Paulele to Stand at Darley Victoria

Top sprinter Paulele will be retired to Darley's Victorian stallion operation this year, but not before he gets the chance to add to his group 1-winning record during the Queensland winter carnival.

Late yesterday, Godolphin announced that rising 5-year-old Paulele, this season's Winterbottom Stakes (G1) scorer, will stand for an introductory fee of AU$16,500 at Northwood Park near Seymour, Darley's first new stallion in Victoria for two seasons.

Trained by James Cummings and having won eight of his 22 starts and AU$2.4 million (US$1,695,387) in prize money, the sprinter will target the Doomben 10,000 (G1) and possibly the Kingsford-Smith Cup (G1) in Brisbane next month; races he was runner-up in last year, before heading to Victoria for stud duties.

Darley Australia's head of stallions Alastair Pulford was full of admiration for the powerful 16.1-hand stallion prospect.

"He is such a talented horse with form against all the best sprinters in the country really and he was a genuine group 1 horse who could run time," Pulford told ANZ Bloodstock News.

"We've had Astern and Bivouac win it in recent years and it does turn up a very good horse, and then at 3 when he won the Rosebud in the early spring we thought we had something really special on our hands because he ran superb time on that day and then followed that up a couple of runs later in the Roman Consul, again running fantastic time (1:08.59)."

A quarter-brother to group 3-winning juvenile Montsegur, herself the dam of this season's Skyline Stakes (G3) winner Corniche and a half brother to Canonbury Stakes (G3) winner Tessera, Paulele is out of four-time winning sprinting mare Chatoyant, a AU$450,000 Inglis Easter purchase in 2004.

Paulele's sire Dawn Approach  and his grandsire New Approach both shuttled to Australia.

While Paulele is Dawn Approach's best offspring from his five-year southern hemisphere stint, he is also the sire of the former Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott-trained sprinter Dawn Passage and four other southern hemisphere-bred stakes winners. New Approach sired nine Australian-bred stakes winners from four crops, including Australasian Oaks (G1) winner May's Dream.

Crucially, Godolphin had Paulele gene tested, which confirmed he carries the important CC speed gene, suggesting that he will have a higher propensity to sire sprinters.

"He is clearly the best son of Dawn Approach to have raced down here and Dawn Approach, despite not living up to the great expectations at stud, was a five-time group 1 winner himself and was a superb racehorse," Pulford said.

"This horse has probably inherited the best of his father's ability, and he's as good as his sire got in this part of the world, and that's a good thing. There's plenty of these high-class sprinters who make really good stallions."

A limited number of breeding rights will be offered by Godolphin in Paulele.