First to fire: Newgate unveils 2025 fees with rises for Extreme Choice and Stay Inside

Cover image courtesy of Newgate Farm

The industry pioneers at Newgate Farm are again on the front foot this year and have released their 2025 stallion fees on Sunday night - a sharp early move ahead of the Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale. Statistical freak Extreme Choice at $330,000 - the equal highest for a sire in Australia ever - leads the roster of 16 stallions, which does not feature any new players for the first time since 2019.

“We’d like to be leaders in the market in terms of setting our fees and making them really competitive, and setting the tone for the year,” Bruce Slade, Newgate’s director of bloodstock, shared.

Slade walked The Thoroughbred Report through who’s earned an increase, who has taken a decrease, and who’s fee remains the same at the elite Hunter Valley nursery.

Earning a raise

Three of the Newgate roster have earned themselves an increase in fee in 2025, led of course by Extreme Choice from $275,000 to (inc GST) to $330,000 (inc GST), whose progeny seem to simply get better and better all the time.

The sire of 14 stakes winners, he has taken his individual Group 1 winners’ tally from three to an incredible five in the 2024/25 so far.

5-year-old Knight’s Choice shocked the nation in November when winning the G1 Melbourne Cup as a rank outsider, and the impeccably-bred, $1.4 million yearling Devil Night scorched his way to victory in the G1 Blue Diamond Stakes - bestowing on Extreme Choice the lofty and unique honour of siring a Blue Diamond, Melbourne Cup, and G1 Golden Slipper Stakes winner.

In fact, he’s the only one that’s ever achieved the feat - six-time Champion Australian Sire Sir Tristram (Ire) had a Slipper and a Melbourne Cup, but did not clinch a Blue Diamond. Several stallions have managed both a Blue Diamond and a Slipper, but none have been able to produce a 3200-metre horse. It is understandable, then, and considering his smaller covering numbers, that Extreme Choice’s fee rises to $330,000 (inc GST), matching the career highs of the likes of Redoute’s Choice, the most for an Australian stallion.

“He’s had a massive year,” Slade said. “He’s had a Blue Diamond winner and a Melbourne Cup winner, and that’s from a foal crop that averaged 30 foals in his first three seasons. He has the leading Group 1 strike rate in the world, ahead of the likes of Dubawi and Frankel.”

From Extreme Choice’s 117 runners, he has a Group 1 winners to runners ratio of 4.27 per cent. Frankel’s (GB) current strike rate is 3.83 per cent, and Dubawi (Ire) strikes at 3.42 per cent; both stand for £350,000 (ex GST) ($720,000). His largest crop is 52 foals, born last year.

“We think he deserves to be the highest priced sire in Australia when you consider his record, but also when you consider the scarcity around him. We like to get outside support for him, and we have to look after his shareholders and the horse first and foremost.”

Likewise, his Golden Slipper-winning son Stay Inside, whose first yearlings have sold up to $1 million at the sales so far this year, has seen a small fee rise from $55,000 to $66,000 (inc GST). Slade has faith that he will be one of the first to be fully booked this year, particularly with access to his father so limited. He described the demand for Stay Inside amongst the farm’s biggest supporters as “incredible”.

Cosmic Force - whose son Give Me Space delivered his first stakes winner at the beginning of the year when capturing the G3 Vo Rogue Plate before running second in the R. Listed Magic Millions 3YO Classic - has also taken a rise in his fee, returning to his first season fee of $16,500 (inc GST) from last season's $11,000 (inc GST).

“He’s had another really good season in the past 12 months,” Slade said. “Last year he was a horse that was fully booked. He’s got promising horses coming through, like Cosmic Fire (winner of the $250,000 Sunlight Consolation) and (dual winner) Cosmos Centaurus, he had a smart winner on debut at Cranbourne on Friday and another metropolitan winner yesterday at Morphettville.”

Juvenile Stay Cosmic (Cosmic Force) was victorious on Friday, and Darknconfidential (Cosmic Force), who previously ran fourth in the Listed Morphettville Guineas, followed him on Saturday.

“For a horse with limited book size and a low introductory fee, he is doing an amazing job on the track. One in six of his colts to race have picked up black-type so far. He has had good sales results, and he’s a horse that just continues to build. He’s going to be one of the first horses booked out.”

Table: Newgate stallions who have had fee increases in 2025

Meeting the market

Four stallions will stand at a reduced fee this season, and Slade explained that the team have given great consideration to how the market has evolved and what breeders are currently facing when setting their fees this year.

