The sight of Galileo’s progeny battling out the finish to a Classic has become so commonplace as to be almost taken for granted. But its very possible that we witnessed such an event for the final time at Doncaster last month when Jan Brueghel narrowly overcame Illinois in the St Leger, 18 years on from when Sixties Icon led home a Galileo sweep of the top three places in the same race. Jan Brueghel and Illinois, two later maturing colts brought along steadily by Aidan O’Brien, are from Galileo’s penultimate crop of 93. His final crop is a much smaller affair at 14 foals and contains just the two runners so far, neither of whom have troubled the judge.
However, as Galileo’s influence recedes through his own progeny, Coolmore have seamlessly been able to come to rely upon Wootton Bassett as a means to utilise their assets effectively. Comparing the two, of course, is futile. For starters, it’s unlikely that we’ll see another sire of the dominance of Galileo in the short term (although plenty thought the same when Sadler’s Wells was retired from stud duty). The 16-year-old Wootton Bassett is also a very different animal altogether, one who earned recognition the hard way in France and is more of an influence for speed, in keeping with the Zafonic/Mr Prospector sire line.
Wootton Bassett’s output has been pretty relentless this summer, with a tally of eight two-year-old stakes winners helping him on his way towards justifiying the major investment made in him in the summer of 2021. That high-profile, multi-million euro deal sent him from Haras d’Etreham, which had developed the horse from humble beginnings into a leading French sire, to Coolmore, who swiftly embarked on a strategy to make him one of Europe’s go-to stallions.
There tends to be no half-measures when Coolmore get behind one of its high-profile, proven horses. And Wootton Bassett has been no different. A 2021 book of 229 mares, which resulted in 199 foals bred off a fee of €100,000, includes progeny out of top Coolmore-owned racemares and/or producers such as Alexandrova, Best In The World, Clemmie, Found, Immortal Verse, Life Happened, Peeping Fawn and Was. An array of leading international breeders also leapt on the bandwagon, as they did again in 2022 when he covered another 249 mares despite a fee increase to €150,000.
Since then, the momentum has remained rolling. Wootton Bassett had a champion in Almanzor, the product of a first crop that numbered just 23 foals, and a Breeders’ Cup heroine in Audarya, the 2020 Filly & Mare Turf heroine bred when he still stood for €6,000, to his credit at the time of his transfer to Coolmore, and has kept pace since then as the quality of his books has increased. By 2019, Etreham had been able to push his fee to €40,000 and out of that resulting crop emerged Group 1 winner Al Riffa, currently a live shot for this month’s Arc, as well as last year’s star three-year-old King Of Steel. Amo Racing’s strapping colt capped his year with a win in the Group 1 Champion Stakes at Ascot, by which time Wootton Bassett’s 2021 crop had earned regard as the source of Group 1 performers Bucanero Fuerte, River Tiber and Unquestionable among others.
None of the above were produced off fees higher than €40,000. So the question was naturally how would Wootton Bassett fare once he had access to top-quality mares. Such opportunities can be a double-edged sword as with it comes hype, something that can hinder as well as enhance. But working in Wootton Bassett’s favour is his breeding as a member of the Mr Prospector sire line via Iffraaj, making him easy for anyone with a Northern Dancer-heavy mare to use. He also tends to throw straightforward, sound horses, meaning that they are well liked by trainers.
The amazing thing about him is his consistency
That much was evident back in the summer of 2021, just before his sale was announced. In an interview during that time with this magazine, Etreham’s Nicolas de Chambure talked through the difficulties of those seasons, commenting: “Wootton Bassett was hard work to start with. He was from the first crop of Iffraaj and when his first two-year-olds turned three, some of them didn’t train on as much as people thought they would. So when Wootton Bassett retired, Iffraaj was a bit cold – obviously that has all changed since then.
“It was a struggle to attract mares. But little by little, people got to see that he threw a good type and so his books in years three and four started to increase.
“The amazing thing about him is his consistency. They’re tough and they’re very good mentally. They’re very good doers and they enjoy their work. Not all of them are going to be champions but they are racehorses and they won’t disappoint their trainers.”
Those early days when Etreham were struggling to gather mares for the horse are now a very distance memory. With a summer of racing in the books for this year, Wootton Bassett is throwing down a real challenge against Mehmas to be the season’s leading European two-year-old sire by prize-money. However, he is very much out on his own in terms of number of stakes winners on eight, two more than No Nay Never and double that of the next pursuer Kingman. At the time of writing, he was also operating on a 42 per cent winners to runners strike-rate.
