Ballylinch Stud have increased the fee of their top class sire Lope de Vega (IRE), who is well known to Australians as the sire of gun sprinters Gytrash and Santa Ana Lane.
He will stand for a career-high fee of €125,000, a 25 per cent increase on last year.
A Group I winning son of Shamardal, Lope de Vega shuttled to Australia for Patinack Farm for the first four seasons of his stud career.
He has since emerged as a serious elite sire of 77 stakes-winners worldwide, 12 of them Group I winners, with his stakes-winner to runner strike rate of 8.9% stamping him as top class.
"Lope De Vega's rise to the very top of the stallion ranks continues," said Ballylinch Stud's managing director John O'Connor.
"This year's crop of two-year-olds included his 11th and 12th Group 1 winners, with Lucky Vega taking the Phoenix Stakes and Aunt Pearl crowning a magnificent year with her dominant display at the Breeders' Cup.
“There were four Group 1 winners among his 37 stakes performers, while his yearlings averaged almost 3.5 times his 2018 fee and sold for up to 900,000gns."
His success has attracted the interest of Australian breeders and Lope de Vega has had 11 foals born in Australia this spring conceived in Ireland to Southern Hemisphere time.
