THE five juvenile Grade 1 winners at this year’s Breeders’ Cup meeting in Del Mar contained a mix of familiar names in this column, and some new faces. Aidan O’Brien’s two winners, Henri Matisse and Lake Victoria have been reviewed previously, but still deserve a short resume.

This week we saw the 2025 stud fee for Wootton Bassett (Iffraaj) soar to €300,000, and after the year he has enjoyed, this is hardly surprising. To sire four Group or Grade 1 winners with his first Irish-conceived crop was surely beyond even the wildest dreams of Coolmore, and he backs that up with another nine blacktype winners, while 20% of all his two-year-old runners this year have earned some blacktype. An amazing achievement.

Henri Matisse is the sixth foal and fifth winner out of Immortal Verse, a dual Group 1 winning daughter of the exceptional broodmare sire Pivotal (Polar Falcon). She sold for a sale-topping 4,700,000gns in 2013 to BBA Ireland, was the champion filly at three in England and the second-best in Europe, and she is proving to be value for her sale price. Her first three foals did not set the world alight, but the next three, all trained at Ballydoyle, have redressed that.

First came Tenebrism (Caravaggio), and she was followed a year later by Statuette (Justify). Both became stakes winners, with the former being a champion. Tenebrism gave Aidan O’Brien his 360th Group 1 flat success as a trainer when she landed the Group 1 Cheveley Park Stakes, and she added the Group 1 Prix Jean Prat to her roll of honour at three. Statuette gave Justify (Scat Daddy) his first winner in Europe, but we only saw her once more, when she won the Group 2 Balanchine Stakes at the Curragh.

Now, along comes a third pattern winner, and second Group/Grade 1 winner, for Immortal Verse with Henri Matisse. He added the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf to three prior wins, and he was runner-up to Scorthy Champ in the Group 1 Goffs Vincent O’Brien National Stakes.

Lake Victoria

Five runs, five wins, and three of those at the highest level. What an outstanding first season for Lake Victoria (Frankel), adding the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf to wins in the Group 1 Moyglare Stud Stakes and Group 1 Cheveley Park Stakes. The champion filly-elect is the daughter of two champions, Frankel (Galileo) and Quiet Refection (Showcasing).

M.V. Magnier secured Quiet Reflection for 2,100,000gns, having won the Group 1 Commonwealth Cup at Royal Ascot and the Group 1 Haydock Sprint Cup at three. She was a group winner every year she raced, and won three of her four starts at two, ending her first season with an easy win in the Group 3 Dubai Cornwallis Stakes at Newmarket. At four she travelled to Naas for the Group 3 Renaissance Stakes, and emerged victorious.

Mated with Galileo (Sadler’s Wells), she had three foals and two winners, Bluegrass who finished third to the Derby winner Desert Crown in the Group 2 Dante Stakes, and this year’s winner, The Equator. Lake Victoria is Quiet Reflection’s fourth produce.

Irish juvenile form was well advertised in the opening Grade 1 race of the Breeders’ Cup, the Juvenile Turf Sprint, with the Ger Lyons-trained Magnum Force (Mehmas) giving his sire a seventh Group/Grade 1 winner, and a third juvenile of 2024 to do so. The two-year-olds are from the first crop he sired from better mares, having had his fee raised from €7,500 to €25,000 after his first crop gave us the Group 1 Middle Park Stakes winner Supremacy.

Magnum Force

Homebred by Abdulla Al Khalifa, Magnum Force has won or placed on all his five outings, and justified in great style his connection’s belief in his ability.

His dam was purchased for 38,000gns from Jeff Smith’s Littleton Stud after winning twice at two in the care of Ralph Beckett. Her only other winner to date has been Tropical Talent (Nathaniel), and that five-year-old won a handicap chase at Sedgefield back in May.

There is no inbreeding in Magnum Force’s pedigree to five generations. Jeff Smith purchased the colt’s grandam, Tropical Treat (Bahamian Bounty), as a foal for 28,000gns.

She repaid the investment when winning a listed race at two, running second in a Group 3 the following year, and Magnum Force’s dam is one of her two winners to date. She has a promising prospect in the two-year-old Tropical Heat (Mohaather), placed on his only start this year for Smith.

The pair of American-bred two-year-old winners at the Breeders’ Cup also share something in common with Magnum Force, that of no inbreeding to five generations. Immersive (Nyquist) made a winning debut in late July, has run in three Grade 1 races since, and remains unbeaten after the Juvenile Fillies’. Her other victories were at Keeneland and Saratoga, in the Alcibiades Stakes and Spinaway Stakes.

Darley’s Nyquist

What a year this has been for Darley’s Nyquist. His fee in 2024, the highest ever at $85,000, will go to $175,000 next season. Immersive is one of nine Grade 1 juveniles from Nyquist’s first five crops, and only Danzig has ever done the same.

Nyquist’s four Grade 1 winners in 2024 put him among North America’s elite stallions, with only Into Mischief having more. In addition to Immersive, he is also sire of the Grade 1 Shoemaker Mile winner and Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Mile runner-up Johannes, a four-time graded stakes winner in 2024, plus Grade 1 Ogden Phipps winner Randomized and Grade 1 Del Mar Debutante winner Tenma. Nyquist is also coming off a very strong yearling sales season, with Keeneland September yearlings bringing up to $1.3 million.

Immersive’s only winning sibling, Takingtimeoff (Curlin), was sold by Godolphin at the start of this year for, wait for it, $20,000. This week, she was cashed in at Fasig-Tipton when selling for $325,000 to Japan, carrying her third foal, by Yaupon (Uncle Mo).

Her dam, Gap Year (Bernardini), is one of six winners out of Dubai Escapade (Awesome Again). She went from being a $75,000 yearling to a £2 million breezer, but went on to become a Grade 1 winner, the best of her six victories. Dubai Escapade is a half-sister to Grade 1 Ashland Stakes winner Madcap Escapade (Hennessy), and she bred the Grade 1 juvenile winner Mi Sueno (Pulpit).

The Bull roars

Citizen Bull has, like Immersive, run four times, but he met defeat when third in the Grade 1 Del Mar Futurity. He returned to the track to land the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, adding to a victory in the Grade 1 American Pharoah Stakes at Santa Anita. He has more than repaid the $675,000 investment made in him as a yearling at Keeneland, Citizen Bull is the only winner so far for the unraced No Joke (Distorted Humor), and she brought $750,000 as a yearling.

Bred to be good, No Joke is a half-sister to Moonshine Memories (Malibu Moon), and she won the Grade 1 Del Mar Debutante Stakes at two, the Grade 1 Chandelier Stakes at three, and sold in 2021 for $3.4 million. Moonshine Memories is out of a winning half-sister to the US juvenile champion colt Favorite Trick (Phone Trick), and he too, like his close relation last week, won the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, his success coming in 1997.

With 13 crops of racing age, Into Mischief (Harlan’s Holiday) is set to cover in 2025 at Spendthrift at $250,000 for the fourth consecutive season. He is responsible for 22 Grade 1 winners.