# THE most expensive stallion is....



## RuthnMeg (3 March 2011)

I've been told of a stallion who is pretty expensive, just curious if anyone knows of a stallion who can better his fees? current 2011 counts, but can mention previous years.
Name 'your' stallion here with his fee.

Any breed/type from any country allowed but please be in £ sterling if poss!


Virtual prize to the winner.

I will tell you 'my' stallion fee in a min...


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## Enfys (3 March 2011)

Not mine 

I rarely get paid for covering fees as I don't accept many outside mares,  generally I barter...

Last year Zeus earned 20 riding lessons @ $45 a throw.
14 round bales of hay approx value $420
A discount off fencing, and, 
two loads of shavings @ $200 a load.

If I get paid in cash it is only $400. 
About 250 GBP as currency conversion stands today, but remember, we get paid in $ and pay out in $ so the currency is irrelevant really.


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## eventrider23 (3 March 2011)

Depends on the sport as you can't really relate racing stud fees with competition horse stud fees.


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## Minxie (3 March 2011)

Sea the Stars (the Aga Khans's Gilltown Stud) is 85,000 euro.  Montjeu (Coolmore) is 75,000 euro but they also have Galileo who has a private stud fee and I'd think would be well into 6 figures.


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## RuthnMeg (3 March 2011)

It was Galileo who I have a rather high figure for.... I have his stud card now too!!

Can you guess his fee?


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## RuthnMeg (3 March 2011)

eventrider23 said:



			Depends on the sport as you can't really relate racing stud fees with competition horse stud fees.
		
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I doubt you can better a racehorse stud fee with a sports horse fee, but I am open to stand corrected! Somewhere, in the world there may just be such a thing...?


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## rachi0 (3 March 2011)

Storm Cat had the worlds most expensive stud fee at $500,000 (US) at the peak of his career, which is about £311,100.

Redoutes Choice (in Australia) stands at $176,000 (2010 fee) which is approx £111,300 he used to stand for $300,000 (£190,000 approx)  but due to the recession his fee was put down.

I think Saddlers Wells stood for approx £250,000. - not 100% sure on that!

Galileo's stud fee for 2008 was reported to be 225,000 euros but decreased to 175,000 in 2009.  (private stud fee.. so its just speculation! - i am not 100% on this!)


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## RuthnMeg (3 March 2011)

Well, Galileo is £250,000.... now thats a small nice house, all for a stallion to do his job and that doesn't take long!! lol
And he has a full book of mares, about 70 as far as I know. Impressive eh?


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## druid (3 March 2011)

RuthnMeg said:



			Well, Galileo is £250,000.... now thats a small nice house, all for a stallion to do his job and that doesn't take long!! lol
And he has a full book of mares, about 70 as far as I know. Impressive eh?
		
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Fee and book size are both wrong I'm afraid.


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## RuthnMeg (3 March 2011)

druid said:



			Fee and book size are both wrong I'm afraid.
		
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I am open to be told different, but I do have his details here with me and having my boss jsut returning from Coolmore, to tell me this.... I believe her!
I thought it was impressive - and believable.


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## Brenjack (3 March 2011)

druid said:



			Fee and book size are both wrong I'm afraid.
		
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With the greatest respect, I find that so frustrating. 
Rather than just say "it's wrong",  why not tell us how it's wrong and publish correct info instead!!


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## Jamana (3 March 2011)

Well as far as fee goes at Coolmore 'Privte' means that the fee is a private arrangement between Coolmore and the mare owner. In other word the price I have to pay for my mare would not necessarily be the same  you would pay for your mare.

Book size, if Galileo is down to only 70 mares he is in trouble this year! Last year he covered 177 mares according to the Return of Mares  and 189 in 2009. Sea The Stars has taken a few off him I expect.

I think that Northern Dancer was covering for $1 Million at the peak of his success.


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## RuthnMeg (3 March 2011)

Maybe its a misprint and the '1' was missed off '70'! I still think 70 (or whatever) mares X £250k is mega!


