USEFUL was an interesting entry recently for the Tattersalls August Online Sale, but was withdrawn and ‘didn’t come under the hammer’, so to speak.

Listed as being out of training, the three-year-old unraced filly Useful (Galileo) had been in the care of William Haggas, owned by Zhang Yuesheng, and she was purchased as a yearling by BBA Ireland for €430,000 at Goffs. This looked like it might well have been value, given that 12 months earlier, and in the same ring, her full-sister Starry Eyed (Galileo) was hammered down to M.V. Magnier for €1.5 million.

Starry Eyed was no world-beater, always finding a couple too good for her on her first five starts, but she finally clicked over 10 furlongs at Cork in a maiden for three-year-olds and upwards, before being well beaten in a premier handicap at the Curragh a year ago. She presumably embarked on a new career as a broodmare this spring.

Starry Eyed and Useful are the first two foals from a mare who was a leading US juvenile, but failed to add to her successes at that age.

Nickname, a daughter of Scat Daddy (Johannesburg) who is playing such an important role in the development of a new breeding axis in Coolmore, won the Grade 1 Frizette Stakes at two, having realised $350,000 as a yearling at Keeneland. She was from the fifth crop sired by Scat Daddy, and was the result of a mating that cost $17,500.

This was not to be Nickname’s only appearance in the sales ring, and at the age of four she traded at the Fasig-Tipton November Sale, this time selling to Kerri Radcliffe, for Phoenix Thoroughbreds, and her value was then adjudged to be $3 million. She had run second on five occasions, and been in the frame a few more times, but at five she didn’t make it to the racecourse, nor was she covered.

Ides Of March

Nickname was back in the same ring for the same sale last November, but she was unsold, this time with a reserve of half the amount she sold for in 2017. Not only that, but she was carrying to Uncle Mo (Indian Charlie). Well, now all connections of the mare, and of her two daughters by Galileo (Sadler’s Wells), have reason to be pleased, as Nickname’s third produce, the Wootton Bassett (Iffraaj) colt Ides Of March, last weekend won for the second time in four outings, but this time in the six-furlong Group 3 Heider Family Stables Round Tower Stakes at the Curragh.

In the aftermath of that success, Ides Of March is now one of six Aidan O’Brien-trained runners in the Timeform list of top 10 juveniles of this season in Britain and Ireland. The Ger Lyons-trained Juddmonte filly Babouche is all that stands between O’Brien and a clean sweep of the top five, with the list headed by Bedtime Story, a pound higher than The Lion In Winter. Fairy Godmother is yet another filly at the top of the listing, alongside Henri Matisse and Whistlejacket.

Nickname does not come from one of the more glamourous female lines in the US stud book, and when Useful was catalogued last month by Tattersalls, the pedigree compliers included her fifth dam on the page. Doing so increased the number of stakes winners in the family from two to six being listed. Nickname, who has a yearling full-sister to Ides Of March, is the first stakes winner in the immediate family since her fourth dam, Good Potential (Relaunch).

Good Potential

A two-year-old runner in 1990, Good Potential was about seven pounds behind the best of her generation that season. She won the Grade 3 Sorority Stakes, was runner-up in the Grade 2 Arlington Washington Lassie Stakes and third in the Grade 1 Spinaway Stakes, the latter at Saratoga. She did well again at three. Good Potential was the best of the six winners from a stakes-placed mare who won 13 times.

At stud, Good Potential only had three foals, and all of them won. Her daughter Automated (Repriced) was second in the Grade 2 San Clemente Stakes at Del Mar, and won four times. It took her only other daughter, Impact Now (Major Impact), until the age of four to gain her sole success, and she was moderately successful at stud, breeding four winners. The best of these proved to be Nickname’s dam, the stakes-placed Borrego (El Prado) mare Nina Fever, and she came close to an elusive stakes victory when twice occupying the runner-up spot in listed contests at Woodbine in Canada.

She did, however, win six races at two and three.

On the back of Nickname’s reputation on the track, and her potential at stud, Nina Fever sold in 2021 at Fasig-Tipton to Blandford Bloodstock for $500,000, and the foal she was carrying, a filly by Constitution (Tapit), put that transaction in profit when she sold for $900,000 last year. Nina Fever’s 2024 yearling filly sold for $775,000 to Resolute Bloodstock, and she is a filly by Scat Daddy’s son, Justify. The odds look good that more will come from the immediate family.

Third weekend

This is the third weekend in succession that Wootton Bassett has sired a stakes-winning juvenile, following Henri Matisse and Apples And Bananas. A week before that, Al Riffa was back to something approaching his best when he won the Group 1 Grosser Preis von Berlin, contributing to what can only be described as an ‘Amazing August’ for Wootton Bassett.

Bred by Colin Bryce at Laundry Cottage Farm, Wootton Bassett is now the sire of 47 stakes winners, and 31 of these have won at group or graded level. His first Coolmore conceived crop are this year’s two-year-olds, and they already include four blacktype winners among their number. Apart from the three already mentioned, his daughter Angeal is unbeaten in three starts, most recently taking the Group 3 Prix Six Perfections at Deauville.

The decision by Coolmore to purchase Wootton Bassett has proven to be nothing short of inspired. Yes, he was sire of three-time Group 1 winner and classic hero Almanzor in his first crop, but the team in Tipperary sensed, quite correctly, that there was plenty in the pipeline, and so it proved.

His Group/Grade 1 tally now stands at nine, and they also include King Of Steel, Audarya, Wooded, Bucanero Fuerte, Zellie, Unquestionable and Incarville.

Outstanding results

At the announcement of his purchase from Haras d’Etreham, Coolmore’s David O’Loughlin said: “From his initial small crops in France, Wootton Bassett has achieved outstanding results.

“His first crop of just 23 foals included European champion three-year-old Almanzor, he’s had two other colts finish second in the Prix du Jockey Club and two fillies finish second, beaten only a nose, and third in this year’s French Guineas – and this all from €6,000 nominations or less.

“He strikes us as a real classic stallion, he gets a very good type and is a total outcross with his pedigree free of the major European forces like Sadler’s Wells, Galileo, Montjeu, Danehill, Green Desert, Invincible Spirit, Danehill Dancer and Dubawi.”

Unbeaten in five starts as a juvenile for Richard Fahey, Wootton Bassett was a decisive winner of the Group 1 Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere, after which he was rated champion two-year-old colt in France.

His meteoric rise saw his fee shoot up from €40,000 in his last season in France, to €100,000 in his first year at Coolmore, and now he has finished the 2024 season at double that. Wootton Bassett sold to Bobby O’Ryan for £46,000 as a yearling at the 2009 Doncaster St Leger Sale.