Last Sunday's Goodwood Handicap win by Velocitea gave the stallion Volksraad the unique record of having sired group one winners in Australia at 1100, 1200 and 1400m. Dantelah from Volksraad's first crop took the Oakleigh Plate in 1999 and Orange County the Sir Rupert Stakes in 2008.
Volksraad has been taken for granted a little throughout most of his career. At last count he had 54 individual stakewinners and Sunday's success was his 13th individual group one winner.
On track for his eighth NZ Sires Premiership there's a school of opinion that Volksraad's inferior record in Australia stops him from being ranked with the great NZ stallions of his generation but how inferior is that record when you consider it alongside his contemporaries most of whom sire middle distance performers. Volksraad's bread and butter are his sprinter/milers and to compete against their Australian counterparts means taking on arguably the best speed horses in the world in their own backyard.
Granted all three group ones are handicaps but it's still a significant achievement in it's own right and I imagine one would have to go back to the days of Sovereign Edition or possibly even Pakistan 11 to find it's equal.
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