Working overtime – The Australian-based stallions covering to northern hemisphere time

The days of Australia’s stallion barns opening on September 1 and closing on Christmas Eve are well in the past, with a study of “out-of-season” covers in the Australian Stud Book showing as many as 15 of Australia’s commercial sires active after New Year’s Day in 2025.

For the majority of those stallions, including the top two on the Australian sires table, Widden’s Zoustar and Coolmore’s Pride Of Dubai, this meant time in the covering shed in January, with both of those having a pair of matings apiece in that month.

Others active in January include Darley’s Anamoe, Widden’s Jacquinot and Dirty Work, Lyndhurst’s Better Than Ready, Coolmore’s King’s Legacy and Aquis’ Kobayashi and Officiating.

But for two of Yulong’s most important stallions, the job was not done until well into the autumn.

Alabama Express, whose first crop has produced the outstanding filly Treasurethe Moment, served 24 mares between February and May. That gave him 241 covers across both spring and autumn, which are technically part of the same breeding season, making him the busiest sire of the Australian season.

Yulong has made no secret of its plans to shake up racing and breeding globally and that includes sending Australian-based stallions to mares to get in foal to what is effectively northern hemisphere time.

Alabama Express covered 15 mares to this timeline in the autumn of 2024 and that plan was expanded this year, to produce horses for Asia and Europe, and not just Australia.

Among the mares which visited him this autumn was Place Du Carrousel, a €4.25 million purchase from the 2023 Arqana sales who was placed in a Ranvet Stakes behind Via Sistina on her Australian debut last year.

Having visited Alabama Express less than three weeks after her final run in March, Place Du Carrousel was then exported to Great Britain in late May. Also on that plane was Going Global, a US$2.5 million Yulong buy in 2022, who failed to flatter in three starts for Chris Waller.

She visited Alabama Express in February 2024, foaled a colt in January and returned to him in March. She and the colt, as well as another foal in utero, then departed for Great Britain.

All of those 24 mares covered by Alabama Express were owned by Yulong, including Steinem, a Group 2-winning daughter of Frankel, who was purchased for $800,000 last year, briefly returned to the track in April, and then visited Alabama Express in May.

Written Tycoon’s use as a post-season stallion operation has as much to do with managing his workload – he is rising 23 – as it does with international ambitions. His overall book of 76 across spring, summer and autumn is the lowest in his 18 seasons at stud.

He served 59 in the traditional spring window then another 18 from mid-February until early April. All of those 18 were Yulong-owned mares. Yulong employed similar plans in the autumn of 2024, with Written Tycoon visited by 12 mares  

The other Yulong sire to visit the stallion barn in the autumn was Japanese-bred Diatonic, who served four additional mares. When he first arrived at the Victorian farm in 2023, he was put into immediate service, with 23 mares served to Northern Hemisphere time.

The other Australian-based stallion to have been utilised substantially in the autumn in recent times has been Newgate’s Extreme Choice.

In 2023, in a bid to space his workload and manage his fertility, Newgate opened the stallion barn door to 49 mares for Extreme Choice in that autumn. That was reduced to 22 last year and then just three this year, all of which were in January.

Interestingly, five of the yearlings from that first “autumn-conceived” Extreme Choice crop sold at the recent Gold Coast National Yearling Sale. Despite two of them being December foals and three of them February foals, they still averaged $314,000.

According to the Stud Book, Coolmore’s Home Affairs was put back into action briefly earlier this month, servicing Successful on June 5 and Viola Vivace on June 6. Both mares had been retired from the track in May. The reasons for why they went to Home Affairs at such a late point are not abundantly clear.

Alpine Edge, who stands at Clear Mountain Fairview in Queensland, also had a one-off service to a mare named Precious Nemesis in late May.

Australian-based stallions covering after January 1

Stallion	Post Jan 1 covers	Stallion	Post Jan 1 covers
Alabama Express	24	Jacquinot	2
Written Tycoon	18	Anamoe	2
Diatonic	4	Dirty Work	2
Kobayashi	3	Better than Ready	1
Extreme Choice	3	King’s Legacy	1
Home Affairs	2	Officiating	1
Zoustar	2	Alpine Edge	1
Pride Of Dubai	2