Boom stallion Too Darn Hot, a dominant force in his first season in Europe who has also made an immediate impact at the highest level in the Southern Hemisphere, will return to Australia in 2024.
Darley has confirmed exclusively to ANZ Bloodstock News that the marquee stallion, the sire of Champagne Stakes (G1)-winning 2-year-old colt Broadsiding, would be a pivotal horse on the Kelvinside roster. As a result, Darley has decided to significantly increase the son of Dubawi's Australian fee to AU$110,000 (US$71,000), more than double his fee of AU$44,000, which he stood for in his first four seasons in the Hunter Valley.
Sheikh Mohammed's international breeding operation will also introduce two new shuttle stallions to the Australian market later this year, with Native Trail (by Oasis Dream, AU$27,500), an unbeaten dual group 1-winning juvenile, and Frankel's group 1-winning son Triple Time (AU$22,000) due to stand Down Under alongside Too Darn Hot in the Hunter Valley in 2024.
The release of the dual-state Darley stallion roster, which is without the now-pensioned champion Exceed And Excel for the first time in two decades, also reveals:
- Australian Horse of the Year Anamoe (by Street Boss) will remain at an unchanged AU$121,000 in his second season based at Kelvinside in the Hunter Valley.
- The 2022 Caulfield Guineas (G1) winner Golden Mile (Astern) will join the Victorian roster at Northwood Park at a fee of AU$16,500.
- Cylinder (by Exceed And Excel), winner of last month's Newmarket Handicap (G1), will stand for a first season fee of AU$44,000.
- Harry Angel (Dark Angel) has earned another small fee increase to AU$38,500 in 2024.
- Last year's champion European first-season sire Blue Point (Shamardal) will return to Victoria at an unchanged fee of AU$44,000.
Too Darn Hot, whose second crop Australian-bred yearlings sold up to $1.9 million this year, is the sire of eight first-crop Southern Hemisphere winners, five of which are stakes performers headed by the Godolphin homebred Broadsiding.
Too Darn Hot is also the sire of five Northern Hemisphere first-crop stakes winners, including the Karl Burke-trained Moyglare Stud Stakes (G1, 7f)-winning filly Fallen Angel, victorious in three of her four starts last season and the all-in favorite for next month's One Thousand Guineas (G1) at Newmarket.
Too Darn Hot has 94 Southern Hemisphere-bred yearlings on the ground, 87 weanlings, two more live foals than his first crop 2-year-olds, and he covered 121 mares at Kelvinside last year.
Darley Australia's head of stallions, Alastair Pulford, was thrilled that the Godolphin in Europe and Watership Down had agreed to continue to shuttle Too Darn Hot to Australia.
"He looks like a superb stallion, he's started off extremely well in the Northern Hemisphere and he's following that up here (in Australia)," Pulford said. "He's done it a little bit quicker here than he did up north and that's probably a function of the Australian broodmare band, but certainly they're showing enough speed and, as he demonstrated on Saturday with Broadsiding, once they get over a bit of a trip, they're going to be a real force to be reckoned with."
