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Hi Eliteblood
Thanks for your reply and i did understand your first post so i thought i'd fill you in on the frequently asked questions. Do you think the prices the Americans are asking for there stallions are way over the top. I'm not sure if there books will fill or not but if Bettor's had over 400 booking's last year i can't see why a proven stallion such as RNR Hanover can't get a full book, i think on the other hand Heaven might struggle a little due to not being a proven sire as yet but who knows. I have heard the asking fee for Hanover is there much difference compared to Heaven and if you had to choose 1 which would it be and why.
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I don't know if RHR Heaven is going to have semen shipped to NZ. Pepper Tree have been reluctant to do that in the past. If not and he has to fill his book just with Australian mares then I think it will be a challenge given the level of dissatisfaction broodmare owners have with yearling sale prices and the level of competition from other stallions, especially his dad. I think the two RNRH's will be fighting each other for the same bunch of Australian mares. If only one had come they would have found it so much easier.
Maybe I'm being overly cautious, PTF have got it right and he will serve 300 mares.
I am pretty sure RNR Hanover will ship to NZ and I think he will do very well there. I have heard a fee for RNR Hanover of $12500 plus gst.
I would be excited about breeding to either horse. The plus for RNR Hanover is that he has runs on the board. A negative for RNR Heaven is that he is smaller then you would like but I regard RNR Heaven as the better racehorse and like the fact that his mother is a $600k winning Artsplace mare whose only other foal also won $600k. I will certainly be sending mares to him and possibly RNR Hanover as well.
I think the current service fees and the prices being paid for some of these high profile stallions are not aligned to the state of the downunder racing and breeding industries and something has to give. That is not the American stallion owners faults. They will know when they are asking too much when our studs turn their backs and walk away.
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It makes Sportswriter look attractive at his service fee of $6600 as he was the better 2yr old and won the North American Cup as a 3yr old before soundness issues. People say Sportswriter was and looked like his father Artsplace more than any of the other Artsplace stallions and as i've never seen either up close i can't comment on that. What i do wonder but know one will ever know would Heaven of been so successfull had Sportswriter still been racing.
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I think Sportswriter is very attractive at $6600.
As you say, we can only surmise about whether he would have maintained the advantage that he had over RNR Heaven prior to his injury. I thought RNR Heaven was just sensational as a 3YO and my gut feeling is that Sportswriter would not have stood in his way.
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you dont see a problem with going to a stallion with a problem that ended its career (quarter cracks i think)?
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I personally would not lose 1 minute of sleep worrying about that
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I agree EB. Non-issue and especially so with a sire. I'd be more worried about a mare with QC's because in my experience they're something that's maternally and not paternally driven.
That aside, if you dig around for long enough you'll find that just about every sireline has some sort of a negative aspect to it, one that seems to haunt it more than most. Two examples that come to mind are Abercrombie & No Nukes. It's anecdotal however I believe the Abercrombie line to be more predisposed to Founder/Laminitis than other lines while the No Nukes line seems to me at least to produce an overt number of horses with palate/airway issues & also parrot mouths.
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I worry more about what they are racing on than injuries, Sportswriter was a super star 2yld, the 3yld season just gone in the US the competition was average for Heaven, he won the big races and posted good times as he should have look at the SBSW 3yld season he trounced nearly all before him but there were 2-3 good horses chasing him at all times Art Official and Shadow Play to name 2 won some good races and money and posted top times
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Hi Nat
Last year's 3YO's may not have had the depth of SBSW's year (or was it just that RNRH turned up at every major race and totally shut the others out). It's a judgement call but his world record 1:49.2 in both the heat and final of the LBJ were awesome. Shadow Play by comparison won his heat in 1:50 and the final in 1:50.1. Art Official won his heat in 1:52.3 before finishing 3rd in the final.
What distinguishes RNR Heaven from others as a sire prospect is that his racetrack deeds are backed up by a state of the art pedigree.
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Hi eliteblood
Nothing against the horse and its great that studs like Pepper Tree go and hunt down these quality stallions for our breeding seasons I would breed to him any day. But this horse has been on a media juggernaut for his 3yld season and I personal enjoyed watching his race and reading about him on the net it's just sometimes people can get a little overwhelmed with the media and loose sight of some perspective there wasn't this much talk even when Pepper Tree made SBSW available to the souther hemisphere.
