O’Reilly Joins Elite 50 Club

2 October 2011

Outstanding Waikato Stud stallion O’Reilly reached a notable milestone on Sunday when his son Collar claimed the Listed Doncaster Stakes (1400m) at Flemington.

Collar’s win represented O’Reilly’s 50th black-type winner, thereby elevating the sire’s place amongst just 10 other New Zealand-based stallions in history who have joined the elite ‘Half-Century Stakes Winners Club’ (see table below).

“We are extremely proud of what he’s achieved at this early stage,” said Waikato Stud’s General Manager, Mark Chittick.

“The thing about him is he is such an all-round stallion. He gets 2YO’s, 3YO’s, fillies, colts and his daughters are also putting their hands up as broodmares too.”

A consistent producer of topline gallopers, O’Reilly currently counts the 11 Gr.1 stars Shamrocker, Alamosa, The Jewel, Final Destination, Maco’Reilly, Guyno, Swick, Master O’Reilly, Fellowship, Arenti and Lim’s Objective.

The son of Last Tycoon and Courtza has twice been awarded Hong Kong’s Champion sire and in New Zealand, breeding accolades include Champion General Sire, Champion Sire for Global Earnings, and Champion Sire of 3YO’s (twice).

O’Reilly’s most recent stakes graduate Collar has now won two of his three starts for high-profile Melbourne owner Lloyd Williams and could well add to the sire’s record of classic excellence with his intended start in the Gr.1 Victoria Derby.

RANK	SIRE	STAKES WINNERS
1	ZABEEL (NZ) 1986	137
2	SIR TRISTRAM (IRE) 1971	130
3	NOBLE BIJOU (USA) 1971	65
4	ZAMAZAAN (FR) 1965	64
5	CENTAINE (AUS) 1980	61
6	STAR WAY (GB) 1977	60
7	SUMMERTIME (GB) 1946	59
8	VOLKSRAAD (GB) 1988	57
9	LE FILOU (FR) 1946	56
10	GROSVENOR (NZ) 1979	54
11	O’REILLY (NZ) 1993	50

The Corner with Garry Chittick

I keep on proposing my retirement from the burden of a weekly Corner. I make the excuse it is hard to be credible, hard to let the two of you know about anything in our sport that hasn’t been covered before.

27 October 2025

WS-bred On The Lash scores at Sha Tin

Twenty-four hours following the final WS Cox Plate meeting run on the Moonee Valley track of old before it shuts for two years to make way for a new precinct, the race’s 2004 winner, Savabeel, continued his roll of runners, and this time it was via five-year-old On The Lash (ex Candelabra) at Sha Tin.