News in brief: Etreham releases 2018 fees and Tin Horse on the move

Haras d'Etreham has released the 2018 covering fees for its seven-strong roster, with the most notable addition, last year's champion European three-year-old Almanzor, to be offered to breeders at a fee of €35,000.

Almanzor's own sire Wootton Bassett, responsible for last week's runaway Listed Prix Isonomy scorer Wootton, will be kept at €20,000, a sum more than three times his introductory fee of €6,000 in 2012.

Saint Des Saints, sire of dual Cheltenham Gold Cup runner-up Djakadam, will see no change to his fee of €15,000, while shuttler Scissor Kick has been clipped from €10,000 to €8,000.

The increasingly popular Masked Marvel, meanwhile, has been boosted from €3,000 to €4,000.

Haras d'Etreham 2018 covering fees

Tin Horse to Haras des Granges

Tin Horse, the 2011 Poule d'Essai des Poulains winner, has been relocated from Haras de Grandcamp to Haras des Granges in the southwest of France, where the nine-year-old son of Sakhee will command a fee of €2,000.

Trained by Didier Guillemin, Tin Horse finished second in both the Prix Morny and Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere at two and, aside from his Classic success, won the Group 3 Prix Messidor over a mile at four.

His oldest crop are now three, among them the Listed-placed Folie De Louise and winning hurdler Semur.

French stallion owners up in arms

Following the open letter issued by the French equivalent of the TBA to France Galop, stallion owners in the country have issued an open letter of their own, asking to meet with the ruling authority.

The stallion handlers have expressed concern at the return to a single rate of premiums for winning breeders. The current regulation allows for a premium of 15 per cent to be offered for winning progeny of French stallions, as opposed to ten per cent for all other eligible horses.

The open letter, which can be read here in French on change.org, is signed off at the end by Julian Ince, president of the stallion owners' commission of the Federation des Eleveurs du Galop.

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