SAXON Warrior (Deep Impact) has sired just his second Group 1 winner since retiring to stud in 2019, and it can be argued that his record to date has not lived up to the huge expectations breeders had for him when he joined the stallion ranks at Coolmore. This explains why he is standing the 2026 season for €10,000, a third of what he went to stud at, and below his high of €35,000 in 2023.

That high came about thanks to the appearance of Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf winner Victoria Road among his first crop winners, and those first runners also included Gan Teorainn who was runner-up on Arc weekend in the Group 1 Prix Marcel Boussac. Though she was five lengths adrift of the winner, Gan Teorainn was beaten by the exceptional Blue Rose Cen who then went on to gain three further top-level successes.

Gain Teorainn never built on that performance, while Victoria Road also failed to cement his juvenile reputation and was gelded. Given the way that markets and breeders act, it is not a shock that Saxon Warrior has seen his fee fall, but there is one factor that should be evaluated by breeders who are considering using the sire this spring. In 2026, he will be represented by his biggest and best-bred crop of two-year-olds.

If they deliver, and 2025 yearlings by Saxon Warrior sold to a wide range of discerning buyers, the picture could be a whole lot rosier for anyone with stock by him at the sales this autumn and into the future. His current crop of juveniles includes siblings to three Group 1 winners, 27 pattern winners, 39 stakes winners and 87 blacktype performers.

Last year was a good one for Saxon Warrior, with eight group and stakes winners in Europe, and had a couple of results gone otherwise, with four crops having hit the track, he could have a few more Group/Grade 1 winners. His son Borna was beaten a neck in the Deutsches Derby, Lumiere Rock was beaten just over a length in the Prix de l’Opera, and Sardinian Warrior was a length behind Sosie when runner-up in last year’s Prix d’Ispahan.

From his time shuttling, Saxon Warrior’s daughter Archaic Smile was second in the Group 1 Sistema Stakes, three-parts of a length behind the winner, while another daughter, Aethelflaed, was runner-up in the Group 1 Victoria Oaks at Flemington. Now, after the weekend, Saxon Warrior can finally add a second Group/Grade 1 scorer to his tally of 19 blacktype winners, as Sheza Alibi remains unbeaten in group race company after she beat the colts in the Randwick Guineas.

Growing reputation

Trained by Peter Moody and Katherine Coleman, the three-year-old Sheza Alibi is from the third of four crops in the southern hemisphere for Saxon Warrior. She enhanced her growing reputation as one of the best of her generation in Australia with a comprehensive win in the classic, and she is the first of her sex to beat the colts in the mile feature for some 14 years. Sheza Alibi beat the Group 1 Caulfield Guineas winner Autumn Boy by more than three lengths.

There was a very nice addition to the race result, as the successful jockey, Luke Nolen, for so long with Moody, was registering his 2,000th win. Such was her reputation heading into the classic that Sheza Alibi was sent off favourite. Runner-up at two to Autumn Boy in a listed race, since November 1st Sheza Alibi has won all her four starts, Flemington’s Group 3 Vanity Stakes, a pair of Group 2 races at Caulfield, including the Sandown Guineas, and now her first Group 1.

“She is just something special,” Katherine Coleman said. “She’s just got that X factor about her, and a real desire to win.” This success took Sheza Alibi’s race record to six wins and three places from nine starts, and earnings of just shy of A$1.3 million. Bred in Queensland by Fred and Desley Monsour, Sheza Alibi sold for A$10,000, or the equivalent of about €6,000, in June 2023 as a foal on Inglis Digital to owner Fred Noffke, a cattle farmer.

Cutting back

Though they had been breeding for a number of decades, Fred Mansour only put Sheza Alibi up for sale as he was cutting back due to old age, and at the 2025 July Inglis Digital Sale sold her dam, six-time winner Sheza Gypsy, a daughter of Shaft (Flying Spur), for a mere A$1,250. This was in spite of Sheza Alibi being stakes-placed, and her yearling son by Group 1 winner King’s Legacy (Redoute’s Choice) realising A$160,000 four months earlier.

Sheza Gypsy’s first two foals were unplaced, her third was not named, and Sheza Alibi is her fourth. She had not been covered for two years, so there were a number of things that were negatives too. While her pedigree was not outstanding, there was a lot to like about Sheza Gypsy. Her first three dams all, remarkably, produced 12 named foals, and all had seven winners.

Sheza Gypsy’s siblings are headed by the Listed Canberra Guineas winner Rom Baro (Time Thief). He was also a multiple winner in Hong Kong. Their dam Gypsy Mai (Our Maizcay) won five races up to a mile, was stakes-placed, and best of her siblings was Group 3 Gold Coast Guineas winner Beethog (Shovhog).

The Group 1 winner Sheza Alibi is the outstanding runner in the family, and much of this is surely down to her sire.