Of particular note is the fact that Wootton Bassett accounted for a juvenile stakes winner during five consecutive weekends from August to September. The run began at Deauville in mid-August when the Joseph O’Brien-trained Apples And Bananas won the Listed Criterium du Fonds Europeen de l’Elevage. The following weekend, Henri Matisse – the colt out of Immortal Verse – captured the Group 2 Futurity Stakes at the Curragh, appropriately sponsored by Coolmore under the Wootton Bassett banner. That colt is one of a number of well-bred individuals by the stallion trained by Aidan O’Brien, who also sent out Ides Of March (out of US Grade 1 winner Nickname) to win the Group 3 Round Tower Stakes at the Curragh the following Sunday.
From there, the bandwagon rolled on to Longchamp, where Houquetot (bred by Coolmore out of Alexandrova’s Group 3-winning daughter Happen but owned by Al Shaqab Racing, Jean-Claude Seroul and Gerard Augustin-Normand) won the Group 3 Prix la Rochette. He is trained by Christopher Head, who was effusive in his praise of the stallion afterwards – and understandably so given his yard also houses his Group 3-winning daughter Angeal, successful in the Prix Six Perfections. Yet the best of them all under his care could well be Maranoa Charlie, who backed up his debut win in an Arqana sales race at Deauville by sauntering home by eight lengths on his next start in a Chantilly conditions race.
Yet Irish Champions weekend, staged at Leopardstown and the Curragh in mid-September, took matters to another level.
At Leopardstown, Newtownanner Stud’s homebred Chantez was the impressive winner of the Listed Ingabelle Stakes despite running green while Green Impact, an early homebred representative for owner Marc Chan, landed the Group 2 Champions Juvenile Stakes. Their wins came hot on the heels of Benevento’s success in the Listed Flying Scotsman Stakes at Doncaster’s St Leger meeting and was followed a day later by Henri Matisse’s runner-up effort to Scorthy Champ in the Group 1 Vincent O’Brien Stakes at the Curragh. That same day in France, Christopher Head sent out yet another high-profile winner by the sire in Topgear, winner of the Group 3 Prix du Pin at Longchamp. The five-year-old is from Wootton Bassett’s final €20,000 crop.
His stud record continues to paint a picture of a horse who crosses effectively with a wide range of mares
When Wootton Bassett joined Coolmore, the hope was naturally that he would be effective with mares carrying Galileo and/or Sadler’s Wells – of which Coolmore obviously own a large number. At the time of his sale, the results were trending back more towards inbreeding to Mr Prospector, including his great-grandsire Gone West; indeed, one of his early Pattern race winners, The Black Album, was out of a mare by Trade Fair and therefore quite closely inbred to Zafonic.
Fast forward to the current day and the Wootton Bassett – Galileo cross is becoming more prevalent, notably as the basis of Green Impact and Angeal as well as the Group 3-placed Swagman among his two-year-olds. Maranoa Charlie is also out of a Galileo mare.
Even so, his stud record continues to paint a picture of a horse who crosses effectively with a wide range of mares. His two-year-old crop shows a weight towards mares carrying that outstanding broodmare sire Pivotal, who is the damsire of Henri Matisse and the Group 2-placed Camille Pissaro. Pivotal’s son Excellent Art is also the damsire of Chantez. Of the others, Benevento is out of a mare by Whipper, the best son sired by Kingmambo’s brother Miesque’s Son, Houquetot is out of a mare by War Front and Ides Of March is out of a mare by Scat Daddy.
Should this vein of success keep running, then Wootton Bassett could well end the year as Europe’s leading two-year-old sire by prize-money. And were Al Riffa to put up a bold showing in the Arc, then the lucrative purse from that race would propel him well into the top ten European sires overall.
Now Wootton Bassett is well established as one of Europe’s elite, the next hope is for his legacy to be assured. Several of his earlier sons are already at stud with the most important, Almanzor, now a permanent resident of New Zealand having supplied an underwhelming two European Pattern winners from his time at Etreham, where he received good support.
The Prix de l’Abbaye winner Wooded also stands at Haras de Bouquetot in Normandy, where he had supplied a handful of winners at the time of writing.
Plenty of other sons are in the pipeline to head to stud of course, including Wooded’s brother Bucanero Fuerte, a number of those Ballydoyle colts and most likely Al Riffa and King Of Steel. They will each likely receive their fair share of opportunity and therefore have every chance to add yet another chapter to the Wootton Bassett rags-to-riches story.
