Record touchdown for More Than Ready

More Than Ready (USA) has landed in Australia for a record-breaking 16th shuttle to Vinery Stud.

The champion dual-hemisphere sire hasn’t missed a flight to the Hunter Valley since retiring to Vinery Kentucky in 2001.  He touched down and entered quarantine on Tuesday morning after a couple of delays en route in Chicago and Honolulu.

More Than Ready’s coming southern season will make it a combined 32 books and that puts him well in front of other luminaries like Royal Academy (28), Danehill (27) and Danehill Dancer (25).

His longevity as a shuttler goes back to the year Ha Ha won the Golden Slipper and his versatility was evident once again in 2015-16 with Group 1 winners Perfect Persuasion, Prized Icon and Eagle Way.

Perfect Persuasion became the first 3yo filly to claim the G1 Kingston Town Classic at weight-for-age in Perth.  His 2yo colt Prized Icon captured the G1 Champagne Stakes at Randwick and his 3yo stayer Eagle Way won the G1 Queensland Derby clinching a future career in Hong Kong.

No other sire has been represented by more than 3 Group 1 winners in Australia this season.

And no other stallion has a global reputation to match More Than Ready in the juvenile division being the only stallion to be crowned Champion 2YO Sire in both the USA and Australia.  There have been 61 stakes winners in that age-group with his English based colt Mokarris (USA) landing the latest in the LR Rose Bowl Stakes (1200m) at Newbury on July 15.

Golden Slipper winner Sebring launched More Than Ready as a sire of sires getting Australian Horse of the Year Dissident in his first crop and his G1 Queen’s Plate winner Gimmethegreenlight (Aus) will be crowned South Africa’s champion freshman with 14 winners of R1.18 million this season.

Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner Pluck (USA) is also off to a great start at stud standing alongside his sire at Vinery.  Pluck has sired 8 individual juvenile winners in three countries and no other first-season stallion has sired more (Aus) winners in 2015-16.

“We sometimes take it for granted what More Than Ready has done for the industry,” Vinery’s general manager Peter Orton said.  “He has sired Golden Slipper, Blue Diamond and Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winners but he’s more than a two-year-old old stallion producing Derby and Oaks winners throughout Australasia.  He also offers a unique outcross for all the Danzig blood in Australia.”

More Than Ready’s fertility and virility are just as potent as when he first retired.  He commands a $66,000 (inc gst) fee at Vinery and Pluck stands for $9,900 (inc gst).

More Than Ready shuttle flight