Zoustar on cusp of winners’ record

I Am Invincible is cantering towards a third-straight Australian Champion Sire award, with the Yarraman Park stallion’s progeny having amassed an Australian record $31,943,085, more than $8 million more than his nearest rival.

But that nearest rival is on the cusp of a record of his own with one week of the season remaining.

Zoustar is closing in on I Am Invincible’s record for most individual winners in a season of 208, which he set in 2020/21.

The Widden stallion became only the second Australian sire to crack 200 winners in a season earlier this month and he is up to 206 after two of his progeny registered their first wins for the racing year on Wednesday.

John Thompson-trained three-year-old Zouripper won at Canterbury, while Danny O’Brien’s Ithadtobezou was a winner at Sandown.

The only other time a stallion has had at least 200 individual winners in a season was last year, when I Am Invincible had 202 winners.

Zoustar’s career-best year comes on the back of his ascension to the equal most expensive in Australia with he, like I Am Invincible, to stand for $275,000 this season.

It has been a remarkable rise to prominence for the son of Northern Meteor and Suman Hedge, who selected the colt at the 2012 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale, is proud of what he has achieved regardless of whether he breaks the record or not.

“When he went to stud, the main thing from my point of view was, you just didn’t want him to be a bad stallion,” Hedge said.

“You see some of these really great horses that we’ve had over the years, when they don’t quite live up to the expectation at stud people get really negative on them and they forget about what an amazing horse they were.

“I was hopeful he wasn’t a bad stallion so people weren’t negative later on and the fact he’s turned out to be the stallion he is is quite pleasing.”

Zoustar has had four horses share in five Group 1 wins with Zougotcha the multiple success story.

Heading into Thursday’s meetings, Zoustar progeny have won 368 races in total, which is just five fewer than I Am Invincible.