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6.
Record Fee For Giants Causeway
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01/07/2002 |
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Giant’s Causeway, Danehill’s replacement on the Coolmore Australia stallion roster, will be offered to Australian breeders at a record first season fee of $125,000
Coolmore is fortunate to have a horse of Giant’s Causeway’s standing as a replacement, and the expectation is he will receive many of the outstanding mares that were booked to Danehill despite his fee being a record for a stallion standing his first season in Australia.
Danehill has shuttled to Australia every year since 1990 and has covered more than 300 mares each year in Australia and Ireland.
He is now a 17-year-old and while Coolmore have stated that he may return to Australia in the future, it seems he may now become a permanent resident in Ireland alongside Sadler’s Wells.
Danehill, who will take his sixth Australian sires’ premiership this season, is ranked second to Sadler’s Wells on the all-time list of stakes winners with 186 in his career, including 119 Group winners.
The Danzig stallion has sired 1691 foals of racing age for progeny earnings of $US117,662,863.
Giant's Causeway, who earned the reputation as the “Iron Horse” during his spectacular racing career, is the best performed son of US champion sire Storm Cat from the champion racemare Mariah’s Storm.
An unbeaten Group One winner at two, Giant's Causeway went on to earn his ‘Iron Horse’ tag with an unbroken sequence of five Group One wins at three, the first horse to do so since Nijinsky. In all he won six G1 races and was placed in another three.
His G1 victories came in the Prix de la Salamandre at two and the St James’s Palace Stakes, Eclipse Stakes, Sussex Stakes, Juddmonte International Stakes and Irish Champion Stakes as a three-year-old.
"We believe Giant's Causeway is sure to appeal to breeders as a very worthy and viable alternative to Danehill for the coming season, “ said Coolmore;s Australian manager Michael Kirwan.
“Giant's Causeway was one of the best and toughest horses ever to have raced in Europe. He is also getting outstanding first foals in the northern hemishphere.”
By Chris Scholtz
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