At Darley stallion parades Reset was regularly introduced as “the horse to get you to the big days”.
It was a claim the son of Zabeel, whose retirement from stud duties was announced this week, lived up to with commendable frequency during his service at Kelvinside, NSW, and for the past 13 years, at Northwood Park in Victoria.
Reset joined Darley’s Australian roster in 2004 at the conclusion of a racing career remarkable for both its success and its brevity.
Sporting the famous Lloyd Williams’ colours, Reset had his first race on Boxing Day, 2003 and his last two months later, retiring as the winner of each of his five starts, the final two in the G1 Australian Guineas at Flemington and the G1 Futurity Stakes at Caulfield.
Reset, whose dam is the multiple G1-winning mare Assertive Lass, served his first mares at the age of four and from his first crop produced the G1 Victoria Derby winner Rebel Raider, who also won the G1 South Australian Derby.
Rebel Raider was the first of five G1 winners sired by Reset to date, his others being the Caulfield Cup winner Fawkner, the Cox Plate winner Pinker Pinker, the Epsom Handicap winner Hauraki and the VRC Oaks winner Set Square.
At the time of his retirement, Reset had sired 33 individual Stakes winners among 442 winners.
Fawkner proved the best of Reset’s progeny, adding “big day” victories in G1 Caulfield Stakes and the G1 Makybe Diva Stakes to his Caulfield Cup win. He also won at Listed and G3 level and was second to Adelaide in the 2014 Cox Plate.
