'He looks like being a superb stallion' - Too Darn Hot set to return to Australia in 2024 for A$110,000

Boom stallion Too Darn Hot, a dominant force in his first season in Europe who has also made an immediate impact at the highest level in the southern hemisphere, will return to Australia in 2024.

Darley has confirmed exclusively to ANZ Bloodstock News that the marquee stallion, the sire of Saturday’s ATC Champagne Stakes-winning two-year-old colt Broadsiding, would be a pivotal horse on the Kelvinside roster and as a result have decided to significantly increase his Australian fee to A$110,000 (£57,000/€66,000), more than double the fee of A$44,000 which he stood for in his first four seasons in the Hunter Valley. 

Sheikh Mohammed’s international breeding operation will also introduce two new shuttle stallions to the Australian market later this year, with Native Trail (A$27,500), an unbeaten dual Group 1-winning juvenile, and Frankel’s Group 1-winning son Triple Time (A$22,000) due to stand down under alongside Too Darn Hot in the Hunter Valley in 2024.

Native Trail: unbeaten champion juvenile and Classic hero will shuttle in 2024Credit: Edward Whitaker

The release of the dual-state Darley stallion roster, one which is without the now pensioned champion Exceed And Excel for the first time in two decades, also reveals:

- Australian Horse of the Year Anamoe will remain at an unchanged A$121,000 in his second season based at Kelvinside in the Hunter Valley.

- The 2022 Caulfield Guineas winner Golden Mile will join the Victorian roster at Northwood Park at a fee of A$16,500. 

- Cylinder, winner of last month’s Newmarket Handicap, will stand for a first-season fee of A$44,000. 

- Harry Angel has earned another small fee increase to A$38,500 in 2024. 

- Last year’s champion European first-season sire Blue Point will return to Victoria at an unchanged fee of A$44,000.

Too Darn Hot, whose second-crop Australian-bred yearlings sold for up to A$1.9 million this year, is the sire of eight first-crop southern hemisphere winners, five of which are stakes-performed headed by the Godolphin homebred Broadsiding, who also won the ATC Fernhill Handicap en route to last weekend’s Group 1 triumph. 

The son of Dubawi is also the sire of five northern hemisphere first-crop stakes winners, including the Karl Burke-trained Moyglare Stud Stakes-winning filly Fallen Angel, victorious in three of her four starts last season and favourite for next month’s Qipco 1,000 Guineas at Newmarket. 

Too Darn Hot: "he’s going to be run off the shelves straight away"Credit: Edward Whitaker

Too Darn Hot has 94 southern hemisphere-bred yearlings on the ground, 87 weanlings, two more live foals than his first-crop two-year-olds, and he covered 121 mares at Kelvinside last year.

Darley Australia’s head of stallions Alastair Pulford was thrilled that Godolphin and Watership Down had agreed to continue to shuttle Too Darn Hot to Australia.

“He looks like being a superb stallion, he’s started off extremely well in the northern hemisphere and he’s following that up here [in Australia],” Pulford told ANZ Bloodstock News.

“He’s done it a little bit quicker here than he did up north and that’s probably a function of the Australian broodmare band, but certainly they’re showing enough speed and, as he demonstrated on Saturday with Broadsiding, once they get over a bit of a trip, they’re going to be a real force to be reckoned with.

“It’s very pleasing he’s also had four other stakes placegetters and he’s had eight individual winners here already. Now, they’ve just turned three up in the north and they’re heading towards the Classic races as well, so we’re looking forward to their progression.” 

Pulford reasoned that Too Darn Hot’s significant fee increase was in line with his growing reputation and was justified.

He said: “[Based] on a little bit of market research, there’s not going to be any lack of support for him this year, he’s going to be run off the shelves straight away basically.”

Triple Time: Queen Anne winner is expected to prove popular in AustraliaCredit: Edward Whitaker

Citing the positive influence of Too Darn Hot and Coolmore’s Justify on the Australasian Stud Book, Pulford is confident that Darley’s new shuttlers Native Trail and Triple Time can also have an impact.

Native Trail, Europe’s champion two-year-old colt in 2021, was a 210,000gns purchase by Godolphin at the Tattersalls Craven Breeze-Up Sale. Sent into training with Charlie Appleby, he won his first start at Sandown in June, before going on to win the Superlative Stakes at Newmarket a month later. 

