Widden Stud stallion and former shuttler Zoustar has been crowned Australia's champion sire for the first time. The son of Northern Meteor ended the Southern Hemisphere campaign with more than AU$26 million in progeny earnings, putting him more than AU$3.5 million clear of the runner-up, I Am Invincible.
He ended the season with 15 stakes-winning sons and daughters to his name, including group 1 winners Joliestar and Schwarz. That pair are among 11 top-flight winners sired by Zoustar, with that elite group heading a list of 124 stakes performers.
The maiden championship was not only toasted in the Hunter Valley but in Gloucestershire too, where Zoustar spent six seasons at David Redvers' Tweenhills Stud.
"We've been involved with him since the beginning, and we brought him up to Europe, where he sired three group 1 winners, so he proved he could do it up here too," said Redvers, Qatar Racing's racing manager.
"He's the true-blue Australian though. There's a couple of exciting shuttlers being brought down to the Southern Hemisphere but, when it comes to a horse proven in Australian conditions, there's nobody going to touch him for the next three to five years. He continues to go from strength to strength and there's really no reason to think he can't remain at the pinnacle for many years to come. Hopefully that's a great opportunity for us all to make hay."
The upcoming Southern Hemisphere season is set to be Zoustar's second at a career-high fee of AU$275,000 (approx. US$175,000). That figure is in stark contrast to the sums Zoustar commanded in Britain, where his fee peaked at £30,000 in 2023 and 2020.
Zoustar ceased his shuttle career after the 2023 Northern Hemisphere season. Although he has not hit the same lofty heights he has reached down under, Redvers suggested there are mitigating circumstances, and also highlighted the top-level triumphs of King of Gosford (Shoemaker MileStakes, G1T), Lezoo (2022 Cheveley Park Stakes, G1), and Starlust (2024 Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint, G1T).
"The big issue is the difference between his Northern Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere fees," Redvers said. "The quality of mares he gets in Australasia compared to the quality he was getting up here, at basically a quarter of his fee, was always going to be a problem, unless he hit the ground running in a major fashion. He sired three group 1 winners up here, which is no mean feat and is basically a group 1 winner a year, so he's done unbelievably well."
Redvers also believes there are important physiological factors at play, too.
"Australian horses are a different make and model, and that the way horses are trained in both places is different as well," Redvers said. "Australian racetracks are perfectly flat. The Zoustars are horses with massive muscle, with huge hips and big shoulders. You could argue that some of them don't handle undulations as well as others.
"If you look at his group 1 winners sired here, with the exception of Ralph Beckett's filly (Lezoo), they won in America, where the tracks are flat, and then (Temple Stakes winner) Mgheera proved perfectly suited by Haydock. They love a flat and fast surface."
Although Redvers said the balance between risk and reward, as well as a hefty insurance bill, means Zoustar is unlikely to return to British shores, he believes his final European-bred yearling crop will help keep their sire's name in lights on both sides of the globe.
"His story isn't finished up here, for sure," he said. "He's got his best bunch of yearlings this year and we're taking some to the sales that would be among the best we've bred on the farm. I'm really looking forward to seeing them progressing to the highest level on the track. And if there's a horse to back in the Nunthorpe it would be Mgheera, in my mind anyway. Zoustar is a long way from finished here."
