Mulawa Arabian Stud are our premier sponsors for 2025, and we are honoured to share the history of their fifty-year plus breeding programme with the world.
Reflection is one of the greatest gifts of time, providing the opportunity to examine, assess, understand, and appreciate how the consequences and results of decisions made affected the outcome and reality of present day. Applying this gift of reflection across five decades of a breeding programme, during which nearly two dozen stallions stood as chief sire, provides invaluable insight into not only how the visions and aspirations of the breeders were made manifest, but also of how each of these stallions made a constructive contribution to the genetic palette of the programme, as well as left their indelible signature on the unmistakeable phenotype for which the programme has deservedly earned universal acclaim.
For the Farrell family of Mulawa Arabian Stud, the catalyst that transformed their small family farm to a serious breeding programme of significance was the purchase of their first chief sire from the United States in the mid-1970s: the aptly named Ambition, whose destiny-altering contribution earned him the honorific of Mulawa’s ‘reason for being’. Most remarkably, over the ensuing decades, a dozen chief sires would be acquired from overseas, the vast majority from North America, to enhance the expanding aspiration of the programme, the record of which remains unprecedented and unchallenged in Australia in terms of both ambitious scope and enduring impact.
So successful was the skilful blending of these imported stallions into the Mulawa breeding programme, that, when combined with the superlative dam families carefully curated from both overseas and within Australia that comprised the core of the Mulawa breeding vision, the Farrells began to create, with remarkable consistency, home-bred stallions of even greater genetic prepotency and impact, the majority of whom possessed pedigrees infused with vital links to multiple Mulawa foundation sires. With the advent of imported frozen semen to Australia in the new millennium, the Mulawa breeding programme expanded exponentially, layering in the best genetics and phenotypic attributes available from the global gene pool with consequential effect, elevating the respectability and desirability of the Mulawa Arabian on the international stage to unparalleled new heights.
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, both closer to home in Australasia as well as worldwide, we will journey back across the decades and discover the success of the modern Mulawa Arabian through the lens of each of the transformative chief sires whose invaluable genotypic and phenotypic contributions helped to create the instantly recognisable and universally admired ‘Mulawa type’ and ‘Mulawa style’ the global community so respects and appreciates today.
Imported sires
Given the limited access to quality bloodstock from around the world that has proven the greatest challenge to genetic improvement in Australasia since equines first arrived in the late 18th century, the importation of well-bred Arabian stallions by breeders with both ample resources and visionary determination has been the principal change agent that has propelled the breed positively forward in both Australia and New Zealand. Having imported a total of twelve Arabian stallions from overseas from 1973 through 2008, Mulawa unquestionably ranks among the leading studs in Australasian history in terms of total number of imports, years of active importation, diversity of bloodlines, and continental origin, with stallions bred in Europe, North America and South America all standing as chief sires during the past five decades. Of these, eight are still celebrated as essential predecessors to the continuing success of the Arabian breed, not only in the Mulawa programme, but also, increasingly so, in the most well respected and consequential breeding programmes and competitive arenas all across the globe.
The horse most closely associated with the identity of Mulawa is irrefutably Ambition, the first and most important son of the immortal breed pillar Bask (Witraż x Bałałajka by Amurath Sahib) ever to be imported to Australia. Both of Ambition’s parents were bred in Poland – Bask by Roman Pankiewicz at Albigowa and the in-utero import Bint Ambara (ex Ambara by Wielki Szlem) by Andrzej Krzyształowicz at Janów Podlaski. This regal European heritage provided both the Mulawa programme and the Australian gene pool at large an incomparable source of classic pure Polish bloodlines with essential links to all four of the most important post-war Polish sires: Comet (Abu Afas x Carmen by Trypolis), born in 1953; Amurath Sahib (35 Amurath II x Sahiba by Nana Sahib I), born in 1932; and the Ofir (ex Dziwa by Abu Mlech) sons, Witraż (ex Makata by Fetysz) and Wielki Szlem (ex Elegantka by Bakszysz), both born in the fateful foal crop of 1938. Every single ancestor, with the exception of one in the third generation of Ambition’s esteemed pedigree, was born either before or during the cataclysmic events of World War II, which made his distinct genotype one of invaluable old world excellence and essential outcross genetics for the predominantly Crabbet-blend bloodlines of which the vast majority of Arabians Down Under were comprised prior to the 1980s.
