Mulawa Arabian Stud is our premier sponsor for 2025, and we are honoured to share their history of their fifty-plus years breeding programme through TheArabianMagazine.Com. This month, we celebrate their incredible stallion, Klass, who died in May. In this third part, we look at the legacy of Klass.
For part one, click here.
For part two, click here.
Beyond the show-ring and the breeding barn, Klass enjoyed a privileged existence and pride of place wherever he resided on a Mulawa property. Greg especially enjoyed his time with Klass in Sydney, even if from afar, “as his pasture and stable were situated directly below our family home. Like his sire, TS al Malik, Klass enjoyed playing with objects to keep himself amused, the predictable outcome for an intelligent horse with an abundance of energy and a curious mind. I would often find myself distracted in my office, which overlooked both their paddocks from the second floor of our home, by the vision of two alabaster white stallions rearing across the fence line from each other, twirling long kikuyu grass runners they had plucked from their paddocks in the mouths. They would each spend hours picking, twirling and rearing, before flicking the amusement away only to chase after it and resume the game again. Those moments, when much less work was done than would I have liked, are some of my most precious memories of both stallions, each of whom has had a profound influence on the Mulawa programme and our lives.”
As a full-time sire beginning with the 2011-12 breeding season, it made logical sense for Klass to reside at Alabama Stud, the 1500-acre Mulawa property in the Upper Hunter Valley near Scone that housed the entirety of the Mulawa breeding programme, including all the broodmares, foals, youngstock and active breeding stallions. Klass was reluctantly moved to Alabama with one proviso from Greg: “If he disliked his life at Alabama for any reason, he could return to Sydney, no questions asked, and to his paddock” directly below Greg’s home office. Special housing was purpose-built for Klass prior to his arrival, a more spacious indoor-outdoor stable and yard construction with adjacent paddock, a design based upon the housing the farm had fortuitously inherited when the Riverslee section of the property was purchased, and in which all the other resident stallions resided. Suffice it to say, the keenly intelligent, supremely laid back Klass loved his life at Alabama, or more precisely Cronk Coar, the exact name of the sister property, all part of the same Alabama stud holding, which housed the stallions, the collecting area and most of the growing yearling and two-year-old fillies. As far as Klass was concerned, Cronk Coar was horse heaven, and with his gelding companion Sovereign Wings (Magnum Psyche x On Angels Wings by TS al Malik) stabled alongside, he remained contently the king of his domain in the Hunter Valley among the equine elite of Australia for the vast majority of his indisputably charmed life.
So privileged was Klass at Alabama Stud that he had not only one, but two stable complexes built for him on site. The first, closest to the other stallion yards but separated by a tall hedge, was used during the breeding season, given its proximity to the collecting area and Klass’ intense use in the breeding programme. The Team soon discovered, however, that Klass preferred the second location, complete with a larger, gently sloping, turn-out paddock and sweeping views of the verdant Riverslee paddocks in which the youngstock, Arabian and warmblood alike, were routinely housed, not to mention the site of a steady stream of nightly visits by the local kangaroos and wallabies. After only a few rotations between the two complexes, Klass chose for himself the more spacious accommodation with the amazing vistas, and there he remained for over a decade.
It was here that most international visitors remember first meeting Klass, most often in his natural state, which was a considerably dirtier hue than alabaster white. “One of Klass’ greatest joys,” Julie recalls amusingly, “was a good mud bath. He would always find the muddiest spot in his paddock, roll with absolute delight, and then stand there proudly, covered nose to tail. He would roll with such enthusiasm, as if he knew the extra attention he’d get with a good bath or groom afterward – or perhaps he just loved the horrified expressions on our faces when he went back for round two!” As a homozygous grey sire, Klass’ inclination to be filthy from head to toe was also inherited by the majority of his get, all of them grey, or various shades of ‘earth tones’ depending on how soon after a fresh rain fall one encountered his descendants. Visitors to the farm today can still spot the Klass descendants from a mile away – if it is covered in mud, rest assured the horse is related to Klass.
