Holding a WINNING hand

MUCH HAS happened in 2025 – the last 12 months have seen significant developments in the commercial and everyday use of AI, Donald Trump was inaugurated for a second time and the whole world has since faced economic turmoil as US tariffs have been added, taken away, added and endlessly fiddled with, England won the Women’s Rugby World Cup, Aidan O’Brien an eighth UK trainers’ championship and 26th Irish title, the fallible Oisin Murphy his fourth jockeys’ title and, once again, there were record-breaking bloodstock sales at Keeneland, Fairyhouse, Goffs, Tattersalls and Arqana.

A new stud farm near Newmarket was also announced after Dullingham Park Stud, under the ownership of Steve Parkin of Clipper Logistics, was sold.

Parkin had upgraded and renovated the farm to such a degree that his work had created gasps from the visiting bloodstock community, fully grown trees shipped in and planted merely for landscaping purposes, and he had looked to be in the stallion business for the long game.

But, as quickly as he had arrived, Parkin has signed out of much of his extensive breeding interests, and the farm was “quietly” put on the market; the future of the property becoming the subject of much gossip, the rumours selecting a new buyer in each retelling of the story.

The chat heated up further in July when three Tattersalls buyers’ dockets were signed by Paul Curran, who bid on and purchased three-year-old fillies at the July Sale, the most expensive costing 375,000gns, called Regal Agenda, by Pinatubo and directly related to Dubawi.

Curran signed as Ace Stud, and those who spend time looking at sale returns started to ask, ‘What is this Ace Stud?’.

The questions were answered at the beginning of August, a press release sent out to publicly confirm that Dullingham Park Stud had been sold and was no more, the property was re-named and rebranded as Ace Stud, standing Yulong stallions.

“In the end the deal was done quickly and we were there,” says Curran, who has worked for Yulong for four years. He has recently taken on the new role as bloodstock and racing manager for Ace Stud, a natural progression with the Yulong stallions standing at the farm.

“When we moved in there was a team in place and that has been great – they all know the farm and the stallions, it was almost a turn-key purchase.

“The name Ace Stud came from the owner Harris Li’s family, the more we thought of it the more we liked it; it certainly has a brand connection we can work with.”

Curran adds: “It is a beautiful property, every time I go down the driveway I look around and can’t quite believe it.

“The last owner did a superb job of bringing the farm up to scratch, we will keep on improving the property, but lots is right already.”

Since the purchasing announcement was made the pace of change has continued relentlessly. There are six stallion boxes on the farm, and they were occupied on purchase by the Group 1 July Cup winner Shaquille,
whose first foals were born this year, and Soldier’s Call, whose first crop were four-year-olds in 2025.

Subsquently, the latter has been sold – the son of Showcasing, who had stood two seasons at the Newmarket property, has moved to stand in Shropshire at Richard Kent’s Mickley Stud.

So, although the goal for Ace Stud is to fill those stallion boxes, the farm is already down by one, and Curran explains the reason for the sale.

“We were obviously thrilled to acquire Soldier’s Call when we did with the farm, and I’m still a big believer in him, he’s very good horse to get you a good number of winners,” said Curran.

“But we decided this autumn it’s probably time for us to part ways. He’s gone to a very good farm with Richard, and I’m sure he’s going to have a good time there – Richard is good at getting mares into horses and we think he will suit local breeders in that part of the country.”

Shaquille, however, has his hooves firmly in planted in the Newmarket paddocks at Ace Stud, and all at the farm are looking forward to the future with him.

The son of Charm Spirit was due to have 50 first-crop foals offered at the Tattersalls December Foal Sale, and by now you will know how they have fared in the ring.

When we spoke to Curran in the autumn with those sales still on the horizon, he was very hopeful as to how the foals would be received by the market; and overall delighted that the stallion was a ready-made acquisition with the farm.

Shaquille at Ace Stud

Shaquille at Ace Stud

“Shaquille is exactly what you need for a commercial farm – as a July Cup winner he is what he is meant to be, he was fast, he is good-looking and is just what the market is looking for,” he says.

“He has been producing good stock, they are like him, they look fast too, and have a good hip, and we will be supporting them in the market,
we don’t own or have bred any by him.”

THE STALLION’s book size and quality of mares covered through the spring of 2025 could have suffered due to the uncertainty of the farm’s future. Breeders covering mares in the spring of year two rightly could have been concerned as to the onward prospects of the stallion with the uncertainity surrounding the farm in the early months of the year.

