Vinery Stud waved goodbye to their favourite resident for the final time this week when More Than Ready (Southern Halo {USA}) boarded a flight back to his WinStar Farm base in Kentucky.
A king of the shuttle run, he first arrived in 2001 with a $22,000 price tag for breeders and his yeoman service has been punctuated with regular Group 1 success seeing his fee rise as high as $148,500 in 2009.
More Than Ready covered more than 2200 mares during his 18 consecutive seasons at Vinery, most popular in 2008 with a book of 175. This season at $66,000 he served 70 mares.
More Than Ready has sired more race winners than any other stallion in history - by a margin over over 100.
“He’s been a wonderful horse for our brand and a great asset to the Australasian breeding industry,” Vinery’s Nominations and Sales Manager Adam White said.
“He’s been a wonderful horse for our brand and a great asset to the Australasian breeding industry.” - Adam White.
“He served a restricted book this season and his fertility has always been second to none, he’s always been exceptional.
“He went back to America on Wednesday, his 36th flight and he’s thrived on it. He’s got 100 mares booked to him there and ideally we would have loved to have kept him here until he retired.
“He’s actually doing a bit better job in America than here at the moment, he had another Group 1 winner there recently, so they wanted him back.
“He’ll be standing at $100,000 (US$80,000) and there’s a waiting list over there for him.”
The Vinery team farewell their favourite stallion, More Than Ready
White said More Than Ready would be sadly missed, not only for all of his success but also for his character.
“He was a real favourite. He’s quite a quirky sort of horse and plenty of character about him.
"He’s in great health and looked magnificent.” - Adam White
“He has this habit of poking his tongue out and getting people to pull his tongue. Overall, he’s a good-natured horse and he’s in great health and looked magnificent.”
More Than Ready won seven of his 17 starts, including the G1 King’s Bishop S. at Saratoga before his retirement to take up stud duties in 2001.
Unique 2-year-old record
The only stallion to be crowned champion 2-year-old sire in both Hemispheres, More Than Ready has produced 12 Australasian Group 1 winners, including Golden Slipper winners Phelan Ready and Sebring, who has gone on to a highly successful career at stud.
Other flagship performers include the mighty mare More Joyous, who was successful eight times at the elite level, Samaready (Blue Diamond S., Moir S.), Prized Icon (VRC Derby, Champagne S.), More Than Sacred (New Zealand Oaks) and Perfectly Ready (Goodwood H.), who was a champion first season sire in New Zealand.
“He’s a great broodmare sire and a sire of sires with Perfectly Ready, Sebring’s doing a terrific job and Better Than Ready’s coming through now,” White said.
“Only last weekend there were three 2-year-old races and two winners were by Better Than Ready and the other was by Brazen Beau out of a More Than Ready mare.
“He’s always been renowned as a very good 2-year-old sire and he’s left Golden Slipper, Blue Diamond and Champagne S. winners and two Magic Millions winners.” – Adam White.
“He’s always been renowned as a very good 2-year-old sire and he’s left Golden Slipper, Blue Diamond and Champagne S. winners and two Magic Millions winners.
“He’s also proved very versatile with two VRC Derby winners, a Western Australian Derby, a Queensland Derby and a New Zealand Oaks winner.
“As well as that he’s had some great milers like More Joyous and a great sprinter like Roy H, who’s won the last two Breeders’ Cups.”
More Than Ready has sired a dozen Group 1 winners from his North American home, his star performer being the four-time top-flight hero Roy H while Rushing Fall, Catholic Boy, Verrazano and Room Service each enjoyed multiple successes at the elite level.
“He was a real favourite at Vinery. He’s quite a quirky sort of horse and plenty of character about him. " - Adam White
Outstanding career
To date, More Than Ready has produced 719 Australian winners, 68 at stakes level, of nearly $78 million, while globally his tally is 1747 winners, including 190 individual stakes winners, in a remarkable 35 countries and world-wide earnings over $211 million.
His strike rate of winners to runners is a massive 73.4 per cent and eight percent stakes winners to runners.
“We’ve seen many, many, many stallions shuttle to Australia and New Zealand over the last 30 years and none have reached the heights that he has,” White said.
“He’s left more winners than any other stallion, I think Danehill is a 100 or so behind him. He’s currently fifth on the all-time list of stakes winners behind Sadler’s Wells, Galileo, Danzig and Danehill.
“It’s a bit sad that he won’t be coming back, but we’ve been lucky to have had him for these last 18 seasons.”
