It’s about this time each year that stud masters start channeling their inner advertising guru or employ a slick marketing team to nail the hook at attract the right or as many mares to their stallions.
IMAGE: Shamus Award | Credit: Ultra Thoroughbreds
There will be tenuous links to racetrack performances for young colts who have come and gone like comets before our eyes to the breeding barn with it all yet to do, or global giants foisting another performer into the Australian game with all it yet to prove.
But there can be no better award for a stallion entering the busy new breeding season than a SHAMUS AWARD.
That is - the best way to promote your stallion is to do what SHAMUS AWARD has done. Produce high quality performers and countless winners on the racetrack -where it counts- week in, week out, male, female, sprinters, stayers.
With SHAMUS AWARD you don’t need the hard-sell spruik, ok we will mention he’s a champion son of a champion stallion in Snitzel, a Group 1 winner of a Cox Plate and an Australian Guineas but you already knew that.
But where it counts now, from the stallion barn to racetrack delivery, SHAMUS AWARD, is no doubt a sire with a bullet, a champion in waiting even.
Let us just drop in the names of young Shamus’ - DUAIS (an Australian Cup winner off an Oaks), INCENTIVISE (a Caulfield Cup winner with more to come), EL PATRONESS (an Oaks winner) like MEDIA AWARD and a first Derby winner in MR QUICKIE (part-owned by Rosemont Stud where Shamus Award is resident).
IMAGE: Group 1 Winner, Incentivise | Credit: Racenet
Surely SWATS THAT, recently purchased in a seven-figure trade to continue racing with Ciaron Maher and Dave Eustace, and the exciting KISS SUM, are the most likely to improve that SHAMUS AWARD Group 1 record into the next season, plus who knows what else comes.
Evidence and results matter, and that is where SHAMUS AWARD can comfortably sit on an already proven record, but with an exciting rich harvest awaiting in coming seasons.
Let’s drop some quick statistics in to shift the needle towards the red-hot range for Shamus, who this year stands for $88,000 (including GST) at Rosemont Stud.
We call it the “Rise And Rise” of Shamus Award and can back up that mantra. And not just in our own words.
With this current season yearlings averaging $175,000 through the sales rings, it is noted that they were conceived off a then $11,000 fee.
“Not many stallions can boast that level of ROI (Return On Investment),” said Belmont Bloodstock’s respected and experienced agent Damon Gabbedy.
And how did that happen?
Well four new Group 1 winners on the track will help that, or just an impressive average 400% yearling increase within last year, based on sires with three crops or more.
And yes, SHAMUS is well in the top 5 Australian Sires premiership, with this year’s crop bringing their owners of his offspring about $14m in prizemoney from the track.
If there was ever a changing of the guard stallion to become the next champion - as he is now swooned by a smorgasbord of blue-blooded matrons - it is SHAMUS AWARD, especially as heads into the new season at Rosemont.
If you want more – SHAMUS AWARD is the #1 active Australian based sire on what is called the AEI Index (with three crops or more), which means, her for the accountants, returns 17 times his service fee to profit this season at the sales.
You can drop in the proven money listers I AM INVINCIBLE (2.3 times), SNITZEL (2.6 times) or the stallion shire sought after EXTREME CHOICE (15.7 times) but by any measure, SHAMUS AWARD measures up better, if not on top of all rivals, as he did on the racetrack.
The relocation to the vibrant and active Victorian farm ROSEMONT has seen SHAMUS AWARD lead a state-based breeding recovery alongside other stallions like WRITTEN TYCOON and another emerging star by racetrack proof in TORONADO.
From owner Sean Buckley investing heavily in mares to feed SHAMUS starting off in the Hunter Valley, the Rosemont team are now releasing strictly numbered and heavily vetted nominations to ensure the 180 odd book is now deserving of the quality that the fee suggests.
So, you can imagine the results of the future can only double down on the proven record of SHAMUS who has upgraded those mares off lower service fees with his versatility to produce quality performers as well as durable bread and butter earners.
Heading a stinging team of mares heading to SHAMUS next season, the captain would certainly be the mighty JAMEKA, the Caulfield Cup winner and a three-time Caulfield Cup winner, bought out for $2.6m and her first foal by IMPENDING (Sir Bailey) already a winner.
And what would the resultant foal of SHAMUS and the mother of the world champion sprinter NATURE STRIP (Strikeline) be worth?
And Group 1 star AZKADELLIA will visit SHAMUS AWARD again, her first foal was born with one eye, preventing her from making it to the racetrack, before she was served again last year by SHAMUS AWARD.
There is PARLOPHONE, a slick I AM INVINCIBLE stakes winner, VIVACIOUS SPIRT, a group winner sprinter and already producing a Group 1 winner in COSTA VIVA.
INCA LAGOON is the mother of champion Hong Kong sprinter IVICTORY, PINK SIRIS will leave a full relation to Group 2 winner ETANA and in breaking news, the recently top priced Western Australian race mare ever sold - WATCH ME DANCE, will join the SHAMUS harem.
Which is to say, this starting list, the mares going to SHAMUS AWARD this next breeding season, sit well in racing royalty and are ready to take the stallion to the next level.
“SHAMUS AWARD is now comfortably in the elite level stallions in Australia,” said Rosemont Stud owner Anthony Mithen.
“What he has been able to do and achieve off the mares he has served in the past have us so excited for the future as he moves from b-graders to a-graders, and we can sort through for the top quality.”
What might have been described as a slow burn start for SHAMUS AWARD at stud in the ever competitive if not bloated stallion market in Australia, he is now ready to set new records.
IMAGE: Group 1 Winner, Duais | Credit: Racenet
You can look at the Australian record number of winners he provided in the 2020/21 season, the 7% stakes winners to runner’s statistic, quite incredible for an original service fee of $27,500 that had to be dropped to $11,000 before winners earned an increase to $33,000 and now overdue at $88,000, so it doesn’t take much science to say SHAMUS AWARD is ready to go next level.
Champion Stallion level. Give yourself an award, a Shamus Award.
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