18 November 2019

Brazen Beau filly adds to strong Australian spring for the Darley stallions

Stakes winners by Exceed And Excel, Brazen Beau, Epaulette, Lonhro and Shooting To Win

The tried and true continue to enhance their records, the up and comers are building their reputations and the newest of the Darley stallions are off and running.

As the 2019-20 southern hemisphere racing season takes shape, the results are providing solid endorsement of some of the best value stallions available to Australian breeders.

While such proven performers as Exceed And Excel and Lonhro are providing their usual abundant supply of winners, young stallions such as Brazen Beau, Epaulette and Shooting To Win have joined the party during the 2019 spring.

For Brazen Beau, a potential star emerged on the final day of city racing for the spring when Pretty Brazen won the G2 Sandown Guineas on Saturday, 16 November.

A $700,000 purchase by her trainer Tony McEvoy at the 2018 Inglis Easter Sale, Pretty Brazen is out of the Encosta de Lago mare, Pretty Penny, and had shown good promise before her fourth and latest win. She will now be put away for the autumn by a stable delighted with her prospects.

"She's got class, beautiful movement, has a beautiful temperament and the reason she cost $700,000 was that I wasn't the only one that liked her," McEvoy said after the Sandown win.

"There was a lot of competition and I think we can relax now and enjoy the future."

"It's worked out magnificently and to win a G2 with a valuable filly just means so much."

Pretty Brazen became the 18th individual winner for Brazen Beau since the season began on Thursday, 1 August and his fourth at Stakes level for the same period.

Overall, Brazen Beau has had 29 individual winners, six of them at Stakes level.

Epaulette, with three crops of racing age, has also put himself firmly into the picture this spring with 52 individual winners of 63 races in the first four months of the current season, most prominent among them the three-time South African G1 winner Soqrat and this month’s G3 Ottowa Stakes winner Aryaaf.

They are among Epaulettes 170 individual winners, 12 of them in Stakes races.

After good sales season where his first crop yearlings made up to $340,000, Shooting To Win had his first feature-race winner when Kubrick took out the inaugural The Bondi, an ungraded $1million race at Randwick.

On the same weekend the Shooting To Win filly Shooting Love won by a big margin at the Gold Coast and his son Testino scored at Yarra Valley.

They are among their sires 19 individual winners as of Sunday, 17 November 2019.

Kubrick winning the inaugural $1 million Bondi

At the top of the table, Exceed And Excel, who has just completed his 16th season at stud, continues to prove himself at the highest level.

As well as the outstanding G1-winning colt Bivouac, his current season’s Stakes winners include the G1 winners Exceedance, Manicure, and Standout in Australia with further Stakes successes coming in South Africa, France and Germany in the same period.