Mare Australis

Great Pretender will stand for €10,000 in 2026, Haras de la Hetraie announced via press release on Tuesday. Successful with his progeny on either side of the English Channel, the stallion will likely be standing his final season in 2026, according to the farm. All posted fees exclude VAT. Grade 1 stallion Nirvana Du Berlais will stand for €7,500 and already has a pair of Grade 1 winner in Lulamba and Leader Sport from his first crop of four-year-olds. Bathyrhon's fee remains unchanged at €6,000. He is among the top...

There are doubtless decisions still to be made and deals to be struck for this year's matings with many breeders taking to the roads since the start of this new year for both the official stallion trails and informal stud visits. For this last part in our series on value sires for 2025 it is worth restating that value is very much subjective and depends on a number of different factors, including whether the buyer of the nomination is breeding to race or to sell.  This final chapter, for stallions...

The historic silks of Gestut Schlenderhan have been flying high again in recent seasons and their resurgence will have totemic resonance for devotees of the Thoroughbred breed, particularly in Europe. In 2019, the stud, which is the oldest of its kind in Germany, celebrated its 150th anniversary. Since 1869, Schlenderhan has remained almost exclusively under the ownership of the same family, its current owner Baron Georg von Ullmann being the great great-grandson of the stud's founder Eduard von Oppenheim. It was in von Ullmann's own colours that the stud's great...