Darley will shuttle Lonhro, top Australian sire, to U.S.

Darley will shuttle the leading Australian sire, Lonhro, to the United States for the 2012 Northern Hemisphere season. An 11-time Group 1 winner, he will stand at Darley's Jonabell Farm in Lexington, Ky., but Darley has yet to set his American fee. His most recent Australian stud fee was $88,000 Australian, about $85,000 in U.S. funds.

Lonhro became the first Australian Horse of the Year since Vain in 1970 to go on and become Australia's leading sire. A 12-year-old son of 1996 Australian Triple Crown winner Octagonal, Lonhro earned Horse of the Year honors in 2004, when he also was Australia's champion miler.
His Group 1 wins came at age 3 and up, but he also won a pair of Group 2 contests as a juvenile. He won 25 stakes, all group events, in a racing career that made him a legend of the Australian turf.

Lonhro's Group 1 winners this year were Beaded and Benfica, and he also is the sire of Group 1 victor Denman. During the 2010-2011 racing season, Lonhro sired 129 winners who earned more than $8.7 million Australian, or $8.3 million U.S.

Lonhro is out of the Straight Strike mare Shadea, a Group 1-placed and Group 3 winner who also produced Lonhro's Group 1-winning full brother Niello, who died earlier this year, and stakes-winning full sister Shannara.

Darley's bloodstock manager, John Ferguson, called Lonhro's success as a sire "meteoric" and said Lonhro "will bring to America the soundness and toughness for which Australian horses are known."