However, as Curran says, the arrival of Shaquille’s first crop of foals really helped to bolster his prospects, and he ended up with a healthy book of 121.

“We have had lots of repeat business from breeders who had used Shaquille in his first year, as well as breeders who sent mares to him from Ireland – those two factors are really positive for his prospects,” he says. “We were delighted with his book and we are looking forward to a full year marketing him.

“We will be active in the market for mares to send to him and we want to give him all the support we can, we think he is exactly what the British stallion roster is needing.”

Shaquille’s fee has been reduced by the team for his third year at stud from £15,000 to £10,000 and Curran explains the thinking.

“We want to give breeders a chance, so, not only have we reduced the price, we have also changed the fee structure to January 1 terms, which we think will be beneficial to breeders, too,” he says.

“His first yearlings sell next year, we want to get as many quality mares into him as we can, and lowering the fee gives more opportunties to breeders all around, we are being as fair as we can.”

With empty stallion boxes on the farm there is an obvious desire by the team to see more stallion heads over those doors, but no new names have been announced for the 2026 Ace Stud stallion roster.

“We have been looking, but it is a tough game and we want the right one,” he explains. “We’re on an upward curve of expansion in the company, and we want to be able to bring in quality. We were happy to keep our powder dry, and we will see what happens next year for 2027.”

There are no plans to bring Yulong stallion Lucky Vega, who is standing in Ireland at the Irish National Stud, to British shores.

Curran says, “He will stay where he is, the Irish National Stud has done a fantastic job with him and given him every chance.

“He has had a good autumn and is in joint-second on the first-season sires’ list by winners with 18 and he had two stakes winners on the last weekend on the Flat championship.

“Lucky Vega is at a stage where he needs to kick on for next year – we think a lot of his horses are types who will be very good three-year-olds, and we are going to roll in behind him again.”

All being well there will be a grey head over one of those doors in the next couple of seasons, that of Gewan, winner of this year’s Group 1 Dewhurst Stakes for Mr Zhang.

Although the colt’s success in the 7f end-of-season juvenile championship was something of a 25-1 surprise – he had disappointed on his previous start in September when he beat only one home in the Champagne Stakes (G2) – there had been strong belief in the Yulong camp before Newmarket that they were not tilting at Group 1 windmills with the son of Night Of Thunder.

“We were disappointed at Doncaster, but the ground was not at all suitable for him,” explains Curran. “It has been recorded as good for the race, but the rain that came that day meant that it was not at all, later in the day it was formally changed to soft.

“The race itself was run in driving rain, and he just got wheel spinning,
the race did not go to plan at all.

Gewan winning the Dewhurst Stakes (G1)

Gewan winning the Dewhurst Stakes (G1)

Gewan, who was bred by Overbury and Dukes Stud out of a Listed-placed mare whose dam is a half-sister to the Group 1 Prix Saint-Alary Stakes winner Coquerelle, was purchased this spring in training from Al Rabban Racing.

The colt had won on debut at Newbury in July over 7f, and then found the step-up to Group 3 level no problem when winning York’s Acomb Stakes
by a length and a quarter from the Aidan O’Brien-trained Italy.

“We had gone to York to watch First Legion run in the nursery at the end of the card so we only got to the racecourse as they were coming back in from the Acomb,” recalls Curran.

“We saw Andrew Balding coming in with the horse with a big smile on his face and saw he was clearly delighted.

“We watched the race and were massively impressed, I immediately touched base with Billy Jackson-Stops and we moved quickly to purchase.

“Physically, Gewan is a striking horse – big, strong, just one of those horses who catches your eye from the minute you see him. We took a first look at him after he won the Acomb Stakes and he is just a brute of a horse.

“Obviously being by Night Of Thunder is very attractive, and we felt that he is a horse who would improve with time.

“He was a bit more backward than many of the two-year-olds we had seen and yet he was still able to win the Group 3 – god knows what he could be next year!”

After that subsequent post-purchase Group 2 loss at Doncaster, the first start in the new set of colours, it could be argued that moving straight to the Group 1 end-of-season juvenile championship race took a bit of imagination, but the team was getting confident vibes from Balding and the trainer was keen to ensure that the summer setback did not lead to backwards moves with the colt.

“When we spoke to Andrew at the beginning of the Dewhurst week, he said how well the horse was, that we should stick with the plan and draw a line through Doncaster, we decided that we had nothing to lose,” says Curran.

“To be fair to Andrew he held his view all through the week in the run-up to the race; he has done a great job.”