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## druid (4 March 2011)

Brenjack said:



			With the greatest respect, I find that so frustrating. 
Rather than just say "it's wrong",  why not tell us how it's wrong and publish correct info instead!!
		
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Privacy clauses in contracts are designed for this sort of thing I'm afraid! His fee is listed as private for a reason. If Coolmore wanted it to be publically known they'd publish it as they did with Montjeu and Danehill Dancer this year; now standing for 75k down from private.


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## BallyshanHorses (4 March 2011)

We have a mare visiting Galileo this year but his fee depends upon a few factors.Eg if the mare is producing group winners, or if she is a group winner herself then there can be some knocked off his stud fee.I dont think that it is worth over covering with the likes of Galileo because of his fee.


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## Faithkat (4 March 2011)

Jamana said:



			Well as far as fee goes at Coolmore 'Privte' means that the fee is a private arrangement between Coolmore and the mare owner. In other word the price I have to pay for my mare would not necessarily be the same  you would pay for your mare.

Book size, if Galileo is down to only 70 mares he is in trouble this year! Last year he covered 177 mares according to the Return of Mares  and 189 in 2009. Sea The Stars has taken a few off him I expect.

I think that Northern Dancer was covering for $1 Million at the peak of his success.
		
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Yes, Northern Dancer was $1 million and apparently all you received after the covering was a certificate with the date and confirmation that he was alive at the time of covering,  No NFFR nonsense!!

Sadlers Wells was a "private" fee but I heard from a stud in Newmarket that it was around £250,000.  Horrifying when foals of his didn't even reach their stud fee at at the Sales  . . .


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## druid (4 March 2011)

Faithkat said:



			Sadlers Wells was a "private" fee but I heard from a stud in Newmarket that it was around £250,000.  Horrifying when foals of his didn't even reach their stud fee at at the Sales  . . .
		
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The same is true of any TB stallions stud fee be it 2,000 or 2,000,000! Only ~10% of TB yearlings through the sales break even or make profit if you base the calculations on the advertised stud fee and a figure of around 15k to get a foal on the ground, raise it to a yearling and prepped/entered for the sales.


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## Minxie (4 March 2011)

I saw a Sadlers Well's filly sold at the Goff Sales for 5,000 guineas.  Imagine how gutted the owner was.  I'm fairly sure something was up with her to reduce her price but i couldn't see it while she was wandering around the sales ring. 

I'd have thought a lot of the studs will be taking less mares this year as the market is pretty flat.  There just isn't the cash being thrown around in terms of speculative breeding.  An owner would need to be pretty certain (as much as you can be) of breeding a decent competition contender to spend the money they have in the past. 

I loved Saddlers Wells - only saw him once and he was really special.


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## SmilingMadly (4 March 2011)

I have it from verifiable sources (not Wikipedia, which as we know is not reliable) that the Dancer's highest stud fee was $800,000, which is the same as Seattle Slew's was at the height of his stud career.  Many people think that Storm Cat's $500,000 was the highest ever, H&H even reported it as such a couple of years ago in an article of Equine Greats (or similar, I forget the title).

You have to remember that a stallion's advertised fee (not including private, which can be anything from a few hundred to 6 figures), does not meant that all (if any) nominations are paid at that amount.  There are also mare share and foal share deals done - even on the top stallions!  You also cannot believe the sales prices, as if it's a foal share going throught the ring and the stallion owner/representative is bidding, then in reality, he/she is only paying 50% of the hammer price!  Happens more often than you think!


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## Rollin (4 March 2011)

Isn't the most successful flat race stallion in terms of (so far) getting group one winners - Saddler's Wells?

So should be the most expensive?


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## druid (4 March 2011)

Minxie said:



			I saw a Sadlers Well's filly sold at the Goff Sales for 5,000 guineas.  Imagine how gutted the owner was.  I'm fairly sure something was up with her to reduce her price but i couldn't see it while she was wandering around the sales ring. 

I'd have thought a lot of the studs will be taking less mares this year as the market is pretty flat.  There just isn't the cash being thrown around in terms of speculative breeding.  An owner would need to be pretty certain (as much as you can be) of breeding a decent competition contender to spend the money they have in the past. 

