AUSTRALIAN STANDARDBRED BREEDERS ASSOCIATION
Muscle M Up to stand fresh downunder
Muscle M Up winning at Meadowlands
The Muscle Hill horse Muscle M Up, the fastest trotter ever to stand stud in this country, will stand his first season at Goulburn Valley Equine Hospital, Shepparton this year. Fresh semen for the brilliant, young stallion will be available to breeders in both Australia and New Zealand.
His fee is $2,750 including GST in Australia and $3,000 in NZ.
The deal was clinched by prominent Brisbane breeder-owner Anthony Perkins, of Trump Bloodstock, with the stallion’s Swedish owners Knutsson Trotting AB, who have shuttled Centurion ATM and Sebastian K ‘down under’ in the past few years.
Muscle M Up, who had a record of 1:51.4, was a smart racehorse in his own right. From 41 starts he won 12 and was nine times placed for $US195,233 in stakes. He was not extensively raced as a juvenile, winning two of his three starts including a division of the Pennsylvania Sires Stake, while at three he took a record of 1:54.8.
Muscle M Up showed that he was up to the best horses of his time, winning in free-for-all company as a four-year-old when he took his mark of 1:51.4 in a $50,000 leg of the Graduate Series at The Meadowlands with the final quarter in a stunning 26.2.
After finishing second in another leg, he was race-timed in a sensational 1:50 racing against Atlanta, Manchego, Six Pack and co in the world record-breaking $250,000 Graduate Final.
Champion trainer Ake Svanstedt, who trained Muscle M Up, said: “He was a real racehorse. He had a very good heart.”
Muscle M Up, an imposing individual standing 16 hands, is one of the most stylishly bred horses at the stud in Australia.
Muscle Hill, the sire of Muscle M Up, has been America’s leading sire of trotters for the last five years with 210 in 1:55 and the winners of $73 million including four current world champions in Manchego (1:49), Mission Brief (1:50.4), Southwind Tyrion (1:51.1) and Southwind Frank (1:52.2)
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A champion trotter himself, with a record of 1:50.2, Muscle Hill was a world champion three-year-old; he won 20 of his 21 starts and he ran up a record tally of $2.45 million in a single year.
Muscle Hill has matched his greatness as a racehorse in the siring field, and now his sons are achieving distinctions of the same order.
Muscle M Up is out of a fine racemare in Fashion Athena 1:53.4 ($308,290), the dam also of the outstanding juvenile Millie’s Possession (1:51.2), the winner of S501,037 and runner-up in the Hambletonian Oaks. Fashion Athena was by a top sire in Broadway Hall (1:56.8), who represents the same sire line as that which gave Australasia one of its most successful sires in Majestic Son (1:52.4).
Fashion Athena, dam of Muscle M Up and Millie’s Possession, was out of a successful broodmare in Athena Hanover (1:57.6), by the Hambletonian winner Tagliablue (1:53.6) from Atavistic Hanover, by Pine Chip, sire of the Inter Dominion champion Sumthingaboutmaori.
Muscle M Up carries the blood of great sires such as Muscle Hill, Broadway Hall, Pine Chip, Balanced Image, Super Bowl and Speedy Crown.
Yankee Rockstar on the move to Goodtime Lodge.
The Rocknroll Hanover horse Yankee Rockstar (pictured below), who stood his last three seasons at the stud in the Goulburn Valley, is to stand this season at the Goodtime Lodge stud, of Ian and Judi Slater, near Colac.
Peak coming to Australia
Trotting stallion Peak has a new home, he’s off to Australia. The 14-year-old will go to Mountain View Stud near Ballarat in Victoria, after it was recently announced his lease would not be renewed at Alabar Farm where he’s been for the last six seasons.
The son of French super sire Ganymede, Peak won two from three starts in New Zealand (including the 2013 Group One NZ Trotting Free For All) after being brought out from Scandinavia by champion trainer Tim Butt.
He served 270 mares in NZ , and among his best-known progeny are Doff Your Cap and Invictus, who are both closing in on the $100,000 mark.