On reflecting on the achievement, Curran says, “Gewan has been Timeform rated 118, the same mark as given to subsquent 2,000 Guineas winner Chaldean, and the pair, outside of City Of Troy, are the highest-rated two-year-olds over the last five or six years, which is a huge indictment of the horse.

“Three of the last five Dewhurst winners have gone on to win European Guineas races, and, when we looked at our mark, it is huge recognition of what Gewan has achieved; it was then it really started to hit us what had happened.

“The figures speak for themselves, it was phenomenal and a special achievement. I am just delighted for everyone involved – from Longways who breezed him, to the former owners, and obviously Mr Zhang that he has got such a big result, he so deserves this.

“It is really special – we have some real gunpowder for next year, and Gewan will be a fabulous stallion to have here in future.”

Looking ahead to next year, as to be expected, plans for Gewan are revolving around the first Saturday in May.

“Yes, all eyes are on the 2,000 Guineas!” laughs Curran.

“We have not got to the nitty gritty of how to get there, we are still digesting what has happened this year. We might get a prep run into him, we will see how he is travelling then.”

The form has certainly been boasted since with Gstaad’s victory in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf, which must give Curran every confidence and high levels of anticipation for next season

“We did not entertain any thoughts of going to the Breeders’ Cup with him,” he explains.“He had a tough year and we want to give him the best chance for 2026.”

The brilliant Via Sistina

The brilliant Via Sistina

Aside from racecourse action, and the realisation that stud farm development is very much something for the long term, Ace Stud is making a good job of getting things off to a fast start.

“We know that stud farms take decades to be made, but this has been
a great start,” smiles Curran.

A former agricultural farm of 300 acres is being developed at Brinkley to become a state-of-the-art stud farm to house what will become a substantial broodmare band, the farm recently planted down to grass and with planning permission for stud buildings.

But the stallion operation is already spanning the globe with the southern hemisphere division set up in 2013, and both hemispheres work in tandem.

“We speak with Australia every day, we make plans for horses, and, of course, they are enjoying a fabulous time with the December Sale purchase
Via Sistina.”

The fabulous mare was bought for 2,700,000gns at the Tattersalls December Sale in 2023, and, at the time of writing (this may well increase again before we publish!) the daughter of Fastnet Rock has won 12 Group 1 races with earnings of £9.8 million.

THE DESIRE for Ace Stud to be active at the top of the global bloodstock industry and to push forward into America is clearly evident, and stepped up another gear this autumn.

Through Ace’s Raging Torrent banner (named after the three-time top level-winning colt owned by Zhang and Craig Dado) $6,500,000 was spent at Fasig-Tipton with a $5 million outlay on Puca, the US broodmare of the year.

A further $5,225,000 was then spent on five broodmares at the Keeneland November Sale.

A growing broodmare band at Ace Stud

A growing broodmare band at Ace Stud

“Raging Torrent won the Godolphin Mile in Dubai, the Metropolitan at Saratoga in June and was a Grade 1 winner in 2024, too, it was a real pity he picked up an injury,” says Curran.

“He has retired to Lane’s End, and we went out to the US with the intention to buy some quality mares and we are delighted that we bought a mare as brilliant as Puca and, hopefully, that will bode well for Raging Torrent.

“We bought some nice mares for Carl Spackler, too, and we are really pleased with what we came away with, and it is exciting.

“America is another string to the bow, it such an influential sector in the industry and it is great to be driving that along for the future.”

The ambitions for the farm seemingly has no bounds.

“Owner Harris Li is very driven and passionate about Ace Stud,” says Curran. “He is delighted to be working together with Yulong to support their stallions in the northern hemisphere.

“It was such a shame that Mr Zhang was not at Newmarket for
the Dewhurst, because he would have been so proud to witness Gewan’s win in person. He follows the racing as much as he can from outside of the UK.”

Of the upcoming sales, Curran says, “We are really looking forward to the European breeding stock sales and seeing how our stallions are represented with their progeny. It’s an exciting time for everyone involved.”

Curran concludes: “Yulong has put a lot towards this industry, so the ongoing ambition for stallions to stand in the northern hemisphere is great to be a part of and we hope it continues to be a successful venture.

“This is only the beginning for Ace Stud and the entire team appreciates the opportunity to stand stallions on behalf of Yulong to further establish Ace Stud as a thriving new stud."

Holding a WINNING hand

Exciting times ahead for the newly created Ace Stud
with Shaquille’s first foals hitting the market,
a Classic campaign to plan for Dewhurst winner Gewan
and big money broodmare purchases made in the US.

We chat to bloodstock and racing manager Paul Curran