John Ingles looks at some of the headlines arising from the major studs announcing their stallion fees for 2026.
Sea The Stars among Europe’s elite
Sea The Stars has spent much of his stud career in the shadow of his half-brother Galileo but another increase in his stud fee to €300,000 puts him very much among Europe’s elite stallions. That places him behind only Dubawi and Frankel whose fees remain unchanged at £350,000 for next year. While Sea The Stars has never been champion in Britain and Ireland himself, he has finished runner-up twice, in 2019 (to Galileo) and 2022, and is set for another top five finish among this year’s sires in Britain and Ireland.
Sea The Stars’ outstanding track career ensured he started at a high fee at the Aga Khan’s Giltown Stud, standing for €85,000 in 2010. It has only gone one way since, and his latest increase is his fourth in as many years, meaning his fee is now double what it was as recently as 2022. His latest jump from €250,000 comes after his son Daryz, bred by the Aga Khan, emulated his sire by winning the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, effectively ensuring Sea The Stars will be champion sire in France, while his other two Group 1 winners this year, Sosie (third) and Aventure, were also in the Arc field.
Night of Thunder the heir apparent to Dubawi?
Darley’s long-time flagship stallion Dubawi is still going strong at Dalham Hall in Newmarket. But he’ll be turning 24 next year, so approaching the final years of what has been an outstanding career in the breeding shed. But his succession now looks assured with his son Night of Thunder stepping forward as champion sire elect in 2025, just three years after Dubawi became leading sire in Britain and Ireland. Night of Thunder’s revised stallion fee for 2026 of €200,000 certainly places him in a position of heir apparent to his sire.
The 2014 2000 Guineas winner, who has been based in Ireland at Kildangan Stud for most of his career, has come a long way since standing for just £15,000 when he was stationed at Dalham Hall for a couple of seasons. Night of Thunder has a live 2000 Guineas contender of his own for next year in Gewan, winner of the Dewhurst Stakes, having already sired this year’s 1000 Guineas winner Desert Flower, while wins in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes and Juddmonte International meant that top-class four-year-old Ombudsman contributed a sizeable amount to his sire’s successful championship bid.
High hopes for new boy Delacroix
It’s another son of Dubawi, Delacroix, who heads Coolmore’s latest intake of new stallions with his fee set at €40,000. That makes him one of the most expensive stallions who will be covering for the first time in 2026 and reflects his importance as the first son of Dubawi to join the Coolmore roster. As early as July, after he’d just beaten Ombudsman in dramatic fashion in the Eclipse, Aidan O’Brien was already looking forward to Delacroix’s stud career in his post-race comments.
There were still three more races, and another Group 1 win in the Irish Champion Stakes, ahead of Delacroix at that stage of the season, but the prospect of Delacroix bringing a ‘different’ sire-line to Coolmore, was clearly something the team there were keenly anticipating. Delacroix is the fourth Coolmore stallion in recent years to have retired with the Eclipse on his CV, though for all that he showed high-class form, his opening fee has been pitched lower than St Mark’s Basilica (€65k), City of Troy (€60k) and Paddington (€55k) in their first seasons at stud.
Lope de Vega another member of the €200,000 club
Night of Thunder isn’t the only Irish-based stallion to have had his stud fee promoted to a new high of €200,000 for next year. Shamardal’s son Lope de Vega had a five-year head start on Night of Thunder, retiring to Ballylinch Stud in 2011 after emulating his sire by winning both the colts’ classics in France. But his progress since has largely matched Night of Thunder’s and he has become a fixture among the top ten sires by prize money in Britain and Ireland in recent seasons.
Seven consecutive years of increases saw Lope de Vega’s fee multiply tenfold from €12,500 to €125,000, with his latest boost coming after a jump to €175,000 this spring. Consent became his latest Group 1 winner in Europe when winning the Prix de Royallieu, while his several Group 2 winners this season include Jonquil in the Celebration Mile, Cualificar in the Prix Niel and Beauvatier in the Challenge Stakes.
Starspangledbanner firing on all cylinders now
Starspangledbanner has had his fee jump by 33% from €45,000 to a new career high of €60,000 which means that only No Nay Never (€100k) commands a higher fee on Coolmore’s European roster in 2026. That comes after a season when he has been responsible for two of Timeform’s top seven two-year-olds, Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf winner Gstaad and leading filly Precise, winner of the Moyglare Stud Stakes and Fillies’ Mile. But such success must have seemed unlikely when Starspangledbanner made a stuttering start to his stallion career.
Originally retired to stud after being Timeform’s top-rated sprinter of 2010 following his importation from his native Australia, low fertility meant that he was put back into training at Ballydoyle for a while, but without the success he had enjoyed previously. Starspangledbanner luckily avoided the fate of being gelded, and a second stint in the breeding shed, initially in Australia, proved more fruitful. After a three-year absence, he returned to Coolmore’s roster in 2015 and has since become one of the more unlikely success stories among current stallions.
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