Snitzel topples record for number of two-year-old winners

Southern hemisphere sire sensation Snitzel etched his name into the record books on Saturday, with his son Pymble’s success in a low-key maiden at Newcastle bringing up his 31st two-year-old winner of the season, a tally which has set a new Australian record number of juvenile winners in a season.

The previous high mark had first been set by Without Fear, a son of 1964 2,000 Guineas winner Baldric who stood at Lindsay Park, during the 1975-76 season, though Arrowfield Stud resident Snitzel gave a big indication he had designs on making the record his own when matching the previous total during the last campaign.

Fittingly, Pymble is trained by Gerald Ryan, the man who guided Snitzel through his own 15-race career, which included victory in the 2006 Oakleigh Plate as well as the Group 2 Up and Coming Stakes and a pair of Group 3 successes.

"It's an achievement and I’m pleased I was the one to do it," Ryan told local media. "I trained Snitzel’s first winner, Intertidal, and now I've had the one to get the record, so it’s special."

Snitzel's record-breaking achievement reaffirms his position as the heir apparent to his own sire, and Arrowfield studmate, the dominant Redoute's Choice, who in turn picked up the mantle from his sire, Danehill.

Moreover, the number of two-year-old winners supplied in a season is not the only record that Snitzel has smashed during the 2016-17 campaign. With two months of the current season remaining, Snitzel has already comfortably trumped Street Cry's record for prize-money amassed in a season, with well in excess of A$13.8 million (£7,892,970/€9,180,710) already banked.

There is still time for Snitzel to pass yet another milestone, too, as Danehill's 2001-02 record seasonal tally of 26 stakes winners and 33 stakes wins is now firmly in his sights.

The exploits of Snitzel's progeny both on the course and in the southern hemisphere sales rings will have buoyed those breeders with mares booked into the stallion for the upcoming southern hemisphere covering season.

During the 2017 sales season his yearlings have sold at an average of A$385,565 (£224,680/€264,575) and a median of A$300,000, returns that compare healthily even with a career-high fee for the new season of A$176,000. That tag takes him above his own sire, Redoute’s Choice, for the first time in his career.