Of all the stallions utilised in the Mulawa programme over the past half century, Ambition, rather remarkably, possessed the most recent links tracing directly to the Arabian homeland with no less than four desert-bred ancestors, all exported in the 20th century, present in the first five generations of his pedigree: Fatme or. Ar. – dam of 35 Amurath II (by Amurath) imported from Syria to Radowce Stud in Austria in 1905; Kuhailian Afas or. Ar. – the paternal great-grandsire of Comet, imported to Gumniska Stud in Poland from Bahrain in 1931; Kohejlan or. Ar. – imported from the Nejd in 1910 to Jezupol Stud in Poland and the sire of the unparalleled Polish matron Gazella II (ex Abra by Anvil), who appears four times in Ambition’s pedigree; and Kuhailian Haifi or. Ar., paternal great-grandsire of Ambition himself, another 1931 import whose positive influence is prolifically present through three invaluable ancestral connections.
A monumental leap forward for the Mulawa programme both genetically and phenotypically, the decidedly masculine, unmistakably Kuhailan Ambition became the foundation upon which all the future success of Mulawa was built, firmly establishing correct conformation, versatile athleticism, strength, substance, trainability, aristocratic quality and captivating charisma – all defining characteristics of both the Ofir and Comet descendants – as trademark attributes of the quintessential Mulawa Arabian. During his nine seasons at stud, Ambition was one of the most popular stallions in Australia, with more foals born to outside breeders than to Mulawa. Of all the stallions to stand as chief sire at Mulawa, Ambition sired the most lifetime foals – a rather modest total of 144 compared to other leading sires of the era – leaving the most influential legacy throughout the greatest number of breeding programmes.
At Mulawa, the Ambition legacy still thrives as a pivotal ancestral link in three present-day Mulawa Chief sires: Allegiance MI (Magnum Forty Four x Audacia by Parkview Audacious) via his most important son Arrival (ex Euni by Bandos); and the father-son duo of Vangelis MI (DA Valentino x Always An Angel by SK Shakla Khan) and V MI (ex Elegance MI) through the invaluable Ambition daughter Mulawa Fantasy, the direct daughter of fellow American import Dzina (Buszmen x Dziśna by Naborr), for whom Ambition shared an impassioned fondness.
Within the Mulawa dam families, in addition to the daughters and granddaughters Allegiance MI and Vangelis MI, the Ambition influence still exerts an uncompromising influence in the Jiah Aspire family via Mulawa Agnetha (ex Cosima by Argos), in the Karmaa family via Mulawa Aria (Arrival x Karmaa by Kaborr), in the M Angelique family via the aforementioned Mulawa Fantasy, and most prodigiously via Mulawa Chance (ex Grojecca by Grójec), foundress of the esteemed dam family of the same name and her sire’s most look-alike daughter. Although Ambition himself was not blessed with long life, the vast majority of his descendants were, with Mulawa Chance living extremely well to the ripe old age of thirty-three. She was the last of the direct Ambition get at Mulawa to depart for greener pastures in 2015, a remarkable 40 years after her sire first arrived in Australia to transform the trajectory of the fledgling stud with unequivocal positivity and prepotency.
Tragically, Ambition’s tenure as chief sire was cut short at just thirteen years of age, when he succumbed to complications from colic. This devastating loss proved a turning point for the young programme, inspiring not only the complimentary addition of another pure Polish import of enduring impact, but also the understanding and awareness that greater genetic diversity was necessary in future bloodstock acquisitions. Trainability, intelligence, sound conformation, length of rein and versatile athleticism are the most celebrated attributes of Ambition still found in the modern Mulawa Arabian, with his classic ‘look of eagles’ still the benchmark for impeccable Arabian type within the programme.
Fifty years on, the influence of the Mulawa Arabian continues to expand around the world with positive and profound effect, proudly showcasing to the international community the best of Australian ingenuity and determination. Through the thoughtful and intentional introduction of dozens of iconic Arabian sires representing the broadest spectrum of bloodlines over the course of half a century, the Farrell Family continues to prove themselves consummate and uncompromising stewards of the Arabian breed, assuring their invaluable contribution and the ‘MI’ horses of global renown will endure for decades yet to come.
For more information on Ambition and his profound legacy at Mulawa, in Australia and beyond, we kindly invite you to visit the Mulawa website.
