I glanced through the Coolmore newsletter today, absorbed the usual Spin, ducked around the multitudes of adjectives and arrived at the final list of stallions for 2005. Something wasn't right.

I read it again. Sure enough - there it was, half way down the second column (after a column and a half had been spent, ironically perhaps, waxing lyrical about the achievements of the stallion in question's offspring). It was, oddly, an almost throwaway line. But it would be one that would undoubtedly bring a chill to many who would have been watching the European results and thanking their lucky stars that they had a mare booked into the stallion for 2005.

Giant's Causeway isn't shuttling to Australia this season. You'll have to settle for one of his G1 winning sons.

Hang on - WHAT??

"Every cloud, so the saying goes, has a silver lining. And although Giant's Causeway himself will not now be returning to Jerrys Plains for this coming breeding season, the good news is that son Footstepsinthesand will."

There are 2 schools of thoughts circulating in the media about the sudden change on plans for the stallion who is taking all before him on the European scene: the first is that the stallion's services in the US (at 3 times his Australian fee) have been in such demand that the Stud wish to rest him. The other theory relates to a rather crippling insurance sum of $200m which makes shuttling the horse a non-starter (the question then being whether we are likely to ever see him in the Southern Hemisphere again?)

Coolmore is already resting Montjeu (who was due to shuttle to NZ) this season; to add Giant's Causeways name to that list is a real blow for the Australian breeding industry.