Record in sight for Snitzel

Prolific two-year-old sire Snitzel will have eight opportunities to claim a 40-year record by the end of the week.

The Arrowfield resident has sired 29 individual two-year-old winners this season – 28 domestic and one in South Africa named Heavenly Blue.

Snitzel is chasing a long-standing record held by former Lindsay Park stallion Without Fear, who sired 30 juvenile winners in the 1975-76 season and ended his career at stud with an astonishing 76.4 percent strike rate of winners to runners.

On Thursday at Sale, Snitzel has one maiden juvenile runner, while on Friday he will be represented by one at Geelong and another at Murray Bridge. Then on the weekend five of Snitzel’s progeny will start in races at Newcastle, Toowoomba, and Hawkesbury.

So between Thursday and Sunday, Snitzel has eight two-year-olds chasing their first win. And with another seven days left on the 2015-16 season, the son of Redoute’s Choice will have ample opportunity to equal or perhaps even better Without Fear’s tally.

However it must be said that Without Fear achieved his 30 winners from just 50 named foals while Snitzel’s current two-year-olds came from a bumper crop of 185 foals, his largest to date since retiring to stud in 2006.