EVERYBODY has a figure for the amount Coolmore spent to acquire Wootton Bassett (Iffraaj) for the 2021 season, after his hugely impressive start at stud in France. Whatever they paid for him, they have certainly got their money’s worth.

The reason for his purchase, the need for a stallion to provide an outcross for the large volume of Galileo (Sadler’s Wells) mares about, was plain, and he was not only popular with his new owners, but also with breeders in general. He stood nine seasons at Haras d’Etreham, at fees ranging from €4,000 to €40,000, but those days were left well behind with his move to Co Tipperary.

Year one in Ireland saw him attract 244 mares at a fee of €100,000. There was little lessening in demand for his services in the following two years when his fee jumped to €150,000, and he averaged 230 mares for each of those seasons. This year’s returns show that 223 were covered, this time at €200,000 a pop, with more than half of them being stakes performers, and a quarter were group or graded stakes winners.

Wootton Bassett, one of 13 top-level scorers among 100 stakes winners for Iffraaj (Zafonic), was an undefeated Group 1 winner and champion in France at two, his five successes crowned by victory on Arc weekend in the Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere. That season he also won two valuable juvenile contests in England. Balladonia (Primo Dominie), Wootton Bassett’s stakes-placed dam, comes from the family of Group 1 victors Silver Patriarch (Saddlers’ Hall) and Papineau (Singspiel), more noted for stamina.

A disappointing second season racing did not stop Wootton Basset heading to stud at a starting fee of €6,000. He made an immediate impact with his first crop, his juvenile stakes-winning son Almanzor becoming a middle-distance champion at three. That Group 1 Prix du Jockey Club-French Derby, Irish Champion Stakes and Champion Stakes standout, bred by Haras d’Etreham, has now moved to stand in the southern hemisphere, where two of his sons are Group 1 winners.

National Stakes

Joseph O’Brien’s Goffs Vincent O’Brien National Stakes hero and 2024 Group 1 winner became the fifth such winner for Wootton Bassett after the stallion was purchased by Coolmore in the summer of 2020. That group also included Wooded who ended his career with victory in the Group 1 Prix de l’Abbaye de Longchamp, and has eight winners in his first crop of juveniles. That same day, Group 1 Prix Jean Romanet heroine Audarya finished third to Tarnawa in the Group 1 Prix de l’Opera, and later landed the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf. Audarya has a yearling filly by Dubawi (Dubai Millennium), while her colt foal by Frankel (Galileo) is Lot 936 in the upcoming Tattersalls December Sale.

Another daughter of Wootton Bassett, Incarville, won the 2021 Group 1 Saxon Warrior Coolmore Prix Saint-Alary, and then Zellie placed herself among the elite juveniles of that year when she captured the Group 1 Prix Marcel Boussac. Incarville is in Japan where her first offspring is a yearling son of Palace Pier (Kingman), and he sold for the equivalent of $350,000 this summer.

Last year Wootton Bassett sired the Group 1 Champion Stakes winner King Of Steel, the Group 1 Phoenix Stakes winner Bucanero Fuerte, and the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf hero Unquestionable. As good as this was, it still seems like a warm-up for 2024 and beyond, when his best-bred sons and daughters will appear. His first Irish-conceived crop contains three Group 1 juvenile winners and 10 pattern-winning two-year-olds.

Group 1 double

Camille Pissarro emulated his own sire when he won the Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere, while Twain and Tennessee Stud recorded a Group 1 double at Saint-Cloud at the weekend. More on the latter pair later. As successful as Wootton Bassett has been with his Group and Grade 1 winners, he came within a few lengths of having many more.

Wootton Bassett’s daughter Speak Of The Devil was runner-up in the Group 1 Poule d’Essai des Pouliches-French 1000 Guineas, Tamahere ran second in the Grade 1 Jenny Wiley Stakes at Keeneland, and The Summit was second in both the Group 1 Prix du Jockey Club-French Derby and Group 1 Poule d’Essai des Poulains-French 2000 Guineas. Henri Matisse was second in the Group 1 National Stakes this year, and last season Chindit chased Modern Games home in the Group 1 Lockinge Stakes.

Meanwhile. Wootton finished runner-up in the Group 1 Emirates Airline Jebel Hatta, Texas was classic-placed when second in the Group 1 Poule d’Essai des Poulains-French 2000 Guineas, Trident ran second in the Group 1 Prix Morny, while Patascoy was runner-up in the Group 1 Prix du Jockey Club-French Derby. To round off a list of near misses, Islandsinthestream was runner-up in both the Group 1 National Stakes and Criterium de Saint-Cloud, while Expanded finished second in the Group 1 Dewhurst Stakes.

Broodmare band

There will be many more Group 1 winners to come, especially given how easy Wootton Bassett is to mate with the powerful Coolmore broodmare band. He is bred 5x4x5 to Northern Dancer, by way of The Minstrel, Nureyev and Danzig, but has no Sadler’s Wells, Galileo or Danehill in his pedigree.

Back now to that juvenile Group 1 double at Saint Cloud on Sunday. The Aidan O’Brien-trained Twain won the Group 1 Criterium International eight days after a winning debut in a Leopardstown maiden for Team Coolmore. He comes from one of the most celebrated families in the stud book, his third dam being Urban Sea (Miswaki). His trainer is already working towards a 2000 Guineas challenge.

Here is another example of the genius that is Aidan O’Brien, sending a colt out to run twice in just over a week, and securing a Group 1 success. The unusual start to his career has, however, shown O’Brien that the colt is a worthy contender for classic glory, so it is a case of a job well done.

Twain’s dam Wading (Montjeu) ran just three times, all at two, and the second of her two wins was in the Group 2 Rockfel Stakes at Newmarket. At stud she is dam of six winners, all her runners, and the best of the rest is Just Wonderful (Dansili). She, like her dam, won the Group 2 Rockfel Stakes, placed in the Group 1 Matron Stakes, but came closest to a top-level success when she was second in the Grade 1 Belmont Oaks.

Never Ending Story

Wading’s full-sister Bracelet (Montjeu) won the Group 1 Irish Oaks and Group 2 Ribblesdale Stakes, while their half-sister Athena (Camelot) was successful in the Grade 1 Belmont Oaks.

Athena’s daughter Never Ending Story (Dubawi), a dual Group 3 winner, was runner-up in the Group 1 Prix de Diane-French Oaks. Wading, Bracelet, Athena and Group 3 winner Goddess (Camelot) are four of the seven winners from the stakes-placed, non-winner Cherry Hinton (Green Desert).

The Joseph O’Brien-trained Tennessee Stud, bred by his mother Annemarie, had earlier won the Group 1 Criterium de Saint-Cloud, and this is a family that is closely associated with Annemarie and her later father, Joe Crowley. The dam In My Dreams (Sadler’s Wells) is responsible for five winners, Tennessee Stud by some way being the best, and she is a half-sister to seven-time Group 1 winner and champion miler Rock Of Gibraltar (Danehill).

Crowley bought Rock Of Gibraltar’s dam Offshore Boom (Be My Guest), a stakes-placed winner, from Moyglare Stud for only IR11,000gns at Goffs, and not only did she produce a champion, but she is now grandam of two Group 1 winners, her granddaughter Intricately (Fastnet Rock) having won the Moyglare Stud Stakes in 2016.