Another consistent season for Ad Valorem

First published 25/07/2019

Resident Cangon Stud Farm stallion AD VALOREM (USA) proved to be just as prolific as ever during the 2018/19 domestic racing season now rapidly drawing to a close.

With just a handful of days left of competition, the evergreen sire-son of Danzig is already being accredited with no fewer than 44 individual winners from 86 starters — a ratio of better than 50% wnrs-to-strs — and over $1.8 million in progeny earnings.

At the time of writing, the high-class Tony McEvoy-trained runner Laurie Me In had banked the most seasonal earnings for the breed with $154,750, closely followed by the genuine black-type performer Morton’s Folk on $121,445.

Holding pride of place with most wins in the past 12 months is Irenic, a 7-year-old trained out of Goulburn by Mark Gee. His five wins for the season have come at Queanbeyan (2), Wagga (2) and his home track of Goulburn, giving the gelding a total of eight career wins ranging from 1400m to 3200m no less.

For the record, Ad Valorem is rapidly approaching 300 individual winners as a worldwide sire. His tally was sitting at 297 in the last week of 2018/19. Of this total, 191 winners have been registered in Australia.

Originally used on a dual hemisphere basis by Coolmore (Ireland) and the Woodlands empire of the Ingham brothers, Ad Valorem subsequently became a fixture in the Australian stallion ranks.

Illustrating the universal adaptability of the Ad Valorem breed is the fact that his progeny has now won in 30 thoroughbred racing countries of the world — a feat few stallions in the history of international thoroughbred breeding have been able to achieve.

Ad Valorem remains one of the last direct sire-sons of the breed shaping Danzig still available to local broodmare owners.  He again heads the Cangon Stud Farm stallion roster in 2019  at an advertised service fee of $4400 (inc GST).