Shocking is New Zealand’s gain

It’s a shame that a horse the quality of Shocking is not standing at a commercial stud in Australia, but what is Australia’s loss is New Zealand’s gain.

Being in the right place at the right time was how New Zealand studmaster John Thompson described securing Shocking to stand at his Rich Hill Stud in Matamata.

“I was at the Easter Sales selling yearlings when two mates, Gary Mudgway and Troy Corstens, invited me out for dinner,” Thompson said.

“They also invited a few others, and I happened to be sitting beside Laurence Eales. We didn’t know each other and naturally started a conversation. He said he owned Shocking – I said he’d make a lovely stallion, and he answered ‘are you interested in standing him?’”

The conversation triggered negotiations that resulted in Shocking heading across the Tasman to stand his first season at a fee of NZ$12,000.

Thompson said he was surprised that Australian stud weren’t clamouring to get Shocking, an extremely well-bred horse that not only won the Cup, but showed the turn of foot at weight-for-age this season to win the Group 1 Australian Cup (2000m, Flemington) and the Group 2 Makye Diva Stakes (1600m, Flemington).

“He’s just the type of horse that Australians are travelling to Australia to buy, so there is some irony there.”

Thompson said Shocking is a perfect fit for New Zealand. “We have syndicated him into 44 shares, and most of the leading New Zealand breeders having taken a share, including Sir Patrick Hogan,” he said.

“We have Pentire at Rich Hill, and he’s 18, so we were looking for a horse to replace him.”

Thompson probably shouldn’t be surprised that Australian studs weren’t looking at Shocking because there is a history of breeding bias against Melbourne Cup winners, despite the fact recent Cup winners, At Talaq (1986) and Jeune (1994), were successful stallions before their premature deaths. Like Shocking, both horses also were successful at the highest level over shorter distances.

Only one other Melbourne Cup winner is standing at stud in Australia and that’s the aging Kingston Rule, rising 26, the winner of the fastest metric Melbourne Cup in 1990. Kingston Rule covers a handful of mares at Ealing Park Stud, near Euroa.

However, at a time when there is a definite shift in Australia towards owning stayers, I would have thought that Shocking, with his appealing pedigree and versatile performance, would have been a good fit, especially for Victoria, and Thompson agrees.

“With the Hunter Valley studs concentrating more on speed, I would have thought a Victorian stud would have chased a horse like Shocking. One thing for sure, he will get a better quality of mare in New Zealand that he would have attracted in Australia.”

Shocking has an international pedigree. He is by Street Cry (USA) (by Machiavellian (USA), a horse who has taken the world by storm with progeny such as Breeders’ Cup and Kentucky Derby winner Street Sense, the wonderful cult-figure mare Zenyatta and Shocking’s stablemate Whobegotyou. Shocking’s dam, the imported Maria di Castiglia, is a daughter of the international champion sire Danehill (USA) (by Danzig (USA)).

It’s a pedigree that exudes versatility. Thompson believes that mares of all types will suit Shocking. “I think that he will leave some more precocious runners from speedier mares.”

Interestingly, I believe Shocking is the first Melbourne Cup winner to stand at stud in New Zealand since Even Stevens (by Fair’s Fair (GB)), who won the Cup in 1962, and sired five Stakes winners. Before that you have to go a long way back to Nightmarch, who won the Cup in 1929. Nightmarch, by Phar Lap’s sire Night Raid, sired four Stakes winners, amazingly all out of the same mare, the New Zealand Oaks winner Praise, who was by Limond from the famous foundation broodmare Eulogy.

Cup-winning stallions in the past 70 years to stand at stud also include Tawrrific (won in 1989), who died in Ireland in 1999 in his first season as a National Hunt stallion after moderate success in Victoria; Silver Knight (1971), who stood in WA and sired the 1984 Cup winner Black Knight; Rain Lover (1968-69), a disappointing sire of four Stakes winners; and Comic Court (1950), also a sire of four Stakes winners as well as the 1962 Cup runner-up- Comicquita.