Goldmarket winner Tyzone was a fast finishing fifth less than two lengths away.

The Weetwood win gave 5YO mare Sexy Eyes two black type victories in succession almost 100 days apart - the first being the Group 3 Gosford Belle of the Turf in late December last year followed by a first-up win in the Weetwood. The mare's Weetwood win gave Sydney trainer Chris Waller a race-to-race feature double after the 2000m Toowoomba Cup win by New Zealand-bred 4YO gelding The Lord Mayor.

CARRYING the now world recognised Magic Bloodstock colours made famous by Joint World's Best Racehorse Winx, Sexy Eyes is raced by a syndicate that includes Winx's senior part owner Peter Tighe. Indeed, Peter's wife Patty named the mare after one of her favourite songs by Dr Hook - Sexy Eyes.

Other syndicate owners include the mare's breeder Jill Strachan and her husband Paul Williams - long-time friends of the Tighe family. Jill is principal of Mt Cotton-based Reynella Thoroughbreds - named some 15 years ago in honour of how Jill and Paul first met through Reynella Rides which operate riding tours into the Kosciusko National Park.

Sexy Eyes is from the Secret Savings (USA) mare Hidden Savings - a sibling to seven winners. Having won the Group 1 AJC Doncaster Handicap as a racehorse, Secret Savings sired Group 1 winners Shamekha and Dash For Cash while his daughters have produced Group 1 winners Samaready and Secret Admirer. Trained by Shaun Dwyer at Toowoomba, Hidden Savings only had one start for a second in an Ipswich Maiden before an injury prompted her original owner to sell her to Jill and Paul. Although she was unable to sustain another race preparation, Hidden Savings has proved her worth as a broodmare with four winners. Two of those are stakes winners with combined earnings of more than $728,000.

Sexy Eyes now has six wins and five placings from just 14 starts for total earnings of more than $375,000 while her elder half-sister Tina Melina (Jet Spur) won six races including the Listed Nudgee Handicap at Doomben and won more than $352,000.

Retired from racing, Tina Melina is now in foal to Spirit Of Boom while her dam Hidden Savings has been pensioned off from breeding with her last foal being a yearling sister to Tina Melina.

MT Isa trainer Robert Burow has hit 'paydirt' in recent weeks with eight winners across three meetings at Mt Isa and Cloncurry.

The sequence began at Mt Isa on March 16 with four winners (Split The Atom, Tempesta Rossa, Good Job Bro, Lord Windermere), followed by Cloncurry (Galea Warrior) on March 23 and a further three winners at Mt Isa on April 6 (Bootifulblue, No Crystal Ball, Split The Atom).

Mackay trainer John Manzelmann also trained four winners at Bowen on Saturday. Manzelmann and apprentice Hannah English combined to win the first three races with Exoterical, Favor Of God and Gingersnap followed by a further win with Archie's Son ridden by Pietro Romeo.

AN extra 10 lots have been added to this year's Capricornia yearling sale being held at the Rockhampton Showgrounds this Sunday.

The original catalogue 99 yearlings has now been extended to 109 following the addition of 10 supplementary lots sired by Casino Prince, Spill The Beans, Sidestep, Written Tycoon, Sidereus, Whittington, Myboycharlie, Charge Forward, Golden Archer and Rothesay.

As mentioned in last week's column, Neville Stewart's Oaklands Stud will become the longest serving vendor as it first entered yearlings in the arena there in 1992 while the stud's 22 yearlings for sale this year will also create a record for the biggest individual draft ever presented to the Rockhampton sale since its inception in 1988.

Racing Queensland webnews reports that another regular vendor - 'on and off' for 30 years - German-born Werner Quast has two fillies for sale. Having previously had a lengthy and successful association with Greenvale Park Stud, these days Werner continues breeding Thoroughbreds as a hobby at his Westbrook property on the western outskirts of Toowoomba. "I've bred 38 Black Type winners over the years so I've done something right," Werner said.

AUSTRALIA'S runaway, leading first season sire by winners Better Than Ready will stand for $30,000 plus GST this season at Lyndhurst Stud, Warwick - up some 200 per cent from his $9900 service fee for his first three seasons when he covered almost 650 mares.

His book will be capped at 160 mares plus returns, limiting the number of outside bookings that will be available.

"Demand is strong already with many southern studs planning to send mares. Breeders around the country are recognising Better Than Ready's dominance. With yearlings selling up to $170,000 this year, his new fee should be great value for the higher quality mares he will no doubt receive this year," Lyndhurst's Jeff Kruger said.

Kruger expects the standard of mares will be much higher than previous seasons while existing shareholders are also planning more mare upgrades. Better Than Ready has proved a dominant stallion, producing many fast precocious 2YO winners and has also proved he can upgrade the progeny of almost all of his mares. Of note are his two stakes winners of the pre-Christmas time-honoured Phelan Ready and Calaway Girl Stakes races brilliantly won by The Odyssey and Better Reflection respectively.

Also remarkable were his four qualifiers for the Magic Millions 2YO Classic making up a quarter of the field, a metropolitan trifecta in the Aquis 2YO Jewel Prelude, and first and third in the $500,000 Aquis 2YO Jewel final with five qualifiers. Being free of Danehill and Star Kingdom blood, the black son of More Than Ready offers an extremely rare outcross for Australian mares.

Syndicate manager Yarramalong Park's Richard Foster added: "Better Than Ready's third crop weanlings are up another level and even more outstanding. This stallion is destined to fill a most important niche in Australia's breeding industry."

WITH the Queensland breeding industry flourishing with the likes of Spirit of Boom, Better Than Ready, Whittington and Sidestep, it's easy to forget that on our own doorstep at Grandview Stud, Peaks Crossing, resides a Group 1 winning stallion with bloodlines very rare in Australia.

When Avilius (GB) took out his consecutive Group 1 victory in the Tancred Stakes at Rosehill on Saturday, March 30, he took his sire Pivotal's progeny career earnings to more than $126.6 million. He also claimed the super stallion's 313rd stakes race win, of which 155 have been at Group level. In total, Pivotal has produced 29 individual Group 1 winners.

One of those is Excellent Art - sire of Grandview's Group 1 winning resident stallion Under The Louvre. Excellent Art triumphed at the famous Royal Ascot meeting in the time-honoured St James Palace Stakes and has done a stellar job at stud with 20 stakes winners and progeny earnings of almost $37.9 million.

This means Queensland breeders have direct access to these prepotent bloodlines through Under the Louvre at a $6600 service fee in reach of all. Racing in elite black type company for 23 of his 36 starts career, Under The Louvre attained Group 1 glory by winning Queensland's most famed race - the Stradbroke Handicap - and was also four times Group 1 placed in Melbourne and Adelaide. With nine wins, 14 placings and more than $1.8 million prizemoney, Under The Louvre is one of five winners produced from the Noverre (USA) mare Barcelona Girl who is a half-sister to Group 2 winner Master Harry.

Under The Louvre has left great foals and this was evident in his second year at stud when he served 30 percent more mares. Grandview principal Michael Grieve was the first person to see his early foals and could not be more pleased with them. "Breeders who sent Under The Louvre one mare in the first season sent him two the next as they were simply thrilled with his foals," he said.

Pivotal's progeny put him in the top echelon in earnings plus he also proving around the world to be a sire of sires such as Excellent Art. Others include Kyllachy who has produced 32 individual stakes winners of 80 stakes races and amassing $47.8 million while another standout is Siyouni (Fr). From only two good sized crops to hit the track - after having very limited numbers in his first two seasons - he has already sired 27 individual stakes winners (two Group 1 winners) of 48 stakes races accumulating $24.7 million.