I loved Saddlers Wells - only saw him once and he was really special. 

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Sadlers (one d!) is indeed special, and still "the king" even in his retirement.




SmilingMadly said:



			I have it from verifiable sources (not Wikipedia, which as we know is not reliable) that the Dancer's highest stud fee was $800,000, which is the same as Seattle Slew's was at the height of his stud career.  Many people think that Storm Cat's $500,000 was the highest ever, H&H even reported it as such a couple of years ago in an article of Equine Greats (or similar, I forget the title).

You have to remember that a stallion's advertised fee (not including private, which can be anything from a few hundred to 6 figures), does not meant that all (if any) nominations are paid at that amount.  There are also mare share and foal share deals done - even on the top stallions!  You also cannot believe the sales prices, as if it's a foal share going throught the ring and the stallion owner/representative is bidding, then in reality, he/she is only paying 50% of the hammer price!  Happens more often than you think!
		
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Put far more succinctly than I have! Makes Dancer seem rather a bargain at an advertised 75k this season...



Rollin said:



			Isn't the most successful flat race stallion in terms of (so far) getting group one winners - Saddler's Wells?

So should be the most expensive?
		
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Sadler's has 72 G1 winners to his name - and the possibility of adding a few more with his final 3yo crop racing this year. (He pensioned in '08)


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## Laafet (4 March 2011)

Will add my two 'penneth woth on the Thoroughbred side. I know that advertised fees and fees actually agreed can be totally different things. We sent a mare to Sea The Stars this year and the fee due is not the advertised one. To quote my boss, 'anyone who pays the advertised fee is a fool.' Was interested if this applied to the Sports horse sector, I mean re. the ability to negotiate on stud fees.


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## Simsar (4 March 2011)

Laafet said:



			Will add my two 'penneth woth on the Thoroughbred side. I know that advertised fees and fees actually agreed can be totally different things. We sent a mare to Sea The Stars this year and the fee due is not the advertised one. To quote my boss, 'anyone who pays the advertised fee is a fool.' Was interested if this applied to the Sports horse sector, I mean re. the ability to negotiate on stud fees.
		
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I think it goes on alot in the SH sector too, I will not use a stallion without a deal, there is ALWAYS room for negotiation.


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## ruby1 (4 March 2011)

The one you can't afford.

If i have a budget of say 800 for my next stallion choice then anything above this mark is to expensive.

But having said that with the amount of mares that the likes of Saddlers Wells would have covered in his hay-day it cannot surely come as any suprise that some do not make the grade.


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## TarrSteps (5 March 2011)

druid said:



			The same is true of any TB stallions stud fee be it 2,000 or 2,000,000! Only ~10% of TB yearlings through the sales break even or make profit if you base the calculations on the advertised stud fee and a figure of around 15k to get a foal on the ground, raise it to a yearling and prepped/entered for the sales.
		
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On the other end, you have the Snaafi Dancers of this world - sold for $10.2 million, never raced, turned out to be all but infertile . . . 

Very interesting and well researched article on Northern Dancer, including the "$1 million" number. . .
http://www.thoroughbredtimes.com/stallion-directory/reference.aspx?doc=northerndancer


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## Girlracer (5 March 2011)

Blimey, Major's sire is 55 grand for a covering and i thought that was a lot! Some of these numbers are mind-boggling!


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## Jamana (5 March 2011)

If your horse is Majority (Pivotal X Renashaan) than his sire did stand for as much as 85k! Though he was 'only' 40k when your boy was conceived.


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## druid (5 March 2011)

TarrSteps said:



			On the other end, you have the Snaafi Dancers of this world - sold for $10.2 million, never raced, turned out to be all but infertile . . . 

Very interesting and well researched article on Northern Dancer, including the "$1 million" number. . .
http://www.thoroughbredtimes.com/stallion-directory/reference.aspx?doc=northerndancer

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The Green Monkey would be up there too, soldfor $16 million, never broke his maiden and stands for a paltry $5k now...


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