Monday, 15 January 2018: Outstanding mare Viddora is the perfect advertisement for her sire I Am Invincible, fast becoming one of Australian breeding’s great success stories.

On Saturday at the Gold Coast Viddora  recorded her eighth career victory in the Magic Millions Snippets to push her earnings past $2 million, a tremendous return on the meagre $40,000 she cost her South Australian trainer Lloyd Kennewell at the 2014 Magic Millions Adelaide Yearling Sale.
Kennewell was one of the first to identify I Am Invincible as a potential topline sire and has been well rewarded by the progeny he secured from his early crops.
“I bought three or four in his second season and have kept buying them since,” Kennewell recalled.
“I’ve had his most individual runners and we had his first stakes placegetter as well.”
However Kennewell admits the days of securing I Am Invincible’s progeny at bargain prices are long gone, as his results in the Gold Coast sale ring this January have shown.
“It was awfully difficult to get them, I think they have been ridiculously overpriced,” Kennewell lamented. “I was underbidder on four. Everyone wants a piece of them now and they’re getting harder and harder to buy.”

Viddora wins the MM Snippets

When I Am Invincible started his stud career at Scone’s Yarraman Park Stud in 2012 his initial fee was a modest $10,000. His first yearlings offered in 2014 averaged less than $70,000.
Last spring his fee had risen to $110,000, making him one of the select few six-figure stallions standing in Australia. Despite the high fee he covered a massive book of 193 mares, including the champion mare Black Caviar.
His progeny were the hottest commodity at the Magic Millions sale last week, his 37 yearlings realising almost $18 million at an average of $478,649 including the sale topping $2 million colt purchased from the Yarraman Park draft by the syndicate of Reg Inglis, American buyer Jon Kelly and Paul Frampton.
They are results that more than justify his current service fee yet provide a massive return for the broodmare owners who supported him in 2015 when his fee was $50,000.
I Am Invincible is indeed a homegrown success story, being an Australian-bred son of former shuttle sire Invincible Spirit from Cannarelle, a daughter of the Golden Slipper winner and leading broodmare sire Canny Lad from a well-known Australian family that includes stakes-winners Mamzelle Pedrille, O’Lonhro, Madame Pedrille and M’Lady Pedrille
I Am Invincible was a brilliant sprinter winning five races at 1000m and 1100m including the G3 DC McKay Stakes and Listed Sir John Monash Stakes. He was also G1 placed behind Takeover Target in the Goodwood Handicap.
He was an immediate success at stud with his first 2YOs, claiming champion first season sire honours in 2013/14. His current progeny success rate is an excellent 42.9% runners/winners.

Invincibella beats Eckstein at the Gold Coast

Saturday’s Magic Millions meeting was a triumph for I Am Invincible, with his daughters Invincibella and Eckstein running the quinella in the Fillies & Mares to complement Viddora’s brilliant win in the Snippets. Last year he was represented by the Magic Millions Classic winner Houtzen.
I Am Invincible’s other Group and stakes stars include the G1 winner and sire Brazen Beau, I Am A Star, Illustrious Lad, Voodoo Lad, Super One, Invincible Star and Invincible Gem.
Viddora, winner of the G1 Winterbottom Stakes in Perth at her previous start, was bred from the city winer Snow Flight and sold by the Hodgson family's Riva Ridge Stud on the fringes of South Australia’s Barossa Valley.
Syndicator Denise Martin’s Star Thoroughbreds paid $185,000 to secure Invincibella  at the 2015 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale from the Sledmere Stud draft.
Stakes placed on five previous occasions, Invincibella adds another chapter to Martin’s great success at the Magic Millions meeting.
"I've won the two-year-old Magic Millions with Drieftontein, the Cup with Theseo, the Trophy with Kinnersley and it's lovely to tick this box as well," Martin said.