Although challenging to motivate as a show horse, Klass, according to Jane “loved a photo shoot!” So many of the most iconic photos of Mulawa involve Klass doing something amazing, from the early days in Sydney as a halter horse among the characteristic gum trees at Ambition, to the unforgettable series of Klass working cattle in the Pages River at Alabama with Daniella. For the vast majority of the horse’s life, Stuart Vesty has been Klass’ personal photographer, capturing more photos of Klass than any other single animal at Mulawa since 2009. Courtesy of Stuart, Klass has graced the cover of several of the leading industry publications worldwide, including The Arabian Magazine, Arabian Horse World and Arabian Horse News, as well as Arabian Studs and Stallions. Some of the most renowned and celebrated photos of Klass taken by Stuart include the ‘Blue Period’ teasing shot, Rodney Brown aboard erupting from bush, the original ‘strike’ pose from year one, Rodney Brown cracking the stock whip, Klass and the jacaranda, and those world famous ‘Klass at play’ images rearing with his big red ball. The final photos taken of Klass by Stuart in 2023 with the Farrells and at home in his favourite paddock remain especially poignant, as does the world-famous image of ‘Klass at the billabong’ taken in 2010. Selected to represent Australia and the Australian Arabian horse in the international hall of the Arabian Horse Galleries at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, this perfect portrait hangs proudly in one of the most visited equine attractions in world, forever immortalising Klass as an idyll for both his homeland and the Arabian breed.
Unforgettable video footage of Klass has also played an essential role in perpetuating his global renown. Jen Miller and Sophie Pegrum of Horsefly Films first captured class under saddle in high definition, most memorably barrelling down the Pages River at full gallop with Daniella Dierks, moments memorialised in the opening segment of the seminal Mulawa farm film. A short two-minute clip of Klass playing fervently with his favourite red ball in his paddock in Sydney went viral on social media in 2020 when released to celebrate the holidays. It is through these images – both photos and videos – that many of our most indelible memories of Klass live on, forever captured in time and commemorating the extraordinary existence of a once-in-a-lifetime horse.
The loss of Klass, although somewhat expected for a horse in the third decade of life, hit especially hard for Greg, Julie and Jane. Julie reminisces fondly of the “unique bond shared by Klass and Greg, one I was fortunate enough to witness first-hand. They understood each other in a way that needed no words – their connection was instinctive, quiet, and almost telepathic.” Julie is still intent on remembering all the best times with Klass: “his sense of humour, his intensity at play, and the fact that he could turn his hoof at everything handed to him. During his idyllic retirement at Alabama, Klass loved attention and especially a carrot from visitors, and was always keen for a cuddle. I will miss those quiet times, with a carrot and a gentle scratch of affection, the most.”
In Jane’s words, “Klass just made you feel good! There was a grounded surety about him, a quiet confidence and self-assurance. He was so secure about his place in the world, that he was rarely upset or ruffled, a trait that was shared by Arrival, another of the unforgettable and life-changing stallions born and raised, and who lived their entire charmed existences, at Mulawa. While we remain confident his influence will continue to thrive both at Mulawa and in other fortunate breeding programmes around the globe, his quiet, unassuming, but nonetheless improbably imposing, presence will be hugely missed.”
In 2015, as a fitting honour for his lifetime of unprecedented achievement as a show horse and his growing influence as a sire of significance around the world, Klass was awarded the WAHO Trophy for Australia. Reflecting back now, ten years later, this recognition seems all the more profound, given the legendary status he has attained as both a sire and as an unrivalled exemplar of the classic Arabian horse. The consummate breed ambassador, without equal in the new millennium, Klass departs this world a legend, one firmly established and still in the making, whose legacy is secure among the pantheon of immortals.
For Greg, Klass will be remembered as the transformative force that forever changed Mulawa for the better. In the show-ring, he exemplified the classic desert war horse, distinctly appealing yet supremely capable of any athletic endeavour, epitomising the Mulawa ideal of the beautiful athlete. As the first Mulawa-bred stallion to gain notoriety internationally for his prodigious get, he affirmed Mulawa’s position in the global marketplace as a source of world class breeding stock and show horses, with generations of excellence representative on both sides of the pedigree. Most definitively, Klass was the horse closest to Greg’s heart, the horse with whom he shared his most intimate kinship and most enduring bond.
“At Mulawa,” Greg confidently imparts, “our business has a fundamental core value – ‘to leave things better than we found them’. It brings me great joy and satisfaction to know, that Klass has left the breed, and everyone fortunate enough to have known him and to have shared in his extraordinary life, unquestionably for the better.”
