By Daithi Harvey
New Zealand's champion sire Savabeel (Aus) (Zabeel {NZ}) has scooped all three 2016-17 stallion accolades for the second year running. The Waikato Stud stallion has won the Grosvenor Award for New Zealand stakes earnings, the Dewar Stallion Trophy for Australasian earnings and the Centaine Award for global earnings. He is the second Waikato stallion to achieve such a feat following O'Reilly (NZ)'s domination of the same categories in 2013 and 2014. “It's sensational, obviously,” said a jubilant Mark Chittick of Waikato Stud. “The two big things for us were the number of stakes winners – 19, which was massive – and across multiple countries, and the other thing with those stakes winners was the range of ages and distances. He got stakes winners from two right through to eight-year-olds.” Savabeel, who has been represented this season by the likes of three-time Group 1 winner Kawi (NZ) will be honoured for his success at the New Zealand Thoroughbred Horse of the Year Awards Sept.10 and the stallion is currently being prepared for another busy upcoming breeding season. “We're restricting his book to 150 mares and we're pretty staunch on that. His book has been full for a couple of months and we've got a great syndicate of breeders right behind him,” Chittick added.
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