Brilliant two-year-olds make great stallions. This is a theory which has stood the test of time, particularly in Australia where speed and precocity are keystones to a rewarding racing campaign. Darley are, therefore, delighted to announce the addition to the stallion roster of Shaft, whose breath-taking win on debut in the 2007 Silver Slipper Stakes at Rosehill was one of the highlights of the season.
As an unraced horse, Shaft was sent off at double-figure odds against the leaders of his generation in the Silver Slipper, but he displayed an electrifying burst of acceleration to defy his inexperience, outsprinting the seasoned pair of Husson Lightning and Murtajill in a performance which sent right into Golden Slipper calculations. He confirmed himself as a live Slipper candidate second up by finishing third in a three-way photo finish behind that season’s champion juvenile, the ill-fated Meurice, in the Todman Stakes, before having the misfortune to draw barrier 12 in the Golden Slipper, in which he ran a mighty race to finish sixth, just over two lengths off the winner Forensics.
Shaft, therefore, has the perfect profile of a stallion who should be able to sire fast, precocious stock – and he has the perfect pedigree too. He ranks as the highest-rated two-year-old colt ever sired by Flying Spur, winner of the Golden Slipper in 1995 and Australia’s champion sire in 2006/’07, when he was responsible for the winners of both the Golden Slipper and the Blue Diamond. A magnificent son of Danehill from the Ciboulette family which has thrown such leading stallions as Encosta De Lago, L’Enjoleur and Lode, Flying Spur is clearly well credentialed as a sire of sires, and Shaft’s dam’s family is just as appealing.
Shaft’s third dam Princess Tracy has proved herself a real blue hen. A member of the first crop of the great sire Ahonoora, Princess Tracy won two Group races in Ireland, including setting a European record for six furlongs when winning the Phoenix Sprint Stakes at Phoenix Park. Exported to Australia, she produced the Stradbroke winner Danasinga and the dual Group Three winner Cullen to Shaft’s paternal grandsire Danehill, while to Last Tycoon she bred the South African Group One winner Tracy’s Element, Urge To Merge (the dam of Octagonal's Group One-winning daughter Suntagonal) and the Group Three winner, and now leading NZ-based stallion, Towkay. She even bred the South African Group Two winner Topasannah to the largely disappointing Commanche Run, and she also bred the dams of WA Oaks winner Fatal Attraction and Tulloch Stakes winner Prince Of War.
It, therefore, speaks volumes for Tracy’s Element’s class that she can be considered the best of Princess Tracy’s offspring, but that is exactly what she was: a true champion. Rated a champion as both filly and racemare, she won eleven races including four Group Ones. She has subsequently proved an excellent broodmare, her five winners including the Creswick Stakes winner Red Element, plus Group One place-getter Kylikwong. To the hugely influential American sire Rahy she produced Traceable, and Shaft is Traceable’s first runner. With a background like that, it’s no surprise that Shaft was such a brilliant racehorse – and no surprise that we regard him as a sure-fire future sire of fast horses.
