Spirit Of Boom unchanged as Eureka announce 2025 fees
Queensland’s Eureka Stud has announced their stallion fees for the 2025 breeding season, headlined by Spirit Of Boom (Sequalo) who remains at an unchanged fee of $38,500 (all fees inc. GST) despite producing a ‘vintage crop of two-year-olds’ this season.
Set to stand his 11th season at stud in 2025, Spirit Of Boom has enjoyed fantastic results both on the track and in the sales ring, with yearlings selling for up to $575,000 and producing eight individual two-year-old winners and four juvenile stakes-placed horses so far this season.
Those four are headlined by Lindsay Park-trained colt Shining Smile (Spirit Of Boom), who is a four-time winner from six starts and a winner of his last three starts, all at Listed level, including an impressive 1.8-length win in the Blue Diamond Preview (Listed, 1000m) back in January.
“He’s had a phenomenal season, he keeps churning them out. He probably had a bit of a vintage crop of two-year-olds this year as well, which was great,” Harry McAlpine, nominations and bloodstock at Eureka, told ANZ Bloodstock News.
“He just keeps proving himself and keeps doing what he does the best, which is punching out plenty of stakes winners. He’s obviously been getting some great sales results as usual as well. We just thought with the market tightening up a bit, the fairest thing to do was to keep him the same so everyone keeps using him and keeps getting a good reward out of him, so hopefully we will keep being the breeders’ friend.”
With the Brisbane Winter Carnival about to kick off, McAlpine believes the best is yet to come for Spirit Of Boom this season.
“This year he’s had a really great crop of two-year-olds and obviously the winter carnival is just getting started, which is where he usually has his flurry of extra stakes horses. He has had a great season interstate, so now we’re looking forward to him finishing off the season strongly back on home ground.”
Standing for his second season at the Cambooya farm, Blue Diamond (Gr 1, 1200m) and Inglis Sires’ (Gr 1, 1400m) runner-up Don Corleone (Extreme Choice) is expected to be well supported again, after covering 133 mares in his maiden season, and retains his opening fee of $13,200.
“He was very well received,” McAlpine said.
“Obviously, his sire Extreme Choice is quite freakish, since last year he has produced a Blue Diamond and Melbourne Cup winner so he just keeps raising the bar if that’s even possible for what sort of a stallion he is. So it’s great to have a son of his, and a very good looking son that was unlucky not to win a Group 1.
“We have got a lot of faith in him, a lot of our own mares are in foal to him and I think he will cover another full book for sure. At that sort of money, he is great value.”
With his first foals to drop in the coming months, McAlpine is hoping Don Corleone’s progeny are in the mould of their attractive sire.
“It’s very exciting,” he said. “When you’ve got a good looking horse, you hope they’re going to look like him. Hopefully that is the case and we’ve not got much longer to wait.”
Rounding out the Eureka Stud roster for 2025 is Danehill Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m) winner and sire of four-time stakes winner Cifrado, Encryption (Lonhro), who will stand at a reduced fee of $9,900, down from $11,000 in 2024.
“He is ticking along well,” McAlpine said of the son of Lonhro (Octagonal). “He has two headline, million dollar earners in Cifrado and Encoder who are both aiming for Group 1s this winter carnival, so he is doing well. Obviously that end of the market has become a bit trickier this year, so the fee drop is reflective of the market and the sales.”
Eureka Stud’s 2025 fees (all fees plus GST)
2025 2024
Spirit Of Boom Unchanged $38,500
Don Corleone Unchanged $13,200
Encryption $9,900 $11,000