Skyvalley (NZ)

Muscle Yankee (US) - Chiolas Lass (NZ)

"The Skies the Limit" with Skyvalley

1st August 2020 - By Peter Wharton

Skyvalley NZ, Australia’s leading colonial bred trotting sire and the sire of champion trotter Tornado Valley, will again stand at Aldebaran Park, Nagambie in the 2020/21 season at the unchanged fee of $2,000 including GST with discounts for multiple bookings.

Skyvalley NZ, who is in line for his best ever season as a sire, is ranked second on the All Aged sires’ stakemoney list with more than $765,000 (to July 22).

Skyvalley NZ has sired 32 individual winners in Australia and New Zealand this season including top trotters the calibre of Tornado Valley, Kyvalley Finn, My Skypocket, Fear Not and the talented three-year-old filly Pink Galahs.

Overall, he is sire of winners of more than $4 million including 12 $100,000 earners and four Group 1 and five Group 2 and 3 winners. In Australia he boasts a 67percent starters-to-winners ratio and in NZ, a 73 percent winners-to-starters ratio.

With his oldest crop currently eight-year-olds there is little doubt that the “skies the limit” for Skyvalley NZ.

Skyvalley NZ is unquestionably one of the best bred and best performed trotters ever to stand at stud in this country.

From 47 starts he won 24 and was 13 times placed for $322,675 in stakes. He won six races at Group level and was placed a further three times and established three national records.

A dual winner as a two-year-old, Skyvalley announced himself as the next big thing in Australian trotting when he trounced his rivals by 15 metres in the final of the $102,000 Breeders Crown for three-year-olds at Bendigo, rating a brilliant 1:59 for the 2150 metres - an all age Australian record.

Skyvalley NZ really came into his own as a four-year-old winning 14 races, the most by any standardbred in Australia that season. His wins included the 4YO Breeders Crown (by 32 metres), demolishing his opposition with Dan Mielicki describing it as the best win by any horse that season, drawing comparisons to the great Maori's Idol. He also won the Melton Trotters Cup on Tabcorp Park opening day beating the best open age free-for-allers over 2760 metres, running his last mile in 2:01, the Cobram Trotters Cup and several metropolitan Free-for-alls.

One of his memorable wins as a five-year-old was the Bill Collins Sprint over 1720 metres at Grand Cicuit level in a track record 1:56.4, beating Sundon’s Gift NZ, and wearing no shoes, such was his impeccable gait and manners. At the same age he won the Scotch Notch Memorial at Tabcorp Park and the Freestone Trotters Cup at Moonee Valley. He also finished third in the Inter Dominion Grand Final after an injury interrupted campaign.

Skyvalley NZ is a rare individual who took your breath away with some of his feats on the racetrack.

Skyvalley is a son of the former world No.1 sire in Muscles Yankee 1:52.4, now champion sire of sires and broodmare sire. Muscles Yankee has sired the winners of almost $100million in stakes and at this stage is credited with in excess of 139 on the 1:55 list. In the Southern Hemisphere Muscles Yankee USA is best represented by 2011 and 2012 Inter Dominion Champion I Can Doosit NZ.

Not only is Skyvalley NZ a son of Muscles Yankee, but on his distaff side he can claim equal distinctions. He is a half-brother to a champion trotting mare in Allegro Agitato NZ Tr 1:57.8 ($529,854), a multiple winner at Group 1 level in New Zealand and Australia and herself being sired by Sundon USA, proving that crossing with Sundon USA mares will undoubtedly work.

Their dam, Chiola's Lass NZ Tr 2:04 ($157,779), was one of the leading daughters of a champion trotting sire in Chiola Hanover USA. She won 10 of her 17 starts including the Victoria Oaks, NZ Great Northern Derby and The Holmfield and was voted the NZ Trotter of the Year at 2 and 3.