The champion dual-hemisphere sire More Than Ready hasn’t missed a flight to the Hunter Valley since retiring to Vinery Kentucky in 2001. He touched down and entered quarantine on Tuesday morning after a couple of delays en route in Chicago and Honolulu.
More Than Ready’s coming southern season will make it 32 consecutive books making him one of the world longest serving and most successful shuttlers ahead of other luminaries like Royal Academy (28), Danehill (27) and Danehill Dancer (25).
Now a 19 year-old, his longevity as a shuttler goes back to the year Ha Ha won the Golden Slipper and demand for his services are as strong as ever. His progeny’s versatility was evident once again in 2015-16 with Group 1 winners Perfect Reflection, Prized Icon and Eagle Way.
Perfect Reflection became the first 3yo filly to claim the G1 Kingston Town Classic at weight-for-age in Perth. His 2yo colt Prized Icon captured the G1 Champagne Stakes at Randwick and his 3yo stayer Eagle Way won the G1 Queensland Derby clinching a future career in Hong Kong.
No other sire has been represented by more than 3 Group 1 winners in Australia this season.
And no other stallion has a global reputation to match More Than Ready in the juvenile division being the only stallion to be crowned Champion 2YO Sire in both the USA and Australia. There have been 61 stakes winners in that age-group with his English based colt Mokarris (USA) landing the latest in the LR Rose Bowl Stakes (1200m) at Newbury on July 15.
Golden Slipper winner Sebring launched More Than Ready as a sire of sires getting Australian Horse of the Year Dissident in his first crop and his G1 Queen’s Plate winner Gimmethegreenlight (Aus) will be crowned South Africa’s champion freshman this season with 14 winners of R1.18 million.
His Australian owned Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner Pluck (USA) is also off to a great start at stud standing alongside his sire at Vinery. Pluck has sired 8 individual juvenile winners in three countries and no other first-season stallion has sired more winners from their first crop.
“We sometimes take it for granted what More Than Ready has done for the industry,” Vinery’s general manager Peter Orton said. “He has sired Golden Slipper, Blue Diamond and Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winners but he’s more than a two-year-old old stallion producing Derby and Oaks winners throughout Australasia. He also offers a unique outcross for the plethora of Danzig blood we have in Australia.”
More Than Ready’s fertility and virility are just as potent as when he first retired. More Than Ready will parade alongside new comers Press Statement, Headwater and his son Pluck at Vinery’s Open Days on the 20-21st of August.
