‘We wanted to focus on value and provide value to breeders in Australia and New Zealand’ – Coolmore set fees for 2025
Home Affairs (I Am Invincible) will remain unchanged, Pride Of Dubai (Street Cry) will receive a slight fee bump, So You Think (High Chaparral) and Pierro (Lonhro) have had their fees lowered and Private Life (Written Tycoon) will begin stud duties for $19,250 (inc GST).
And it’s farewell to Starspangledbanner (Choisir), Churchill (Galileo) and Yes Yes Yes (Rubick), while a new fee for Wootton Bassett (Iffraaj) is yet to be set.
Those were the main take-outs after Coolmore Stud on Sunday confirmed their 2025 roster, on which newcomers Switzerland (Snitzel) and City Of Troy (Justify) feature for previously announced fees of $60,500 (inc GST) and $49,500 (inc GST) respectively.
With his oldest progeny still yearlings, Home Affairs has come off a remarkable first year at the sales.
The dual Group 1-winning sprinter sired Australasia’s two most expensive yearlings of 2025, with his Japan-bound daughter of Sunlight (Zoustar) topping Magic Millions Gold Coast at $3.2 million, and his son out of Shout The Bar (Not A Single Doubt) grabbed top spot at Inglis Easter when selling to team Waterhouse-Bott and Kestrel Thoroughbreds for $3 million. Home Affairs’ 89 yearlings sold this year have averaged $331,000.
Such a perhaps unprecedented show of faith from buyers in a first-season sire could lead many a stud farm to consider an equally rare service fee rise for a stallion before his first runners hit the track.
Coolmore instead has left the rising seven-year-old unchanged, at $82,500 (inc GST), saying it was aware many smaller breeders were feeling the economic pinch at present.
Home Affairs covered 225 mares at that fee last year, after serving 189 in 2023 at $99,000 and 203 at his hefty starting figure of $110,000.
“We discussed putting Home Affairs’ fee up and pretty unanimously agreed that he earned the right for his fee to go up,” said Coolmore Australia’s marketing and nominations manager Tom Moore.
“But in terms of our roster as a whole this year, we wanted to focus on value and provide value to breeders in Australia and New Zealand.
“It is not lost on us that times are tough, not only for breeders but for the wider economy and we feel that leaving Home Affairs at the price he is offers great value.
“He’s been supported by quality mares all the way through and covered big books of mares. He had over $31 million worth of yearlings traded in the market this year which must be some sort of record for a first-season sire.
“We’ll get an opportunity to put his fee up in the future but we feel this is a year breeders can get behind him again and he can make a lot of people a lot of money.”
The underrated Pride Of Dubai has a strong chance to claim Australia’s general sires’ title, although second-placed Zoustar (Northern Meteor) has made significant ground in the past week. With 14 Saturdays left in the season, on Sunday morning Pride Of Dubai led Zoustar on the table by $621,701.
Regardless of the outcome, the 12-year-old Pride Of Dubai – sire of Bella Nipotina, Pride Of Jenni, Dubai Honour, et cetera – remains one of the best value stallions in Australasia, with his fees perhaps reflecting the fact he’s not known for producing head-turning yearlings.
Coolmore has acknowledged his stellar season with a price rise, though only from $22,000 to $27,500 (inc GST).
“He’s an extremely consistent sire and has been for some time now,” Moore said. “To be in the running for champion sire and standing for a fee of $27,500 is something quite rare.
“He’s extremely versatile, he’s capable of getting high-class performers over a wide range of distances and we believe his fee this season gives breeders the opportunity to capitalise.”
Such has been the 17-year-old Wootton Bassett’s popularity through four seasons of shuttling to Australia after Coolmore purchased him in Europe, he stood under fee-on-arrangement terms last spring as his first Australian-bred runners hit the tracks. He had served at $93,500 in 2023, and $71,500 in his first two years shuttling.
Hugely successful in Europe, the sire of 14 Group 1 winners worldwide, and a coveted target at Australian yearling sales again this year, Wootton Bassett sits second on the Australian first-season sires’ table and third on the two-year-old chart.
With five winners from 17 runners, he still awaits an Australian-bred stakes success, but has had five black type placegetters from his first southern crop including Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m) runner-up Wodeton.
