Swettenham Stud

Victoria’s Swettenham Stud says its stallions proved two things at the 2009 yearling sales — that not many of their progeny make it to sales, as they are often retained by their breeders, and that in a tough market they stand up to close scrutiny.

How? Swettenham marketing manager Ian Rimington says realistic service fees are a good start.

“I’ve always maintained that you make your money when you buy not when you sell and in tough times that certainly made a significant difference for vendors of Swettenham-bred yearlings,” he said.

“The accepted benchmark for many years was a return of 2½ times the service fee. In recent times this figure probably needed to rise to three, with the higher costs of maintaining the mare and foal.

“Service fees that were too high just exacerbated the problems for breeders and the returns on those yearlings were severely affected at the 2009 sales.”

Rimington says everyone wants a colt to sell, so the real test of a stallion is usually how their fillies sell.

“The more expensive stallions usually get mares with a better pedigree, hence their daughters should sell much better as the intrinsic residual value on those fillies are already much higher,” he said.

“The benchmark in Victoria in 2009 was always going to be Elvstroem. When his fillies averaged $40,500 at the Melbourne Premier sale then any stallion that went close to that figure had done a good job; remembering this was our most expensive stallion standing in Victoria in 2006, when these foals were conceived.

“Importantly for Swettenham, while not many of our stallions’ progeny make it to yearling sales those that did sold well, especially at the lesser sales where the going was often much tougher,” he said.

Rimington produced the following stats on Swettenham stallions with fillies at the 2009 sales.

• Bianconi had the greatest representation of fillies, with two sold at Melbourne’s P2 for $60,000 and $28,000 respectively and seven in Adelaide averaging $21,000 with a high of $49,000.

• Dash For Cash had two sell at the Melbourne Premier for $47,500 and $37,400, one sell at Magic Millions session 5 for $40,000, one sell in Adelaide for $35,000 and one in Tasmania for $21,000.

• Hold That Tiger sold one only at Melbourne Premier for $150,000, two at Melbourne’s P2 for $28,000 and $20,000, one at the Classic for $30,000 and two in Adelaide at $30,000 and $6000.

• First-season stallion Keep The Faith had one NZ Select filly, sold at $NZ50,000, two Autumn sale fillies at $46,000 and $17,500, one at Melbourne P2 for $20,000 and two in Adelaide for $56,000 and $15,000.

In line with the industry-wide trend, all stallions on the Swettenham roster have had reductions in service fees for the 2009 stud season, but on the track they are going as well as ever.

• Bianconi produced a Flemington double last Saturday with Bertonic and Pacino and had his second Group 1 winner in April when Nicconi took out the AJC Galaxy. As of Monday he was 15th in Australia by individual winners, with 82 horses saluting this season.

• Dash For Cash has been hovering around the top 20 stallions in Australia by individual winners all season, with fewer runners than most stallions. He is presently on 69 individual winners and a spate of recent seconds has him just outside the top 20. Bank Robber ran two seconds in Group 1s this season.

• Hold That Tiger notched a staggering 28 winners worldwide in the month of June. He has also had one two-year-old stakes winner (by nine lengths) and seven stakes-placed runners since June 1. Recent Ballarat debut winner Silent Killer will leave these shores bound for Hong Kong after his sale last week for big money.

• Court of Jewels, the three-quarter brother to champion sires Commands and Danewin, is getting a steady flow of winners and upgrading his mares, according to Rimington.

Of the Swettenham stallions without Australian runners, Rimington says there have been good reports from breakers about Keep the Faith’s rising two-year-olds, while Host, Soldier’s Tale and Kaphero have solid credentials for success in Victoria.