With this years harness racing season moving into its eighth month, we thought it a good time to look at any trends in the sires charts in Australia.
A quick look told us the overall sires list is little changed from the last few seasons with the same four sires once again holding sway.
The leader once again is the champion sire in Bettor's Delight who holds an $800,000 lead over his arch rival Art Major with over a $2,000,000 gap back to Christian Cullen in third and another $500,000 back to Mach Three in fourth.
These four sires have been the leading quartet for a few years now and nothing has materialized in the last few seasons to suggest that is going to change any time soon.
When you go to the three year old sires list the roles are reversed with Art Major holding a $150,000 lead over Bettors Delight with Sportswriter another $200,000 back in third with Somebeachsomewhere making up the top four another $80,000 back.
With the leading two three year old sires in Art Major and Bettor's Delight having plenty of classic runners to represent them in the latter part of the season, the battle for three year old supremacy looks likely to be decided between these two champion sires.
When you go to the two year old sires list, Art Major is once again at the head of the class followed closely by Courage Under Fire and then Rock N Roll Heaven and Rocknroll Hanover.
The first season sire Rock N Roll Heaven has started to replicate his North American siring performance with five of his seven winners being fillies and he should get a further boost on that front when the Mark Purdon and Natalie Rasmussen trained filly MacKenzie lines up in the APG heat at Menangle on Saturday night.
Courage Under Fire has always had the ability to throw up that outstanding youngster and he looks to have another ready made star in Don't Hold Back whose effortless win in a stunning 1:53.7 at Melton was the star turn amongst the juveniles so far this season in our opinion.
As has been noted several times before, three of the four leading overall sires on the Australian sires list are based in New Zealand.
It is to be hoped that one or two of the newer sires available to breeders that are based in Australia can come through in the next couple of years to challenge the Kiwi domination.
Harnesslink Media