Newgate Farm’s Russian Revolution to stand for A$88,000 as Extreme Choice stays at A$275,000

Newgate Farm’s runaway success Russian Revolution has earned a fee increase for 2023 on the back of a breakthrough Group 1-producing season to go with his champion first season sires’ title.

A two-time Group 1-winning sprinter on the track, Russian Revolution has taken his tally of stakes winners to seven this season, headed by last month’s Randwick Guineas hero Communist. The stallion’s success has prompted Newgate to up his fee to A$88,000 (£47,000/€54,000) this year, in a roster line-up which continues to be headed by Extreme Choice, who will stand for an unchanged A$275,000 (£147,000/€168,000). All fees include GST 

Capitalist, however, has had his fee reduced to A$77,000 after standing at A$99,000 for the past two seasons.

The unveiling of the 14-stallion Newgate Farm roster also provides confirmation that the stud career of Deep Field has come to an end after eight years at the Hunter Valley operation. He was plagued by fertility issues in 2022 and, without a veterinary solution, the decision was made to pension him.

Newgate has already released the fees of first-season sires State Of Rest (A$44,000), In The Congo (A$33,000) and Artorius (A$27,500), while the second-season quartet of Stay Inside (A$77,000), (A$38,500), Tiger Of Malay (A$16,500) and Profiteer (A$16,500) will maintain their year-one service fees.

Russian Revolution’s service fee, which was A$44,000 in his third and fourth years, before receiving an increase to A$71,500 in 2022 based on his first-crop juveniles which included Blue Diamond Stakes runner-up Revolutionary Miss, who won the Kewney Stakes at Flemington last month.

Artorius: likely Royal Ascot returnee will ultimately join Newgate rosterCredit: Alan Crowhurst (Getty Images)

His second crop of two-year-olds have kept up the momentum through Canonbury Stakes winner Red Resistance, Kindergarten Stakes winner Libertad and Blue Diamond Preview winner The Instructor, leading to the Henry Field-led Newgate Farm again rewarding Russian Revolution with a fee increase.

“On all the markers at the moment he’s on his way to the top of the tree. He’s certainly going to be a top five Australian sire based on how he is tracking at the moment,” Newgate Farm’s director of bloodstock Bruce Slade told ANZ Bloodstock News.

“He is getting the jump-and-run two-year-old colts and fillies, so he is performing in that really commercial segment of the market, but they’re training on, too, with his Group 1 [winner being] over a mile.

“Trainers you speak to, they say the harder you work them, the more they’ll eat and the more they’ll improve, and they handle all surfaces as well. 

“It’s nice to see that versatility and, hopefully one day, he’ll be fighting out the [Australian sires] championship. 

“He got a really good book of mares last year, so people supporting him this year are hitting him while he’s still on the up with some really nice crops coming through for him.”

The decreased service fee for Capitalist, the sire of 11 stakes winners from three crops of racing age, was recognition of the wider economy and how the yearling sales may play out in the next few years, according to Slade, but he believes that the Golden Slipper-winning stallion deserved to be part of every commercial breeder’s mating plans.

Capitalist has sired four stakes winners this year: two-year-olds Lazzago and Sovereign Fund; and three-year-olds Cannonball and Economics, with a further nine horses stakes-placed by the stallion.

“He is tracking as a top ten Australian stallion for the long term. With his oldest just four-year-olds, he is the youngest sire to crack 100 winners this season and he is just outside the top ten by way of stakes winners,” Slade reasoned.

“Most importantly, he is performing best in the most commercial segment of our market. He is the leading sire of two-year-old winners so far this season and his overall stakes horses-to-two-year-olds runners stats are only equalled by I Am Invincible and Exceed And Excel. 

“He gets that proper forward yearling type for the breeder and he is a fantastic sales horse for both colts and fillies.”

Slade added: “He is a great stallion to kick off a young mare’s career with jump-and-run types at under A$100,000 and we purposely priced him at A$70,000 this year to make him impossible not to have in your mating discussions in 2023.”

Extreme Choice, whose southern hemisphere season was impacted by a bout of colic, covered 77 mares to southern hemisphere time in 2022. 

The remarkable sire’s fertility issues are well-known, but since Newgate Farm has restricted him to one mare a day, Slade said breeders had at least a flip of the coin chance of getting their mare in foal.

“He continues to do elite things as a stallion from mares that breeders were happy to sacrifice to him in his second and third seasons when his commercial future was considered zero,” he said.

“His biggest and best crop are now foals. That is what breeders get to follow on from and, what's more, Jim [Carey, stud manager] and the team on the farm have him going better than ever in the shed. 

“If you send him a nice, young, fertile mare the odds are you will be getting a pregnancy.”

The upcoming season will also be pivotal for shaping the careers of Newgate’s young stallions Brutal (A$22,000), Tassort  (A$11,000) and Cosmic Force (A$11,000), with the trio’s first crop two-year-olds hitting the track.

“They’re in that little period of their careers now where the groundwork has been done, each of them in their first three seasons have averaged 125 mares, so they’ve been terrifically well supported and now’s the time to go if you’re a believer in one, two or all three of them,” Slade said.

“This is the stage in a stallion’s career where you’ll never get into them for less if they kick on and become the stallions we hope they will be.”

As well as the retirement of Deep Field, Newgate’s Flying Artie, the sire of Royal Ascot-bound Artorius, will relocate to Blue Gum Farm in Victoria this year. His fee is yet to be announced.

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