Photo: Supplied
It was perhaps inevitable once he had attained multiple champion status as a stallion, that Savabeel should join his sire Zabeel and grandsire Sir Tristram in the New Zealand Racing Hall of Fame.
Completing a sequence that is unique in this country, the Waikato Stud-based 23-year-old will be inducted at the 2025 Hall of Fame function in Hamilton in May, 11 years after his own sire was inducted and 17 years after the breed-shaping stallion who founded the dynasty half a century ago.
Sir Tristram was an inspired choice by Hall of Fame breeder Sir Patrick Hogan as Cambridge Stud’s foundation stallion in 1976. As a stallion the Irish-bred son of Sir Ivor was to far outstrip his moderate racing record and write a new chapter in New Zealand and Australian breeding.
Similarly, Hogan got it completely right in 1991 when he selected the Australian Guineas winner Zabeel as Sir Tristram’s heir apparent, and in turn Waikato Stud’s Garry and Mark Chittick could not have made a better choice in 2005 than Zabeel’s Cox Plate-winning son Savabeel.
With a race record of three wins that also included the Gr. 1 AJC Spring Champion Stakes and his dam the New Zealand Oaks winner Savannah Success, Savabeel was always going to have a premium on his head. When he joined a roster that included the champion home-bred O’Reilly and Australian Guineas winner Pins, he didn’t come cheaply with a syndicated price tag of $10 million and an introductory fee of $35,000.
That investment has been more than repaid as Savabeel has gone on to dominate New Zealand stallion ranks through the opening decades of the 21st Century. Just last Saturday at Trentham, his three-year-old son Savaglee had his first start since winning the Gr. 1 New Zealand 2000 Guineas in November and recorded another easy win in the Gr. 2 Levin Classic In the next race on the Trentham card, Savabeel’s five-year-old daughter Provence became his 35th Group One winner with her victory in the Thorndon Mile.
Statistical analysis is unavoidable in comparing the three key players in this remarkable stallion dynasty. The final crop of Sir Tristram’s 1,264 foals sired across 21 breeding seasons were born in 1997, and from an exact 1,000 who raced, 686 were winners, 130 at stakes level and 45 of them at Group One.
Zabeel’s 23 seasons at stud up to 2013 resulted in 1,896 foals, of which 1,525 raced and 1,112 won races. Of that total 166 became stakes winners and on the score of individual Group One winners he bettered Sir Tristram by one with 46.
In the case of Savabeel, who completed his 20th season at stud late last year, his tally is still running. Up until his 2022 crop comprising a total of 1,752 foals, 1,346 have raced and 988 are the winners to date of 3,118 races. Of those 148 are stakes winners, 99 of them are Group winners and his 35 Group One winners have won a total of 58 races at that level.
“He’s ticking over at around a dozen stakes winners per season, so with decent numbers still coming through there’s a good chance he can break Zabeel’s record for individual stakes winners,” says Waikato Stud principal Mark Chittick. “How ever you measure his achievements, Savabeel has done a phenomenal job for us and everyone who has supported him – for the whole breeding industry in fact, it would be fair to say.”
Stories of chance and good fortune abound in the horse world and Savabeel’s path to Waikato Stud is one of those, dating back to the latter stages of his three-year-old season, as Chittick recalled.
“I had inspected him couple of times when he was in training with Graeme Rogerson – the first time in Melbourne after he had won the Cox Plate and finished second in the VRC Derby, then again in the autumn at Rogie’s Randwick stable.
“He was a very good-looking horse with obvious performance and pedigree, although we knew he would be on a lot of studs’ watch-list. Then late one afternoon back home I got a call from Bruce Perry to tell me that there was a deal taking shape on Savabeel.
“My comment to Bruce was there’d be a fair bit of money involved and he responded ‘Yeah, they’re talking $10 million’.
“Doing our sums and broken down into 50 shares, that would be $200,000 per share, which translated to a service fee of $35,000. We would take half the horse, Bruce said Lib (Petagna) would be in and he was confident other breeders would be keen as well.
“The first call I made was to Garry,” Chittick continued, “with the intention of getting him to ring Rogie for a heads-up on how we might be able to make it happen. It became almost comical when he explained to me he was in a bit of bind, as Nelson and Megan Schick (of rival stud Windsor Park) were Garry and Mary’s dinner guests, so I told him he’d better go outside and make the call.
