Thorn Park: Recasting the Mould

After his first two crops supplied consecutive winners of the Matamata Breeders Stakes and a seperate Wellesley Stakes winner, Thorn Park's start at stud was promising enough, but the fact that all three of those Pattern wins came on surfaces between slow and heavy would have weighed heavily on breeders and yearling buyers especially when that trio could only manage one subsequent win - a rating 75 - between them.

Things looked up briefly last summer when La Etoile and Glamorous Girl took competitive group two contests on firm surfaces in the Rich Hill Mile and Desert Gold Stakes respectively and while both mares have failed to win again since, the Windsor Park stallion should have silenced many of his critics with an outstanding 2010/11 domestic season.

Significantly for those fairly questioning the stallions ability to leave horses who are just as competitive on top of the ground and can train on, all three of Thorn Park's group one winners this season have shown this capability and in bucketloads.

Jimmy Choux emerged from a competitive and even crop of two-year-olds last season to completely dominate his contemporaries on all surfaces this season; four-year-old mare The Party Stand worked her way through the middle distance staying ranks culminating in success in the Zabeel Classic on a good three track and although Veyron's group one win came on a heavy track, the five-year-old (Thorn Park's oldest crop) showed during his unbeaten seven win sequence that he was every bit as classy on fast surfaces - running some impressive overall times and sectionals.

Despite Jimmy Choux's form, Thorn Park was one of the more serious casualties of the extremely disappointing local market at this years Karaka Sale, however the son of Spinning World -obviously taking that snub personally - has since come out and shown he is far from a 'one trick' stallion, with new group one winners The Party Stand and Veyron complemented by the likes of the very promising listed winner Magic Briar. And Jimmy Choux's outstanding win in the Group One Rosehill Guineas, supported by Centennial Park's group one WFA form in Sydney this autumn should see his progeny under closer scrutiny from Australian buyers in future.

Thorn Park was reputed to have cost Windsor Park close to a million dollars when purchased just prior to his final racing campaign at the 2004 Brisbane Winter Carnival. Sure he didn't at that stage have the elusive group one victory on his record - that came with success in the Group One Stradbroke Handicap at his last career start - but it still seemed a very realistic price at the time for a multiple set weight group two winning Australian sprinter tracing to the Blue Hen mare Denise's Joy, and an excellent physical specimen to boot.

There's little doubt that being a son of stallion Spinning World would have discounted his purchase price. While the Champion son of Nureyev has been far from a failure at stud and has had fertility issues throughout his stallion career, he hasn't been the siring success his racetrack performance and pedigree suggested and notably his temperament quirks are well known and a number of his stock, especially the fillies, have reputations for being difficult to handle.

Plenty of kiwi breeders obviously didn't see these quirks of temperament as inherent, supporting the stallion with nearly 300 mares during his first two seasons at stud. And his mares didn't lack for quality either - the
stallion having a healthy 18 Karaka Premier Sale entries as a first-season sire in 2007.

When a prospective yearling buyer at this years Karaka Sales mentioned to me that he would not be inspecting any yearlings by Haradasun simply because he was a son of Fusiachi Pegasus, it struck me as rather short sighted. History has shown that a number of comparatively moderately performed stallions have left sons considerably superior to themselves in the breeding barn, locally Star Way (Star Appeal) and Pompeii Court (Tell) immediately come to mind, and the tremendous season being experienced by the Spinning World stallion Thorn Park is another example of how it pays to have few pre conceived ideas in this game.