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.
In celebration of the incomparable contribution the Farrell family has made to the advancement of the Arabian breed over the course of half a century, we continue our journey back across the decades and discover the success of the modern Mulawa Arabian through the lens of each of the transformative chief sires who helped to create the instantly recognisable and universally admired ‘Mulawa style’ the global community readily recognises today.
The Mulawa story continues with Magnum Forty Four, that stallion that profoundly transformed the Mulawa programme in the new millennium.
The decades-old friendship with Gene Reichardt friendship reaped its greatest reward with the introduction of Magnum Forty Four, who was offered on very generous lease terms to the Farrells in 2003. Once the promising poster child of excellence from the inaugural foal crop of Magnum Psyche (Padrons Psyche x A Fancy Miracle), Magnum Forty Four had fallen into obscurity as a result of multiple unfortunate ownership exchanges. This early misfortune, however, proved to be just the opposite for both Magnum Forty Four and Mulawa, as a horse of his quality would never have been made available to Australia during the height of Magnum Psyche mania had it not been for his ‘donation’ as a tax write-off to the Salem’s Children Home in Iowa where Gene was employed as horse supervisor.
Phenotypic excellence aside, having already been named United States and Canadian National Reserve Champion Stallion AOTH, Magnum Forty Four’s pedigree offered the Mulawa programme more of the bloodlines that had proven to be most effective within the breeding herd, blended creatively into a most appealing package of distinctly modern features. A direct paternal descendant of Padron (Patron x Odessa), like GLF Apollo (Diamond Padron x Per Brio), Magnum Forty Four possessed, more importantly, an essential link to Padrons Psyche (by Padron), another living legend and global sire of significance whose straight Russian dam Kilika (Tamerlan x Kilifa) added superlative structure, old world elegance and indomitable athletic ability to his heritage. Like Fame Maker R (Fame VF x Inschallah El Shaklan), Forty Four was a blend of Balearic and Bey Shah (Bay el Bey x Star of Ofir) bloodlines, inheriting elegance, scope, balance and enormous liquid eyes from Magnum Psyche’s straight Spanish dam A Fancy Miracle (Sasaki x Medina Azahara) and the trademark charisma, tail carriage and enchanting presence that defined Bey Shah via his own dam WH Nashahna, a successful show mare for North Arabians. On the distaff side of his pedigree through maternal granddam Forteynette (ex Kimfeyn by Kimfa), Forty Four was also blessed with a vital link to the black pure Polish Fortel (Como x Forta), the Michałów-bred athlete supreme who contributed not only more distinctly Kuhailan type as well as the dryness and refinement of antiquity courtesy of Ofir (Kuhailan Haifi or. x Dziwa) and Witraż (Ofir x Makata), but also direct desert connections via the Syrian import Kuhailan Zaid or. Ar. 1923.
Magnum Forty Four proved to be such a successful sire for Mulawa, with just two foal crops on the ground, that his purchase was secured at the end of his lease in 2006. He would remain the most important and influential sire in residence until his premature loss in 2013 due to a debilitating injury, leaving just 93 lifetime foals behind, two-thirds of which were bred by Mulawa, in his adopted homeland. Most remarkably, from this modest number of foals, Magnum Forty Four would be honoured as the Leading Sire of champion progeny in Australia for six consecutive years, responsible for the greatest number of accomplished performers both in-hand and under saddle all across the continent whose impressive portfolios of achievement are still rewriting the record books. An inordinately large number of his male descendants have since redefined the standard of excellence under saddle in Australia, succeeding across a broad range of disciplines from ridden, hack and show hunter, to dressage, racing and endurance. Some of the most celebrated and versatilely accomplished include Artistry (ex M Angelique by Vision), Because (ex Befame by Fame Maker R), Aces Wild (ex Aspired by Parkview Audacious), Mulawa Inspired (out of Jiah Aspire by GLF Apollo), Maxium (out of Sahtarah by Sahjat), and full brothers High Calibre and Rapid Fire (ex Fire Flame by Fame Maker R). Of all the sons of Magnum Forty Four, none has been more consequential than Allegiance MI (ex Audacia by Parkview Audacious), the Mulawa super sire of the last decade who has magnified Mulawa influence and appreciation around the world to unprecedented new heights.
Despite his unparalleled impact on the positive trajectory of the show-ring, Magnum Forty Four’s most profound legacy is his iconic status earned as a broodmare sire supreme. His elite collection of daughters, which numbered as many as a dozen at their peak, comprised the essential core of the Mulawa breeding herd for more than a decade, proving themselves to be the most reliably prolific producers of international quality progeny in the five decade-plus history of their maternal stud. Three of the most venerated Magnum Forty Four daughters were named Australian National Champion Senior Mares – Parada (ex Presence by GLF Apollo), Mulawa Aspiring (ex Jiah Aspire by GLF Apollo) and Romance MI (ex Rimaraa by Marwan Al Shaqab) – each of whom produced several successful progeny of their own. Two other illustrious daughters – cornerstone matrons Mustang’s Magnum (ex Sahtarah by Sahjat) and Karess (ex Mulawa Kara Mia MI by GLF Apollo) – still hold the record as elite Aristocrat Dams, having produced more champion progeny, eleven and nine, respectively, than any other mares in Australian Arabian history, including several of whom have achieved significant international success.
It was universal justice that, after the unnecessary and wasteful wandering of his youth, Magnum Forty Four found his forever home on the opposite side of the world at Mulawa. Despite a few appearances in the show-ring, the pinnacle of which included his triumph as East Coast Champion Stallion, Magnum Forty Four lived a comfortable, stationary existence in Berrilee alongside the other chief sires of renown – GLF Apollo, Fame Maker R, TS al Malik (Hello Barich Els x BF Tiffany Select) and Klass (TS al Malik x Karmaa) – during Mulawa’s most ambitious era of expansion in the new millennium. In North America, Forty Four would have been just another Magnum Psyche son, but under the responsible stewardship of the Farrells, he has left a legacy unrivalled by any modern import from overseas. Exquisite quality and refinement, unsurpassed balance and harmonious proportion, exceptional breed type and elegance, unexpectedly versatile athleticism and those trademark ‘44’ eyes – alluringly large, liquid and luminous – are the gifts with which Magnum Forty Four continues to enrich the global breeding population for the better.
