Savabeel: 2001—2026

It is with a heavy heart that Waikato Stud announces the passing of Savabeel, one of the greatest contributors to the Australasian racing and breeding industries.

They say the outside of a horse is good for the inside of a man. From the moment Savabeel entered our gates in 2005 having won the Gr.1 WS Cox Plate in 2004 as a three-year-old, we knew exactly what that meant. For the Chittick family, who guided his stud career across 21 remarkable years, those words rang truer with every passing season.

“What more can you say about a stallion who has achieved so much?” said Waikato Stud principal Mark Chittick following Savabeel’s induction into the NZ Racing Hall of Fame. “What he’s done as a racehorse, as a sire, is incredible and now what he’s doing as a broodmare sire, that legacy will continue on for a long, long time and we are incredibly proud of Sav.”

A son of Zabeel from the tenth crop of that great sire, Savabeel was bred by Graeme Rogerson in partnership with Glenlogan Park and offered by Baramul Stud. Out of Savannah Success, a mare Rogerson also trained, she became a Group 1 winner of the New Zealand Oaks and Australia Stakes. Rogerson sold the mare with Savabeel as a foal at foot, only to spot something he couldn’t walk away from and buy him back as a yearling at the 2003 Magic Millions Sale for A$400,000.

On the track, that instinct was rewarded handsomely. Savabeel won the Cox Plate and Spring Champion Stakes, and placed at elite level in the Victoria Derby, C F Orr Stakes and Champagne Stakes.

His path to Waikato Stud had its own element of fortune. A late-afternoon phone call, a dinner party at a rival stud, some quick arithmetic on share prices – and within 24 hours, Mark Chittick had syndicated a $10 million stallion, a record for New Zealand at the time. The terms were equally groundbreaking: shareholders received a lifetime right to two services per year, a first for the industry.

It was Queen Sabeel who delivered his first stakes winner and Scarlett Lady gave him his first Group 1 winner. Then, it was Sangster who won the VRC Derby, and in the space of 12 months his book grew from a career-low 85 mares to 190, and he never looked back.

What followed was a dynasty. Ten times crowned New Zealand’s Champion Sire, Savabeel sired 159 stakes winners and 36 individual Group 1 winners, those being: Kawi, Probabeel, Atishu, Lucia Valentina, Sangster, Provence, Soriano, Scarlett Lady, Orchestral, Savvy Coup, Shillelagh, I Wish I Win, Mo’unga, Costume, Savaglee, Concert Hall, Amarelinha, Prise de Fer, The Chosen One, Diademe, Sword of Osman, Savy Yong Blonk, Nicoletta, Brambles, Belle Cheval, Savaria, Pasadena Girl, Hall of Fame – Dances with Dragon, Skew Wiff, Hasahalo, Noverre, Major Beel, Cool Aza Beel, Sound Proposition, Embellish and The Perfect Pink.

At 23 years of age, Savabeel was still setting records when Orchestral’s (Savabeel) sister became the most expensive filly ever sold at New Zealand Bloodstock’s Karaka Yearling Sale, securing $2.4 million at the 2025 edition of the sale, consigned by Haunui Farm for great friends of Waikato Stud in Colin and Helen Litt.

In May 2025, eleven years after Zabeel and seventeen after the legendary Sir Tristram, he was inducted into the NZ Racing Hall of Fame, the third pillar of a bloodline that shaped a nation’s breeding industry.

That same month, his daughter, the Waikato Stud-bred Atishu (ex Posy) secured A$2.7 million at the Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale.

As a broodmare sire, he has produced nine individual Group 1 winners and Savabeel leaves behind six sire sons at stud, all of whom have sired winners, including Waikato Stud’s Noverre who was purchased by Sir David Ellis and trained by Te Akau.

The tangerine team has been one of the biggest supporters and major beneficiaries of Savabeel’s success as a stallion, with Mark Walker training the sire’s three-year-old daughter Belle Cheval to win the Gr.1 Vinery Stud Stakes at Rosehill in March.

She is one of 11 horses by Savabeel to win Group 1s for Te Akau, headed by champion mare Probabeel who won four times at the elite level in the Cambridge Stud silks. 

“He’s a horse that has been beautifully managed by Garry and Mark Chittick, and our thoughts are certainly with the entire Chittick family and all the staff at Waikato Stud,” Te Akau’s Sir David Ellis said to The Straight.

“It’s come as quite a shock, because he’s always been such a well stallion and they’ve kept him fit.” 

“He’s been a freakishly good sire. Few would have thought you could have got another such good stallion as his father Zabeel and grandfather Sir Tristram, but he’s done them very proud and he’s really been the cornerstone of the New Zealand breeding industry for quite a while now.”

Savabeel’s influence is already woven into the next generation, and the one after that. Some legacies end, this one simply continues. Rest easy, old friend.