Wootton Bassett’s son Henri Matisse wins the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf (Picture: At The Races)
Kevin Blake (At The Races)
Kevin looks at the continued success of Wootton Bassett in producing top-class winners, and how his best days as a leading sire could still be ahead of him.
The Wootton Bassett Progress Report
Just over four years ago, Coolmore’s high-profile purchase of Wootton Bassett was covered in detail in this space. It was an acquisition that was highly unusual on a number of fronts. At the time, he was 12 years of age and had already risen from an extremely slow start as a sire to become established as one of the very best sires in France for a top operation in Haras d’Etreham. That profile of stallion just doesn’t tend to change hands.
So, for the most powerful player in the bloodstock world to swoop for him made it all the more headline worthy. With the price tag reportedly being in the region of €50m, it was a deal that widened eyes across the industry and was scrutinised and debated to an extent rarely seen in bloodstock circles. With Coolmore having set down their marker and belief in the horse by upping his fee from the €40,000 of his final season at Haras d’Etreham to €100,000 for his first season in Ireland in 2021, the stage was set for one of the most high-profile and high-stakes calculated gambles of recent decades in the bloodstock world.
Students of the game attempting to find a precedent for a comparable gamble by Coolmore in their long history might well have had to rewind all the way back to Ahonoora. A sprinter that was best known for being awarded what became the Nunthorpe Stakes in the stewards’ room in 1979, he retired to the Irish National Stud at a modest fee of £2,250 in 1980. He exceeded all initial expectations to become a highly-influential stallion, producing the likes of Park Appeal (won the Cheveley Park Stakes and became the dam of Cape Cross), Park Express (won the Irish Champion Stakes and became the dam of New Approach), Don’t Forget Me (won the 2000 Guineas) and Indian Ridge (won the King’s Stand Stakes and became a very successful stallion) in his early crops.
This success attracted the attentions of Coolmore. At the age of 12, the same age Wootton Bassett was when they struck for him, Coolmore partnered with the Australian-based Segenhoe Stud to buy him for IR£7m in 1987, a sum roughly equating to €20m nowadays. It was a huge punt, but it didn’t end well when less than two years later Ahonoora broke a hind leg in a paddock accident when down in Segenhoe Stud in October 1989. Hints of what might have been emerged in the years ahead, as his first Coolmore crop produced a star in Dr Devious who won the Dewhurst Stakes, the Derby and the Irish Champion Stakes.
The point of that brief retreat into history is to demonstrate that there is no such thing as a certainty. When a big investment pays off, there can often be retrospective commentary with the tone of “well of course it worked out well”, but the sad tale of Ahonoora and many others since demonstrate that nothing can be taken for granted, especially in the high-risk world of thoroughbred stallions.
I won’t repeat Wootton Bassett’s remarkable background story which started with a first crop of just 23 foals sired off a nomination fee of €6,000 in France, as it was covered in detail in the aforementioned article from August 2020. Rather, I will pick up the story from there and assess the first four years of the Coolmore chapter of the Wootton Bassett story.
If there were any feelings of buyer’s remorse in the camp in the immediate aftermath of the purchase of Wootton Bassett, they were put at ease before he had even covered a mare in Fethard. At the time of the deal, he had sired just one Group 1 winner in the shape of the brilliant Almanzor, but the ink was hardly dry when Audarya and Wooded struck at the highest level. Indeed, his French crops kept delivering the goods in the years that followed with Incarville, Zellie, Al Riffa, King Of Steel, Bucanero Fuerte and Unquestionable all adding further Group 1s to his tally.
So, before his first Coolmore crop had even reached the track, Wootton Bassett was up to nine individual Group 1 winners from his nine French crops. However, the play was never about the French crops that were yet to run, it was always focused on the potential for what Wootton Bassett could do when super-charged by the support of the parade of tip-top broodmares that Coolmore and their clients could provide.
From the outset of Wootton Bassett’s time in Coolmore, it was clear that all concerned were not going to hold anything back in terms of support. Having been introduced to Coolmore at what many perceived to be a punchy fee of €100,000 (up from €40,000 in his final year in Haras d’Etreham), Wootton Bassett covered 235 mares in 2021. Over half (125) of those mares were black type performers and 55 were Group winners including a fabulous roll call of Group 1 winners such as Albigna, Alexandrova, Deirdre, Fancy Blue, Found, Peeping Fawn, The Fugue and Was. That group also featured an array of Group 1-producing mares such as the dams of Harry Angel, Snowfall, Sioux Nation, One Master, Tepin and Zoustar. His book made for mind-blowing reading.