Native Trail made his elite-level breakthrough on his next start in the National Stakes at the Curragh before returning to Newmarket to land the time-honoured Dewhurst Stakes on his final start as a two-year-old.  

In winning the Dewhurst, Native Trail etched his name on to a roll of honour that also includes Too Darn Hot, returning Darley shuttler Pinatubo, Coolmore shuttler St Mark’s Basilica and Chaldean, who will shuttle to Cambridge Stud in New Zealand for the first time this year. City Of Troy, favourite for next month’s 2,000 Guineas, won the race last year.

Native Trail kicked off his Classic year with a victory in the Craven Stakes, a performance he followed up with a second-placed finish in the 2,000 Guineas. Sent back to the Curragh for his next start, the son of Oasis Dream chalked up his first Classic victory with a comfortable win in the Irish 2,000 Guineas in May 2022.

For his next start, Native Trail was pitted against some older rivals in the Eclipse and produced a brave performance to run third, beaten half a length behind fellow three-year-old Group 1 winner Vadeni, with seasoned top-flight winner Mishriff splitting the pair. 

“He was an early two-year-old, he’s by Oasis Dream, so he represents that Green Desert sireline that’s been so successful down here over such a long period of time and he’s a big, strapping, outstanding looking horse with a lot of presence about him,” said Pulford. 

“He’s a Classic winner, they tried to campaign him over a mile and a quarter, but he proved a mile was probably his premium distance, so he is very suited to Australia.

“When people see him they will love him and say he’s priced exceptionally well at A$27,500, because if you look at the re-emergence of the shuttle stallions through horses like Too Darn Hot and Justify, these horses are obviously supplying something we need in our bloodlines in Australia at the moment, and I think he’ll go down really well, as will Triple Time.”

Native Trail is out of Needleleaf, an unraced sister to France’s 2008 champion three-year-old sprinter African Rose and Group 3 winner Helleborine, herself the dam of Group 2-winning Coolmore sire and former shuttle stallion Calyx and his Listed-winning sister Coppice.

Fellow newbie Triple Time, a son of superstar stallion Frankel, also carries a strong pedigree, being a half-brother to five individual stakes winners and one of ten winners for the stakes-placed Reem Three.

A winner at two and three, Triple Time’s biggest success came at four when winning a strong edition of last year’s Queen Anne Stakes at Royal Ascot, in a career plagued by niggling setbacks.

“When he won the Queen Anne at Ascot he beat five individual Group 1 winners and it’s one of the races to win on the English racing calendar and, of course, he’s by Frankel,” said Pulford.

Triple Time: "he had enormous ability and Frankel’s already doing it as a sire of sires"Credit: Tom Dulat

“He’s very much his father’s son. He had enormous ability and Frankel’s already doing it as a sire of sires through Cracksman, and he’s one of the best stallions in the world, if not the best stallion in the world.

“To have a proper son of his at an affordable fee is great for everyone.”

Pulford also believes that Cylinder, who was runner-up to Shinzo in the 2023 Golden Slipper after winning a Silver Slipper and Todman Stakes, was the most exciting colonial stallion prospect to join Darley’s Victorian roster since Brazen Beau was retired in 2015.

While the Newmarket clinched Cylinder’s stud appeal, he was twice a stakes winner as a spring three-year-old, taking out The Run To The Rose in Sydney and the Vain Stakes in Melbourne.

“As a winner of the Newmarket Handicap, second in the Golden Slipper, and a triple Group 2 winner, at A$40,000 he is very good value for a horse of his quality and pedigree,” said Pulford. 

“He’s by Exceed And Excel out of a Street Cry mare out of a Lonhro mare, so he does boast the best of all of our bloodlines we’ve got at Godolphin. 

“He’s going to get a mountain of support.”

Golden Mile, who was scratched from Saturday’s All Aged Stakes due to a bottomless heavy track at Randwick, also joins the Northwood Park roster as the winner of the Caulfield Guineas, the Callander-Pressnell Stakes, the Theo Marks and the Ming Dynasty Quality.

“He was a very good three-year-old, a very good horse from the word go, really,” Pulford said of Golden Mile, a winner of his only start at two. 

“He’s a beautiful-looking horse, he’s got all the substance and quality that you’d want in a stallion. He could really run, he is a Caulfield Guineas winner, he won a couple of Group 2s, so he will certainly have his share of supporters in Victoria.”

Impending and Earthlight will not return to the Darley roster in 2024.

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