MOYGLARE Stud’s Royal Ascot winner Free Eagle will commence stud duties at the Irish National Stud in 2016.

He currently remains in full training with races in Japan and Hong Kong as his next objective.

Moyglare Stud owner Eva-Maria Bucher Haefner said: “Free Eagle is a great horse and gives me so much enjoyment and, whilst looking forward to seeing him run again, I am also excited for the future and to see his offspring race.

“I decided that it is time for him to move on to his next career as a stallion and I am delighted to partner with the Irish National Stud.

“As Free Eagle will be syndicated, hopefully some of the breeders who have admired his talent as a racehorse can share in his future.”

Winner of the Prince of Wales’s Stakes in June, Free Eagle was badly interfered with in this year’s Qipco Irish Champion Stakes, finishing third to Golden Horn.

He again suffered bad luck in running in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe but was an honourable sixth. He has earned over €720,000 to date and been in the frame on all but one of his seven starts.

A son of High Chaparral, Free Eagle is one of three group winners from his winning Danehill dam Polished Gem, a daughter of the classic winner and Group 1 producer Trusted Partner.

His third dam Talking Picture was the champion filly in America at two and won both the Matron and Spinaway Stakes.

Earlier this week Gay and David O’Callaghan’s Yeomanstown Stud announced that Gutaifan, a record-breaking son of their star sire Dark Angel, would join the stallion roster there in 2016.

course record

The dual Group 2 winner gained these successes in the Prix Robert Papin, where he beat the subsequent Gimcrack Stakes winner Ajaya, and in the Flying Childers Stakes in a new course record time.

Sharing a very similar profile to his sire, Gutaifan won on all types of ground and, along with his precocity, he is the highest rated juvenile son of Dark Angel. Gay O’Callaghan said: “We are excited to have acquired Gutaifan; he’s a great-looking horse with a tremendous action and is a high class two-year-old. Precocious, tough and sound, he reminds me a lot of his father.”

SUNNYHILL SPEED

A third new sire in Ireland for 2016 will be the German Derby winner Lucky Speed who retires to stud at Michael Hickey’s Sunnyhill Stud. Recent winners of the German Derby to do well at stud include Shirocco, Schiaparelli, Kamsin and Alderflug. The 2014 winner of that race was Sea The Moon.

This year Lucky Speed showed his international class when winning the Grade 3 American St Leger at Arlington in record time and he has been one of the most consistent runners at group level in Germany for the last three years.

He sire Silvano won the Arlington Million and is the sire of at least 15 Group 1 winners, including Vercingetorix.

On the dam side Lucky Speed is one of three stakes performers from the group-placed Lysuna, a daughter of Monsun.

Her grandam is an own-sister to the champion sire Bellypha.

Stud fees for Free Eagle, Gutaifan and Lucky Speed will all be announced later.