“Capitalist is just a horse who always has something happening - constant winners, stakes runners, stakes results, new 2-year-olds popping up all the time at the trials and races,” Slade said. Capitalist, whose oldest crop will turn seven in August, will stand for $44,000 (inc GST), reduced $22,000 from last season. Of his 23 black-type winners, 15 of them have won at least one stakes race as a juvenile, including this season’s G3 Magic Night Stakes winner Memo and Listed Wellesley Stakes winner To Cap It All.

“(His 2025 fee) is really good value, considering how well his offspring sell in the market. He gets a good, commercial type, he loves Danehill line mares, and he has a couple of big crops coming through to race for him still.

“He’s a great horse to get a mare off to a fast start. He’s been a leading sire of juvenile winners in Australia for the last five seasons, second only to Snitzel. At a really nice, good value fee this year, he will have the heat back on him and people will appreciate the value he offers.

“We see him as the next Commands, Canny Lad, Rory’s Jester - that kind of horse. Just a good, consistent horse that continues to pop up and get winners every day, and stakes winners every few weeks. He’s always got something happening for him.”

With his oldest crop rising 6-year-olds, barnmate Russian Revolution has also had a fee decrease, reducing to $33,000 (inc GST). Slade believes that the decrease will be the encouragement that breeders need to return to the Champion First and Second Season Sire.

“He’s a good stallion with normal quality mares, but he’s a great stallion with good quality mares,” Slade said. The evidence of that alone is in his championship titles from his first two books. “His current yearlings and foals are from the biggest and best two books that he has covered to date. I think only Snitzel, I Am Invincible, and Zoustar covered more stakes winners each across those two seasons.

“So there are really high quality horses to come, but right now he is in the waiting room - and while we wait, we thought, ‘let’s make the cost benefit of using him heavily favoured towards breeders’.”

The waiting game

North Pacific, who currently has his first 2-year-olds on the track, also has taken a small decrease to his fee, standing for $11,000 (inc GST). His first crop has delivered two winners already, including pre-Christmas winner Brazen Sailor.

“North Pacific didn’t win his first race until the July of his 2-year-old year, so we haven’t even gotten there yet,” Slade said.

“His stock in general have scope, big actions, lots of athleticism, and they look like they will make significant weight-for-age improvement from two to 3-year-olds. We feel really good about how he's placed and the opportunities he has received, but again, in the meantime, while we wait and breeders wait, we're going to make sure that we make him really appealing to use.”

Slade noted that this is the perfect opportunity to take advantage of a horse like North Pacific, who could skyrocket in fee with the right juvenile or 3-year-old over the next 12 months; “With production costs the way that they are, breeders are taking less and less risks. So while we wait for the first runners, we have dropped the fees down. If you like the horse, this is the year to use him, as it could change very quickly - as we saw with Tassort.”

It is in a similar vein that the globetrotting four-time Group 1 winner State Of Rest (Ire), whose first weanlings will be offered at the weanling sales over the next few months, has his fee lowered from $27,500 to $22,000 (inc GST).

“There’s a time lag between the demand for the first book and the first runners,” Slade acknowledged. “In the middle, people are taking on more risk, and we have to adjust the prices accordingly. Too Darn Hot, Wootton Bassett, Ole Kirk, they were all trading at their lowest (service fee) at this point in time (in their third season) and they’ve all sold incredibly well this year.

“As a breeder, you have to pick the right horse (for similar results), and it’s down to compatibility of the stallion and the mare, and doing the research around how many have been covered and of what quality, and what they have coming through.”

The first State Of Rest Southern Hemisphere-bred weanlings will be on show in the Inglis Australian Weanling Sale in May. His Northern Hemisphere-bred crop, which are now yearlings, have sold for up to 45,000gns ($97,000) and €58,000 ($99,800) as weanlings in 2024.

Table: Newgate stallions who have had fee reductions in 2025

The price is right

The other nine stallions on the roster will remain at their 2024 price points.

G1 Coolmore Stud Stakes winner Ozzmosis leads with his service fee of $44,000 (inc GST) as he awaits his first foals, followed by Tassort at $38,500 (inc GST) as his first crop turns four. His two stakeswinning fillies Manaal and Ameena have done plenty to boost his profile, and he has seen his best yearling prices this year, with a colt selling at the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale for $500,000.

“There will be horses that are trading the same as last year, but we will be offering compensation for returning supporters or when people are sending us multiple mares,” Slade said.

There are no new editions to the roster at this point of the season, but the door is not completely closed - should the right horse come along.

“If we do have a new horse between now and the season, we can launch them closer to the time,” Slade said.

Table: Newgate stallions whose fees will remain the same in 2025