This week on The Breed blog, Danny Power writes about how a Victorian farm rejected a chance to stand one of New Zealand's rising star stallions.

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BACK in 2004, during the Adelaide yearling sales, I sat down to dinner with a group of Victorian and NSW breeders and farm owners, one of which, a Victorian, was on the search for a new stallion.

Debate flowed about the merits of different horses that could come onto the market and the value of different sire lines on the Australian market.

It was concluded by two of the group, myself included, that the trend was swinging sharply in favour of Australian-bred stallions in contrast to northern hemisphere shuttle horses. More debate continued, as one of the diners represented a farm that stakes its existence on shuttle stallions.

Even that person was in support of the suggestion that Thorn Park (ch h 2001, Spinning World (USA)-Joy, by Bluebird (USA)) was the perfect fit for the Victorian stud owner. The subsequent Group 1 Stradbroke Handicap winner (a couple of months later) was on the market for a price I believe was close to seven figures.

Thorn Park, the stud owner was told, ticked most of his boxes - Australian bred, an outstanding looking horse, a brilliant 2YO who trained on to win at Group 1 level, possessed a tremendous female family (direct descendant of the great Denise's Joy) and he was by a sire line (by Spinning World, a son of Nureyev) that should nick with most bloodlines in Australia, and would be especially compatible with Danzig/Danehill  and Encosta De Lago/Fairy King mares.

The stud owner scoffed at the suggestion - "The day I stand a son of Spinning World is the day I give the game away," he said. The fellow wouldn't have a bar of any conclusion that Thorn Park, at the time a four-time Group 2 winner, was a commercial stallion prospect.

Needless to say Thorn Park was snapped up; not for an Australian stud, but for New Zealand. Since he retired in the spring of 2004, he has covered healthy numbers of commercial books of mares at Nelson Schick's Windsor Park Stud, Cambridge.

On Saturday, Thorn Park's exciting 2YO son Jimmy Choux (c 2007, ex-Cierzo, by Centaine), with all the good looks and talent of his sire, won the Group 2 Wakefield Stakes (1200m) at Trentham, running down Dubawi's Stakes-winning son Cellarmaster in a thrilling finishing; the pair streeted their rivals.

Thorn Park has now nine Stakes winners - his oldest progeny are only four, and include the VRC Derby Day winner Centennial Park - and he is one of the up-and-coming sires in New Zealand. Thorn Park has 36 yearlings catalogued for New Zealand Bloodstock's Karaka Yearling Sale (Premier and Select), which begins next week.

As for the Victoria farm owner - he spent his money in the northern hemisphere for no result and is now out of the stallion-standing game.