After six years of dominance, Menifee’s reign at the top of the Leading Sire in Korea list is over as Ecton Park wrested away his crown in 2018. Buoyed by the late season form of Triple Nine, the Isidore Farm stallion ended the year almost a Billion won in front of his KRA Stud Farm rival. 

See the full list: http://studbook.kra.co.kr/neweng/html/eng_sire_list2.jsp

Menifee finished in 2nd place and had the most individual winners at 56. Officer was in 3rd place ahead of Peace Rules and the late Sharp Humor. Hansen roared into the top 10 for the first time in 7th place and took the honours for most wins (72). Pegasus Stables’  Thunder Moccasin, with just two crops on the track, was the break-out star, finishing the year in tenth place on the list.

Another notable performance came from Nokwon Farm’s Testa Matta in 15th who like Thunder Moccasin, only debuted in 2017 and whose Chief-Earner was Korean Derby runner-up, Mask.

Five imported stallions had their first Korean crops make the track and Any Given Saturday took the Leading First Crop Sire title although with only a small number of runners, the performance of Japanese import Federalist was noteworthy.

As a racehorse, Ecton Park [Forty Niner – Daring Danzig (Danzig)] ran 12th in the 1999 Kentucky Derby, which was won by Charismatic. A certain Menifee was 2nd. That same year he went on to win the G2 Jim Dandy Stakes at Saratoga abd the G1 Super Derby at Louisiana Downs among a total of eleven top three finishes in Graded Stakes company.

Ecton Park  was imported to Korea in 2009. Even before his first Korean crop hit the ground, he had made an impact on Korean racing with his 2007 foal Mister Park, who was imported in-utero, scoring a record-breaking seventeen consecutive race victories between 2009 and 2011.  Even prior to that Summit Party (now a successful broodmare herself) had won five of eleven starts including the JRA Trophy and Segye Ilbo Cup, while another filly Miss Ecton, won the Busan Ilbo Cup in 2008.

He has been standing privately at Isidore Farm since arriving and has gradually become established – no easy thing to do when competing for mares with the KRA stallions. He finished 2nd in the Leading Sire race in 2015 and 2017 and 3rd in 2016. While Triple Nine has been his biggest earner, he also sired the precociously talented Indie Band, who won both President’s Cup and Grand Prix Stakes aged 3 in 2013 but had his career cut short six months later through injury.

In terms of the future, Ecton Park, who like Menifee is now 23, had relatively small books of 23 and 37 in 2017 and 2018, compared with Hansen at 92 and 96 across the same period and Thunder Moccasin 53 and 83. In 2020, the first Korean progeny of Colonel John, who covered 133 mares in 2017 and 108 last year, will hit the track. There will be new names at the top soon (although after a few years of slowing down, Menifee went back up to 132 in 2018).

As ever, there were losses in 2018. In the long term, Bob And John was intended to take over the mantle as Isidore Farm’s flagship sire but sadly he succombed to laminitis in December. Captain Coltish, Delago Brom and Cielo Gold were among other stallions who passed away in Korea in 2018.