While revealing fees for their other 12 stallions, Coolmore said Wootton Bassett’s 2025 price was yet to be confirmed.
“We’ve just come off the back of four months of yearling sales, and it seemed that every trainer in Australia wanted to buy a Wootton Bassett. Any trainer that has one in their yard has one that they believe has significant ability with great attitude,” Moore said.
“He’s got the highest-rated two-year-old colt in Australia in Wodeton, but he’s only had 17 starters here, so he has approximately 100 unraced two-year-olds.
“We believe the sky’s the limit for him down here. He’s obviously an incredible stallion in the northern hemisphere and continues to go from strength to strength there and it looks like he’s set to mirror that here, which is hugely exciting not only for Coolmore Australia, but for the Australian breeding industry as a whole.”
So You Think, who stood at a career-high $99,000 in 2023 and $77,000 last year, has had his fee slashed to $44,000 (inc GST). The 18-year-old was runner-up on the general sires’ table to I Am Invincible (Invincible Spirit) for two successive seasons in 2022 and 2023, and third last term, but sits 12th this season.
The 15-year-old Pierro, who finished in the low 20s on the general sires’ table in 2023 and 2024 and sits 33rd now, has had his fifth successive fee cut, taking him from $110,000 in 2021 to $33,000 (inc GST) for this year.
Private Life, who won last year’s Caulfield Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) and had three autumn runs for a fourth and a tenth at Group 1 level and a fourth at Group 2, will begin stud duties at $19,250.
“People are going to love him when they see him,” Moore said of the son of Written Tycoon (Iglesia). “There’s no doubt he’s up there with the best looking horses on our roster.
“Written Tycoon is a sire of sires. He’s doing a great job as highlighted by Ole Kirk, who’s started off phenomenally well with his first crop.
“Private Life is one of only three Group 1-winning colts by Written Tycoon so we believe that at that price he’s a great value option for breeders in his first season.
“Chris Waller thought the whole way along that he was a high-class racehorse. He was lightly raced but his win in the Guineas was no fluke where he beat Broadsiding and subsequent Group 1 winner Feroce. He was freshened after that to get within a length of Group 1-established sprinters like Sunshine In Paris [when fifth in the VRC Champions Sprint].”
Second-season sire Shinzo (Snitzel) and European shuttler St Mark’s Basilica (Siyouni) are unchanged at $55,000 (inc GST) and $38,500 (inc GST). King’s Legacy (Redoute’s Choice), with four winners and two stakes placegetters from 14 runners, drops from $22,000 to $16,500 (inc GST).
Acrobat (Fastnet Rock), whose first 29 yearlings sold have averaged $68,000 this year, drops from $13,750 to $11,000 (inc GST) for his fourth covering season, while Best Of Bordeaux (Snitzel) goes from $19,250 to $13,750 (inc GST) for his third.
Off the roster is the 18-year-old Starspangledbanner, who’s currently standing at Coolmore in Ireland, for €45,000 (approx. AU$80,110). The 18-year-old covered 74 mares at Jerry’s Plains for $44,000 last spring, but finished outside the top 50 sires in Australia for the past two seasons, and is currently 108th.
The long-time shuttler has sired eight Group 1 winners – seven from Europe and only one in Australia.
Everest (Gr 1, 1200m) winner Yes Yes Yes also departs Coolmore, after five springs and no stakes winners among 80 runners from his first two crops.
And Churchill appears to have stood in Australia for the last time after seven years of shuttling. From four crops running in this country, he has five black type victors from 146 runners, with Toorak Handicap (Gr 1, 1600m) winner Attrition one of his three Group 1 successes worldwide.
Moore said Coolmore had responded to feedback from across the breeding industry in setting its fees.
“We canvas the opinions of breeders, agents and industry participants all over the country,” he said.
“Over a number of weeks to get to these fees we had a focus on value but also we have a high-class roster full of quality. Almost one quarter of the Easter sale was represented by Coolmore stallions, which is more than any other farm, at one of the strongest Easter sales in living memory if not the strongest ever.
“But we are realistic, and we want to give our clients the opportunity to make a return on their investment and keep the wheels turning.
“While we do have stallions in all different price brackets, all the fees we landed on took a huge amount of thought and we were conscious of the market.”