With another stellar season under his belt and a growing band of talented runners on the track Vinery’s More Than Ready is making it clear he is a title contender of the very near future as Brett Peatling reports.

There’s no doubt that Australian breeding has the Big Two – Encosta de Lago and Redoute’s Choice.  On the racetrack or in the sales ring, numerically and in  uality, these two are the dominant forces of the Australian thoroughbred. Definitely only the Big Two – no Big Three yet…..  Prowling just on the outer reaches of this pair is Vinery Stud’s standard bearer More Than Ready. With five crops of racing age,  lready in his career he has supplanted Red Ransom as Vinery’s principal sire. For a sire who at one stage was accessible for $15,000 (plus GST) that takes some doing.

Certainly it’s no news that More Than Ready is having a wonderful time of it, but with the season now drawing to a close, the significance of what he has achieved to  date is worthy of further examination. Particularly in the past two seasons, More  han Ready has achieved some ground-breaking results. With Phelan Ready’s Magic   Millions/Golden Slipper double, More Than Ready became the only sire to achieve  that double twice – in consecutive years no less after the triumphs of Augusta Proud and Sebring in 2008. Furthermore in the short 23 year history of the Magic Millions, he joined Zoffany (Clan O’Sullivan/Our Fiction) as the only sires to achieve the unique feat of dual Magic Millions successes.  Not ground-breaking, but   droughtbreaking is his sire son Sebring, the Slipper victor retired to Widden Stud for the oncoming breeding season. Sebring becomes the first non-Danehill line slipper winning sire since Tierce right back in 1991 – the 1997 winner Guineas became a sire momentarily until fertility issues saw him gelded and returned to the racetrack.

With six 2yo stakeswinners this season he has matched the performance of his debut year when he became the champion first season sire. In hindsight that performance provided more than an inkling of the sire More Than Ready was destined to become. No first season sire in the past two decades has been able to match let alone surpass that milestone. Not Danehill, with 4 stakeswinners, nor Exceed and Excel (5) last season or Rock of Gibraltar (5) or noted 2yo speed source General Nediym (4). With 10 individual stakeswinners thus far, only Encosta de Lago, Redoute’s Choice and Scenic have outdone him on that front this season. Significantly, although More Than Ready finished second in the general sires list last season, but is just fifth this time round, all other figures point to More Than Ready having a career best season. Last season, 61 little More Than Ready’s found the winning post from 138 starters as opposed to 92 winners from 191 starters this time round. The import of edging closer to 200 starters and 100 winners, is that  numerically it gives him a solid base that is verging on being comparable to the figures Encosta de Lago and Redoute’s Choice regularly throw out. Additionally he was represented by 4 stakeswinners last season, which he has more than doubled now, and has already earned more prizemoney than 2007/08. 2004 saw More Than Ready available at a service fee of $15,000, and the remainder of that racing season (04/05) would culminate in him becoming the champion first season sire.

Highlighting the rise in More Than Ready’s fortunes are the dams of two of his 2yo stakeswinners this season – Sunday Joy (More Joyous), Sunday Silence’s Oaks winning filly from the blue chip Denise’s Joy family and Regrowth (Colour), the stakeswinning granddaughter of the wonderful Easy Date (dam of Snippets etc). That John Singleton – Sunday’s Joy’s owner – determined More Than Ready to be Sunday Joy’s second mating after being covered by the incomparable Sadler’s Wells speaks volumes. In spite of the accolades and success that have come More Than Ready’s way, there surely could have been few higher compliments paid to him than this.

Coupled with memories of Benicio’s Victoria Derby victory – where he was easily the best stayer on the day – More Than Ready has been dropping a few hints that while he may enjoy a disposition towards naturally athletic 2yo’s and sprinters, he is anything but a one dimensional sire. With More Than Ready putting his cards on the table, he is beginning to engender a certain aura around his progeny. Nowadays scanning the race fields, and your eye picks up a youngster by More Than Ready, it instantly  commands attention.

Vinery certainly knew that he was commanding attention when they felt comfortable to thumb their nose towards the global economic downturn and instead raise his service fee yet again – against the trend of other stallions standing at $100,000 or more from the 2008 season. Vinery showed great faith in More Than Ready from the beginning, but their faith is now obsolete. After all, faith is no longer required when the proof is in front of you.

RACING LIFE – June 2009