That level of support has been maintained in the years that have followed. The aforementioned performance of Wootton Bassett’s remaining French crops led to his fee being raised to €150,000 for 2022 and 2023, then up to €200,000 for 2024. He covered 246 mares in 2022, 218 in 2023 and 223 in 2024, with each crop being similarly star-studded as his first Coolmore crop was.
All this time, anticipation was building to fever pitch for that first Coolmore crop of two-year-olds to hit the track in 2024. While they had been spread all over the racing world, there was an understandable focus on the 30 or so of his progeny that had made the grade from either the homebred crop or the sales ring to earn a coveted stable behind the gates of Ballydoyle.
The last seven months or so have seen it all play out in front of us. As Wootton Bassett’s first Coolmore crop near the end of their two-year-old year, how can we rate their performance? Pick whatever superlative you like, none of them will be considered over the top.
From 101 starters out of 182 named foals, Wootton Bassett has produced 10 Group-winning two-year-olds, with four of them winning Group 1 races. Those top-level scorers were Camille Pissarro in the Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere at Longchamp, Tennessee Stud in the Criterium de Saint-Cloud, Twain in the Criterium International and Henri Matisse in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf at Del Mar. There have been plenty of top-class stallions in recent decades that took many, many years to sire four individual Group 1-winning two-year-olds. Indeed, some of them didn’t ever reach that number. So, for Wootton Bassett to produce that many in a single crop is a quite stunning performance.
Arguably the most eye-widening accolade that Wootton Bassett earned this year is that he set a new record for the number of individual Group-winning two-year-olds produced in a single crop. The record had been held jointly by the breed-shaping stallions Galileo and Danehill with seven Group winners in a single crop each. Wootton Bassett didn’t just break that record, he obliterated it with 10 such winners. The scary thing is that he had another 10 two-year-olds with official ratings of 100 or more that didn’t quite manage to win in Group company, including Expanded who finished a neck second in the Dewhurst Stakes just a week on from his winning debut. In short, his record-breaking tally of Group winners could easily have been higher. With him having more crops of a similarly sky-high quality and quantity to come, it wouldn’t be at all surprising if Wootton Bassett can raise that particular bar to even more remarkable heights in the years ahead.
However, in amongst all the praise for Wootton Bassett’s first Irish crop of two-year-olds, don’t forget a pertinent and slightly terrifying fact. We aren’t dealing with a one-dimensional sire of two-year-olds here. Four of Wootton Bassett’s five highest-rated runners on official ratings thus far have been middle-distance performers, namely Almanzor, King Of Steel, Al Riffa and Audarya. Considering that his first Irish crop of mares including no less than 58 daughters of Galileo, five daughters of Sadler’s Wells and six daughters of Sea The Stars amongst many other middle-distance types, the potential for his progeny to continue to be just as high achieving as three-year-olds and beyond should be very obvious. Understandably, his fee for 2025 has risen to €300,000, making him one of the highest-priced stallions anywhere in the world.
Wootton Bassett has covered over 900 mares in Fethard in his four seasons since joining the Coolmore roster, but it shouldn’t be forgotten that his exploits in the Northern Hemisphere are not the full story. He has also been shuttling down to Australia each year since joining Coolmore and has covered a total of 490 mares in his first three seasons doing so. His first Southern Hemisphere crop is due to emerge on the tracks down there in the coming months and their performance at the yearling sales have led to hopes rising that he can be just as effective in Australia as he has proven to be in Europe.
If Ahonoora is to be used as the cautionary tale that buying proven stallions that are nearing their teenage years doesn’t always work out, Wootton Bassett is likely to be held up as an example for many decades to come of just how well it can work out for those brave enough to take such a punt. Calculated gambles in the world of bloodstock and racing don’t come much bigger than what Wootton Bassett represented, but it has already paid off in no uncertain style. With continued luck, the final payout is unlikely to stop increasing for quite a few years yet.
