Redoute’s Choice has won two Australian General Sires’ premierships but the recognition of his own backyard, the Hunter Valley, is extra special.
Arrowfield’s great son of Danehill was named HTBA Champion Sire at the Hunter Valley Thoroughbred Breeders Association Awards presentation in Scone on Wednesday evening. Paul Messara accepted the Inglis-sponsored award on behalf of his parents, the Stud’s owners John & Kris Messara, Teeley Assets and the Arrowfield team.
It has been a tremendous season for Redoute’s Choice, with 12 stakeswinners worldwide (after Seaside at Scone on Saturday), and the prospect of a third national sires’ championship to go with the titles he won in 2006 and 2010.
Eleven of those stakeswinners have been in Group company and they include Lankan Rupee, currently rated the best sprinter in the world on the Longines International World’s Best Racehorse Rankings and a leading contender for Australian Horse of the Year honours.
The sensational Teeley Assets home-bred was named the HTBA Champion Racehorse, ahead of multiple Group 1-winning mares Atlantic Jewel and Appearance.
Although a gelding, Lankan Rupee exudes much of his sire’s quality & charisma and was simply untouchable in his three Group 1 victories in Melbourne & Sydney.
Lankan Rupee heads Redoute’s Choice’s remarkable 2009 crop, which has now produced, after Seaside’s Group win at Scone on Saturday, 19 stakeswinners from 107 foals, a strike rate of 17.7 per cent. That is better even than his celebrated second crop (17 SW from 121 foals – 14 per cent).
The champion sire’s next two crops have chipped in this season too, courtesy of Group-winning 3YOs Tango’s Daughter and Aussies Love Sport, and the unbeaten South African 2YO Majmu.
This has also been a breakthrough year for Redoute’s Choice as a damsire. His daughters have left 11 stakeswinners this season, notably the Group 1 winners Zoustar and Sacred Falls, and Group 2 winner Messene. Not surprisingly, those three horses are all by stallions representing sire-lines with which Redoute’s Choice himself is notably compatible: Encosta de Lago, O’Reilly (by Last Tycoon) and Lonhro (by Zabeel).
The result is that Redoute’s Choice is now the leading active sire on the Australian Broodmare Sires’ list with prizemoney not much less than the $9.3 million that has put him on top of the main Sires’ table.
It’s rare to say of a stallion who has already achieved so much, that the best may be yet to come, but it can be said of Redoute’s Choice. He continues to improve his lifetime statistics and the arrival of his first French-conceived foals this year marks his first step from national dominance to global influence.
