Snitzel Defends Premiership Title

[Wandering Eyes]

Snitzel (Aus), who last year earned his first general sires’ premiership, has defended his title with another wide-margin lead at the conclusion of the 2017/18 racing season. The 16-year-old logged 173 winners and 26 stakes winners that raked in A$29,243,613. Over A$7.5-million of that was contributed by Snitzel’s The Everest winner Redzel (Aus), but even with that one removed from the equation Snitzel would still be over A$5.8-million clear of I Am Invincible (Aus), who just edged Fastnet Rock (Aus) for second.

Snitzel’s season certainly wasn’t defined by one horse, however-not by a longshot. In addition to Redzel his 2017/18 representatives included the triple Group 1-winning 3-year-old sprinter Trapeze Artist (Aus); the G1 Golden Slipper winner Estijaab (Aus); and the G1 Oakleigh Plate winner and highly anticipated new stallion Russian Revolution (Aus).

Coming in after Fastnet Rock are two late and much-missed members of the Australian stallion ranks, High Chaparral (Ire) and Street Cry (Ire), and they are followed by Not A Single Doubt (Aus), Sebring (Aus) and Written Tycoon (Aus). Lonhro (Aus) and his son Pierro (Aus), the runaway leading second-season sire, round out the top 10.

Snitzel also edged I Am Invincible in the leading sires’ of 2-year-olds category, albeit in a much closer race, his A$3,648,965 in juvenile earnings bettering his younger running mate by just over A$200,000. Estijaab was Snitzel’s leading 2-year-old earner, while I Am Invincible’s was the maiden but three times Group 1-placed Oohood (Aus).

I Am Invincible, however, was the clear leader by 2-year-old winners with 25. Also coming in ahead of Snitzel (13) in that category were Not A Single Doubt (20), the first-season sire Spirit of Boom (Aus) (18), Snitzel’s late three-quarter brother Hinchinbrook (Aus) (18) and Sebring, Exceed and Excel (Aus) and Smart Missile (Aus), all on 16.

Zoustar (Aus) was the wide-margin champion first-season sire by earnings, following in the footsteps of his late sire Northern Meteor (Aus), but it was Spirit of Boom who took the spoils by number of winners with 18 to Zoustar’s 10. Snitzel’s son Sizzling (Aus) made an inspired late run at the end of the season to get up for third in both categories.

As previously mentioned, last year’s champion first-season sire Pierro continued right where he left off to take the second-season sires’ title by a wide margin, his A$8.5-million in earnings more than double that of runner-up and old racetrack rival All Too Hard (Aus).

Savabeel (Aus) headed the New Zealand premiership with NZ$3.4-million in the bank and 59 winners on the season. He was followed by shuttler Iffraaj (GB) and Darci Brahma (NZ). New Zealand’s runaway leading first-season sire was Shamexpress (NZ) (O’Reilly {NZ}) with four winners and NZ$117,937 in prizemoney.

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