Fresh faces – The new sires set to shape Australian two-year-old racing this season
Bren O’Brien takes a comprehensive look at the stallions which will have their first runners at the track in Australia this racing season, a list highlighted by the multiple Group 1-winning trio The Autumn Sun, Trapeze Artist and Justify.

For many racing fans, The Autumn Sun’s track career was all too short. Nine starts for eight wins, five at Group 1 level, left many asking for more, but a shot at the G1 Queen Elizabeth Stakes, where his true greatness would have been tested, was aborted because of the considerable colossus of Chris Waller stablemate Winx in what was her racetrack farewell.
His career closed with a less-than-authoritative win in the Rosehill Guineas, about 40 minutes before Winx’s penultimate start in the George Ryder Stakes and three days before the death of his own sire Redoute’s Choice. Had the latter event not occurred, it may have been a different decision, but in the highly commercial world of breeding, the opportunity was taken to retire him for the 2019 stud season.
The upside of that is that in 2022/23, we get to see his first two-year-olds on the track, with considerable expectations of them given the quality of their sire and the quality of mares he was matched to in that first season. Of his first crop of 110 foals, seven are out of Group 1 winners, and a further eight are siblings to winners of Group 1 races.
The yearling market earlier this year assessed his first crop at the very top end, with an average of just over $300,000 across 76 yearlings. No first-season stallion in Australian history has grossed more in yearling sales.
An examination of The Autumn Sun in the flesh confirms what his pedigree would suggest. He is the perfect combination of Australian speed and European quality. The combination of the blood of his grandsires Danehill and Galileo has powered global racing success for much of the 21st century and you can see both influences in the young Arrowfield stallion.
Waller has 12 of The Autumn Sun’s first crop in his stable in what is an endorsement of what the man who knew him best thinks of his progeny. Eight of those already have names, including the colt Omelette, the son of Group 1 winner Egg Tart, and the filly Hemera, who is out of another Group 1 winner, Brazilian Pulse, and was purchased by Star Thoroughbreds.
The top-priced The Autumn Sun yearling, the colt out of Duchess Kate purchased for $950,000 at the Easter Yearling Sale, is in the Kris Lees stable, while Matt Laurie has a collection of three of his high-profile two-year-olds, two fillies, out of Champagne Run and Girl In Flight, and a colt, out of Gold Anthem, which cost a combined $1.6 million.
The burning question for now is whether his progeny will be up-and-going two-year-olds. The Autumn Sun was a Group One-winning two-year-old, but he didn’t debut until Anzac Day (April 25) and his elite victory came over 1600 metres. His profile as a racehorse in terms of maturity and distance would indicate he threw more to his Aga Khan-bred dam Azmiyna, an unraced daughter of Galileo.