'He’s a horse with which we can breed a Royal Ascot two-year-old winner'

Henry Field has his eyes set on juvenile success at Royal Ascot following the announcement that Newgate Farm’s ‘special’ stallion Extreme Choice will be made available to breeders to have mares covered to northern hemisphere time next year.

The fertility-challenged sire, who according to Field is the ‘best stallion by every metric in Australia’, is operating at a stakes-winners-to-runners ratio of 15 per cent with eight stakes winners from 54 runners and has already sired winners of the Golden Slipper and VRC Oaks within his first two crops that in total have numbered just 77 live foals.

The Group 1-winning son of Not A Single Doubt has had just 30 colts take to the track to date, with three having made their way to a commercial home at stud, namely champion two-year-old Stay Inside, juvenile Group 2 winner Tiger Of Malay and Group 3 winner Extreme Warrior.

Extreme Choice stood the most recent southern hemisphere breeding season at a fee of $275,000 (inc GST), making him the highest-priced stallion in Australia.

“Extreme Choice is limited with the number of mares he can breed to, given his fertility issues, but he’s such a prepotent sire we had to work out how best to capitalise on a very special stallion to add value to shareholders and we think that breeding throughout the northern hemisphere season as well is the best way to do that,” Field told ANZ Bloodstock News.

“We feel he’s the sort of horse with which we can breed a Royal Ascot two-year-old winner or a Commonwealth Cup winner. Royal Ascot is a meeting all Australians hold close to their heart, and if ever there was a stallion that was going to sire Royal Ascot two-year-old winners, it’s Extreme Choice, and certainly one of our goals will be to breed a Royal Ascot two-year-old winner and we’re going to try very hard to achieve it.

Henry Field: 'There’s a huge opportunity to grow the Extreme Choice progeny down here.'Credit: Getty Images

“But equally as important, we’ve seen that there are so many northern hemisphere-bred horses winning races in Australia, so there’s a huge opportunity to grow the Extreme Choice progeny down here. There will be the ones that are push-button and ready to go to Ascot as two-year-olds and the others you grow them out and run them in Australia as three-year-olds and beyond where there’s massive riches in those races for older horses.”

The five-day Royal Ascot meeting, which last month announced a ten per cent increase in prize-money for 2023, hosts six juvenile races, with the Coventry Stakes and Albany Stakes for fillies run over 1200 metres, while the Norfolk Stakes, Queen Mary Stakes for fillies and Windsor Castle Stakes are run over a 1000-metre trip.

While courting domestic breeders with a tantalising breed-to-race prospect, Field believes the decision to make Extreme Choice available to northern hemisphere time opens up several commercial possibilities for those that wish to exploit the international markets.

“We think Extreme Choice is an international commodity, based on his results, and when you have a horse like Extreme Choice, he’s such an incredible sire that there’s many ways to monetise his progeny,” Field said. “Aside from racing in Australia or Europe, selling them as yearlings in Europe or northern hemisphere-bred yearlings here is an option. Breeders could also aim at the Hong Kong market and breeze them up in the northern hemisphere. There’s so many ways to monetise the product, the key is getting the product on the ground.”

Field, Newgate’s managing director since the farm’s inception in 2010, travelled to Royal Ascot during the European summer, where he witnessed their Cox Plate winner State Of Rest come away with the Prince of Wales’s Stakes.

During that trip he visited Juddmonte Farm’s world champion racehorse and elite sire Frankel, a stallion that under the management of Juddmonte has cemented his reputation as the world’s most sought after sire, successfully covering to southern hemisphere time and exerting significant influence on the racing and breeding landscape in Australia.

“We’ve seen what Juddmonte have done with Frankel, where they’ve done a proper job, managing his southern hemisphere duties from the north, and our goal is to try and replicate that with Extreme Choice in Australia,” Field said.

Frankel: has had phenomenal results from his southern hemisphere time-bred cropsCredit: Edward Whitaker

“Frankel is a sire phenomenon, but Extreme Choice is pretty much, by every metric, the best stallion in Australia; by stakes winners to runners, by Group 1 winners to runners, by sons at stud to runners - he’s a sire phenomenon in his own right, he has freaky stats.

“He’s a very different sort of horse to Frankel, but we’ve seen Juddmonte do such a wonderful job with Frankel whereby Frankel is basically a mainstream product.

“I’m not daring to compare Extreme Choice to Frankel, but I’ve got no doubts in my mind he’s by far and away the best young sire in the southern hemisphere and, certainly from a potency perspective, he’s worthy of this opportunity.”

With his 2022 produce, Extreme Choice has, from a fertility perspective, had his most successful season, producing 44 live foals at a success rate of 69.2 per cent. It is expected that Extreme Choice will cover ‘40 to 50’ mares to northern hemisphere time and Field suggested the decision may help the stallion in maintaining his fertility into the southern hemisphere breeding season, which recommences on September 1, 2023.

“Given the low number of mares he covers, we’re very confident that he can handle it, and it may even be a good thing for him to have that continuity throughout the year,” Field said.

“He’s going really well. He’s highly limited but his fertility has never been going better. He looks great and his health is good.

“He’s a very important horse for us at Newgate and for his shareholders, who have all committed to this concept.”

Subscribe to make sure you never miss updates from Australia, New Zealand and beyond and to have ANZ Bloodstock delivered to your inbox every day