High Chaparral is the leading sire of stayers in our 3YO division this season and he’s far from finished at the Melbourne spring carnival.

High Chaparral shuttles from Coolmore Stud to Windsor Park in New Zealand and was fully booked this year.  He sired Monaco Consul to win the G1 Spring Champion Stakes at Randwick on October 4 and the Mike Moroney trained colt reprised that performance with another classic finish in the G1 Victoria Derby at Flemington.

High Chaparral colt So You Think had raised the bar in the W S Cox Plate on October 24 and trainer Bart Cummings has set him for the VRC Emirates Stakes on the last day of the Melbourne Cup carnival.

That would take his tally to 4 Group 1 triumphs in little more than a month.

Monaco Consul is raced by prominent owners Owen Glenn and Gerard Peterson’s GG Syndicate and was a $100,000 buy from the 2008 NZ Bloodstock Select yearling sale draft.  A Windsor Park Stud product through and through, he is one of three winners from six to race from Argante who is a Star Way half-sister to G1 Australian Guineas winner Military Plume.

High Chaparral retired to Coolmore Stud in Ireland where he joined his own sire Sadler’s Wells after winning the Breeders Cup Turf for the second time at Santa Anita in November 2003.

He had previously scored at Group 1 level in the 2001 Racing Post Trophy, 2002 Epsom Derby, 2002 Irish Derby, 2002 Breeders Cup Turf at Arlington and the 2003 Irish Champion Stakes at Leopardstown.

High Chaparral (Sadler´s Wells – Kasora by Darshaan) remains the only horse ever to win both the English Derby and Breeders’ Cup Turf races in the same season.  He won 10 of his 13 starts, 6 of them at G1 level.  His only defeats came on debut when runner-up at Punchestown and when he was third home in back-to-back Arc de Triomphes won by Marienbard and Dalakhani.

High Chaparral defeated stablemate Hawk Wing by two lengths at Epsom with subsequent Dubai World Cup winner Moon Ballad some 12 lengths away in third.   From there, High Chaparral went to The Curragh where he emulated Sadler’s Wells colts Montjeu and Galileo in the Irish Derby.

At the end of a long year, High Chaparral was shipped to the United States to contest the Breeders’ Cup Turf.  In winning the first of his two BC crowns, High Chaparral secured the prestigious Eclipse Award for Champion US Turf Male.

High Chaparral was as good as ever at four, defeating world-champion Falbrav in the Irish Champion Stakes before annexing a second Breeders’ Cup Turf when he dead-heated with Johar.

High Chaparral was accorded a ringing endorsement from Timeform with a rating of 132.  “He is very rare bird indeed – an Epsom Derby winner who actually maintained, or even enhanced, his reputation as a four-year-old.”

He retired to stud as the highest stakes earning son of Sadler’s Wells with prizemoney of US$5.39 million   His female line has been developed over several generations by the Aga Khan.  His dam Kasora is a half-sister to several stakes performers and is a daughter of Champion French 3YO filly, Kozana.  Third dam was the French 1000 Guineas winner Koblenza.

High Chaparral is a representative of the hugely successful cross of Sadler’s Wells with Darshaan mares which is an extension of Sadler’s Wells nick with Mill Reef line mares.

He is standing at a $17,500 service fee at Windsor Park this year.  That price will rise significantly if and when he returns to New Zealand in 2010.