Brutal, a New Zealand-bred son of O’Reilly, has been retired and will stand at Newgate Farm in Australia this spring.

A winner at two, the Team Hawkes-trained entire went on to win five of his 10 starts including last year’s Gr.1 Doncaster Mile (1600m).

The four-year-old was being set for Queensland Winter Carnival features using the Gr.1 Stradbroke Handicap (1400m) as a springboard to a possible start at Royal Ascot before Racing Queensland called off the carnival due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

"It's disappointing but that's the way the cookie crumbles," Henry Field, managing director of Newgate Farm said.

"The long-range plan was to bring him back and run him in Brisbane and Rupert (Legh, part-owner) had aspirations to go to Royal Ascot.

"If we could have envisaged this would have happened we would have got him ready for the All Aged Stakes (Gr.1, 1400m) but it wasn't to be. It's just a shame we couldn't knock off a few more Group One races before he went to stud."

Brutal was purchased by Hawkes Racing for $220,000 out of Mapperley Stud’s 2017 New Zealand Bloodstock Yearling Sale draft and is out of the stakes-placed Alberton Princess.