Savabeel strikes a chord for all the right reasons
Dennis Ryan - Raceform • December 11th, 2025 12:41 PM • 5 min read
Good stallions come and go, however in the case of multiple champion Savabeel, it’s almost as if he’s been around forever.
That could well be the case in the mind of Cambridge trainer Stephen Marsh, who spoke for everyone after his mighty mare Provence notched her third Group One victory in Saturday’s TAB Mufhasa Classic at Trentham.
“Savabeels just keep getting better and better,” Marsh said. “Once they hit form and know how to win, they are bloody hard to beat. We need more of them.”
Drawing a parallel between Marsh and Savabeel, the fact is that the former’s training career began in 2002 when the latter was a yearling. In the years since, Savabeel progeny that Marsh has trained include 2010 filly Lucia Valentina, who was a Group Three winner before being transferred to Australia and winning three times at Group One, and 2017 filly Atishu, who won a Listed stakes double in his care before she also became a triple Group One winner in Australia.
Now Marsh is enjoying the full benefit of Savabeel’s current star, the Tony Rider-bred and owned Provence, who last season won the Gr.1 Thorndon Mile and New Zealand Thoroughbred Breeders’ Stakes before completing an elite treble with her nail-biting win at Trentham on Saturday.
A wider view of Savabeel’s record reveals incredible statistics that adequately describe the veteran of the Waikato Stud roster as the gift that keeps giving.
As of the start of this week, Arion Pedigrees credited Savabeel with 1,408 starters, of which 1,031 have between them won 3,278 races. The crucial statistics are his number of stakes winners at 154, his 101 Group winners and 35 of those at Group One.
During the last two decades of the 20th Century, Savabeel’s grandsire Sir Tristram set a new standard as one of the New Zealand thoroughbred’s true breed-shapers. His 130 individual stakes winners included 82 at Group level, and 45 of those at Group One.
Then along came his heir apparent at Cambridge Stud, Zabeel, who raised the bar yet again heading into the new millennium. By the time his final progeny had retired several years ago, he had sired 1,112 winners of 3,824 races from his total of 1,525 starters.
At the pointy end of that performance, 166 were stakes winners, including 113 Group winners, and in a remarkable segue, he bettered his own legendary sire with 46 individual Group One winners. Sir Tristram’s 45 Group One winners accumulated 72 races at that level, while Zabeel’s comparative figures were 46 and 93.
So to the third-generation star of this remarkable dynasty. Savabeel still has some way to go to match his sire or grandsire on the same metrics – currently standing at 35 winners of 61 Group One races – but there’s no denying the fantastic job he has done to date, and of course there’s yet more to come.
When he retired to stud as a four-year-old in 2005, Savabeel covered 128 mares at a fee of $35,000 plus GST. His numbers remained stable for the next few years until a dip to 85 mares in 2010 when murmurings about his true worth were doing the rounds on racing’s rumour mill.
The tide quickly turned, however, as his progeny found their mojo, to the point that Savabeel’s 2011 book more than doubled to 190, which remains his largest ever. The annual figure remained above 150 until 2020, when the rising 20-year-old’s management team deferred to his advancing years and pulled back on his numbers. Last year he covered 90 mares and his latest figures for the current covering season stand at 63.
“He’s 24 but he still looks incredible, his overall health and fitness levels are excellent and he’s still serving very well,” Waikato Stud principal Mark Chittick told RaceForm on Monday. “Even so, there’s no doubt it’s not as easy as it used to be to stop them now – we’re close to 30 mares in foal.
“We’ve been doing our best to look after the interests of his shareholders, but getting one in foal to him is a bonus now. Next year is a long way off, so we’ll just get this breeding season done and see where things stand after that.”
While understandably cautious with any predictions around the living legend – and the only stallion to be inducted to the New Zealand Racing Hall of Fame while still active – Chittick doesn’t hide his admiration for Waikato’s best-ever stallion.
“He just keeps leaving winners of all sorts of races and it was great to see Provence get her third Group One win on the weekend. Tony Rider has been one of his biggest supporters and it’s very satisfying to see him rewarded.
“To have got to 35 individual Group One winners says so much about Savabeel as a stallion, but whether he can top Zabeel we’ll have to wait and see. Another 10 or more (Group One winners) might be a tall order, but with 154 stakes winners (versus Zabeel’s 166) he could be in with a shot to get 13 more and top him.
“There are still a few more crops by him to come through, so it’s not out of the question – wouldn’t that be something?
“We’ve got another bunch of Aussie trainers and their clients here today to inspect our yearlings and I expect they’ll all have eyes for the Savabeels in the draft.”
Having made his National Yearling Sale debut in 2008 and becoming a standard-bearer for the annual auction, 18 years later Savabeel’s 35-strong entry for Karaka 2026 will again be a linchpin in the landmark centenary sale.
Along with his raft of first-generation premiership titles, Savabeel is now fashioning a broodmare siring record, very much in the tradition of Waikato Stud forbears Centaine, O’Reilly and Pins.
The Karaka filly record was smashed by the $2.4 million sister to Savabeel’s star daughter Orchestral that went through the ring last January. With that still fresh in mind, the 11 Savabeel fillies catalogued for Karaka 2026 are bound to draw the attention of investors, plus a selection of colts that
include brothers to Gr.1 New Zealand 2000 Guineas winner Savaglee and the newest addition to Savabeel’s list of stakes winners, Gr.3 Wellington Stakes winner Ammirati.
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