Yulong buys Segenhoe Stud to launch second NSW stallion hub

Yulong has not just bought a famous farm. It has taken a direct shot at the geography of Australian breeding, using Segenhoe Stud to build a second stallion hub in New South Wales and challenge where the industry’s best mares are parked over the next two seasons.

That matters because stallion access drives everything in this game: mare bookings, yearling prices, and eventually the quality of the horses on the biggest stages. Segenhoe brings Yulong a 1,400-acre Hunter Valley base with 10 kilometres of Hunter River frontage, a brand that dates to 1908, and a track record that is impossible to ignore. Industry figures say the farm produced 18 Group 1 winners in the past 15 years, including Pride Of Jenni and Joliestar, with other reporting putting the last decade at 13 Group 1 winners. In four racing seasons, its drafts also produced 25 individual stakes winners, while the 2024 sales season delivered seven million-dollar yearlings at Magic Millions Gold Coast and three more at Inglis Easter.

The purchase turns that pedigree into infrastructure. Yulong plans to redevelop Segenhoe with a new stallion barn and purpose-built serving facilities for up to 10 stallions, a clear sign this is a long-term breeding play rather than a land grab. Chief operating officer Sam Fairgray framed the move as the next step after years of building a colt-buying and racehorse investment pipeline, with the Victorian stallion barn filling quickly enough to justify expansion. General manager Jun Zhang said the acquisition showed confidence in the Australian Thoroughbred industry, and the logic is easy to see: Yulong already has a deep roster in Victoria, headed by Written Tycoon and supported by Alabama Express, Pierata, Lucky Vega, Tagaloa, Grunt, Panthalassa, Diatonic and More Than Looks.

The scale behind the purchase is just as telling. Yulong says its broodmare band includes more than 65 Group 1 winners or producers, and earlier coverage placed its broader operation at about 700 broodmares in Australia and another 400 in China. That is the kind of footprint that can alter traffic patterns in the breeding market. If major owners decide Segenhoe is the better place to send their mares, Yulong’s influence will stretch from Nagambie to the Hunter, and the ripple effects will show up later in Derby fields, spring stakes, and the major races that are still being shaped right now.