“Rogie’s first comment to Garry was that he thought the money might have been a bit much for us, which is why he hadn’t touched base in the first place, but when he said he could vouch for 25 per cent with the likes of (part-owner) Max Whitby staying in, we realised we could do it.
“It was quite incredible how it all came about – Garry got back to me and said it’s your turn to get off your backside and on the phone, so after calling just about everyone I could think of who might be interested, we had him syndicated within 24 hours.”
Not only was $10 million a clear record for a stallion going to stud in New Zealand, but the syndication conditions were also a first. Standard syndications allowed shareholders two service nominations per share during each of a stallion’s introductory years, then one per share thereafter. However the Savabeel deal was for a lifetime right to two services per year, something that sweetened the deal for prospective investors.
A primary intention of the two-service clause is to underwrite a stallion’s book with shareholders’ mares, but that still wasn’t sufficient to guarantee Savabeel’s numbers at a crucial stage in his stud career.
“He got off to a good start with books between 120 and 130 in his first three or four years, then the demand dropped right off, partly due to a certain impatience for his early runners to perform, plus the economy was still bogged down in the GFC.
“That was only temporary though – he got his first stakes winner, Queen Sabeel, in the last two-year-old stakes race of the 2008-09 season (the Northland Breeders’ Stakes), he got his first Group One win with another first crop member, Scarlett Lady, in the Queensland Oaks, and that spring from his second crop Sangster won the VRC Derby.”
Such was the impact of that burst of form and further headlines, in the space of 12 months Savabeel’s book more than doubled from a career-low 85 mares in 2010 to 190. He was away and hasn’t looked back since, complete with his fee climbing incrementally to eventually land in triple figures.
Graeme Rogerson’s history with Savabeel is longer than anyone’s, dating back to his purchase of the Success Express filly who became known as Savannah Success. On the track she won eight races, headed by the Gr. 1 New Zealand Oaks at Trentham and Gr. 1 Ansett Australia (Vinery) Stakes at Rosehill.
“She was a lovely filly, all class,” the Hall of Fame trainer recalls. “I raced her with Jon Haseler (of Queensland’s Glenlogan Park Stud) and when we put her to stud I bought Jon out. Her first foal was a colt by Danehill and then she had the Zabeel colt who made her famous.
“I sold the mare to Gerry Harvey in-foal to Danehill and with Savabeel at foot, and I liked him so much I formed a partnership that included Max Whitby and we bought him back for $400,000 at the Magic Millions Sale.”
At the time Rogerson was operating stables on both sides of the Tasman and Savabeel was to do all his racing in Australia, winning on debut over 1000m at Randwick as a late summer two-year-old and finishing third that autumn in the Gr. 1 Champagne Stakes behind champion juvenile Dance Hero.
After three placings at the start of his three-year-old campaign, he won the Gr. 1 Spring Champion Stakes over 2000m at Randwick and three weeks later took on the older horses for victory over Fields Of Omagh and Starcraft in the W S Cox Plate. He backed up a week later to finish second to Plastered in the VRC Derby.
Savabeel’s final campaign began with a second placing to Elvstroem in the Gr. 1 CF Orr Stakes, but after failing to recapture his best form he was retired as a rising four-year-old.
“We had four or five different parties wanting to buy him, but all credit to Garry and Mark for pulling the deal together and giving him such a fantastic opportunity,” Rogerson says. “He’s been a great horse from day one, I love going across to Waikato Stud to make a fuss of him and it’s been such a privilege to train so many good horses by him.
“I bred another two mares to him this year, Max (Whitby), who raced his first Group One winner Scarlett Lady, has stuck with him all these years too, it’s been fantastic.”
Mark Chittick speaks with similar awe of the champion stallion, in particular his range if success from Group One-winning two-year-olds to classic and cups winners.
“That’s the amazing thing about him, how he can throw horses that win at all ages and at such a range of distances. With devoted stallion grooms like Dave O’Leary and now Ryan Figgins
caring for him over the years, he’s had an ideal existence, which includes keeping in trim on the treadmill we put in specially for him when he was about 17 years old.
“Sons of his like Cool Aza Beel and Embellish have taken no time to prove themselves at stud and our young horse by him, Noverre, has kicked off with some excellent results just last week at the Magic Millions.
“No two ways about it, he’s a legend – that will be his legacy.”
The 2025 NZ Racing Hall of Fame Induction Dinner is scheduled for Sunday May 11 at SkyCity, Hamilton. For further information and tickets go to www.racinghalloffame.co.nz
