Burning up...

As the sire of 18 individual Stakes winners and a further 15 Stakes performers, Bernardini is clearly one of the world’s hottest young stallions.

Having already produced five G1 winners including Stay Thirsty, Biondetti and A Z Warrior, Bernardini’s runners in the southern hemisphere have now started hitting their straps.

Finishing his first southern hemisphere season in fourth position, Bernardini was represented by the Listed Phoenix Stakes winner Boban, and the smart juvenile filly Meidung, who had four starts in her juvenile season, recording places in the Listed Keith Mackay Quality as well as the G3 Riesling Stakes.

One of only four first-season sires of his crop to achieve a Stakes winner, his stock indicated that as three-year-olds they would appreciate a little time and distance.

Currently sitting third on the second-season sire table, Bernardini was represented recently by the promising Solemn, a winner of the Listed Geelong Classic, a race that was taken out the previous year by stablemate Induna, who went on to finish an unlucky second at his next start in the G1 VRC Derby.

Unfortunately Solemn has been struck down with a virus and will miss the G1 VRC Derby, a race that connections felt he had an undeniably chance of winning, claiming that he was a superior galloper to last year's runner-up Induna.

Three days after Solemn indicated his staying prowess, two-year-old filly Ruud Awakening maintained her unbeaten record, taking out the Listed Wellesley Stakes over 1000m in New Zealand.

Settling at the tail of the field, the filly came home at a rate of knots to take the race by two-and-a-quarter lengths, after winning her maiden impressively by five-and-a-quarter lengths just under a month prior.

Less than 12 hours later, Bernardini colt Buffum posted a determined win in the G3 Bold Ruler Handicap at Belmont Park in the USA.

The four-year-old is from the first northern hemisphere-bred crop of Bernardini, a crop that includes multiple G1 winner To Honor And Serve and G1 Travers victor Stay Thirsty, with a total of seven G1 horses and four G1 winners from that crop alone.

His second crop has proven just as successful, as it includes G1 Travers winner Alpha, with other 2012 American Graded Stakes winners including Algorithms, Via Villaggio and Le Bernardin.

The winner of three G1 races during his eight start career including the Travers Stakes over 2000m at Saratoga, Bernardini is the only stallion to sire two Travers winners since the mighty Mr Prospector with Stay Thirsty and Alpha. In fact he is the only Travers winner himself to sire two Travers winners since Man o’War.

With the pinnacle of the USA racing year being the Breeders’ Cup spectacular, Bernardini will be well represented by Alpha and To Honor And Serve, both of whom are lining up in the US$5million G1 Breeders’ Cup Classic on 3 November at Santa Anita.

Standing the current season at Darley Kelvinside at a fee of $55,000 (inc. GST), where he covering his fifth southern hemisphere book of mares, Bernardini is quite simply a world class stallion. To take advantage of this magnificent race horses and now leading sire, please click here to find the contacts details for one of the Darley Nominations Team.