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‘I think he’s only going to get better and better’

Big future forecast for Wootton Bassett after he gets off the mark with his southern hemisphere two-year-olds

The festive season is still early days for two-year-olds, but Coolmore Stud said it did try to warn us what a potent sire they had in Wootton Bassett (Iffraaj) and now the proof is emerging in the Christmas pudding.

Just how good of course remains to be seen, but the start Wootton Bassett has made with his Australian runners has already prompted almost sacrilegious comparisons to Coolmore’s modern grandaddy of them all in Australia.

“He’s got three of the top five in the market for the Golden Slipper pre-Christmas,” said the breeding giant’s Australian nominations and sales manager Colm Santry. “That hasn’t happened since the Danehill days.

“We’re getting back to Danehill type figures with this stallion.”

Long proven in the northern hemisphere, Wootton Bassett broke through for the first winner among his maiden Australian crop on Saturday when Pallaton streaked away with the first race at Randwick, appropriately the Shinzo @ Coolmore Plate (1000m).

That shot the Michael Freedman-trained colt to $15 equal favouritism for the $5m Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m).

Also sharing that price is another of Wootton Bassett’s progeny in West Of Swindon, the Team Hawkes colt who stormed home for second in the Golden Gift (1100m) at his only start so far.

A third colt by the shuttle stallion is at $17 for the world’s richest two-year-old race in Wodeton. And such is the aura around his sire, that price is based on one barrier trial at Warwick Farm in late October in which he ran second – to West Of Swindon.

Bred by John Camilleri’s Fairway Thoroughbreds, Wodeton was bought at January’s Magic Millions Gold Coast sale by Coolmore’s Tom Magnier for $1.6 million, ranking him equal-fifth at the auction behind the $2.1 million sale-topper, a filly by none other than Wootton Bassett.

Things are starting to seem like the breeding equivalent of Beatlemania, as this more modern European export takes his imposing first steps on the Australian scene, having just finished his fourth shuttle season at Jerry’s Plains where he attracted 120 mares at a fee-on-arrangement rumoured to be almost doubled to around $180,000.

“Wootton Bassett is a world class international stallion,” Santry said. “He was expected to do what he’s doing, really. He’s a first season sire here, but he’s well proven in the northern hemisphere, and he’s up against a lot of unproven horses down here in that department. But still it’s fantastic to see it happening.”

The Australian general sires’ table is headed by half a dozen familiar faces, with only two aged less than 20. They are the 12-year-old table leader Pride Of Dubai (Street Cry) and 14-year-old second ranked Zoustar (Northern Meteor). Next comes the 22-year-old Written Tycoon (Iglesia), retired 23-year-old Fastnet Rock (Danehill), the 22-year-old Snitzel (Redoute’s Choice) and I Am Invincible (Invincible Spirit), who’s 20.

“Australia is crying out for a new leading sire, and Wootton Bassett is looking like becoming that,” Santry said.

“Plus, he’s a complete outcross being by Iffraaj, but with a Mr. Prospector sireline coming into him. His profile is sensational for a new sireline in this country.”

Santry said Wootton Bassett profiled strongly for the Australian market, having been unbeaten in five starts at two when trained in the UK by Richard Fahey – the first four from 1200 metres to 1300 metres before his top tier success in Longchamp’s Price Jean-Luc Lagardere (Gr 1, 1400m), which earned him France’s Champion 2YO Colt title.

Accordingly, the 16-year-old has emerged as an outstanding sire of juveniles in the northern hemisphere.

Invoking another comparison not only to Danehill (Danzig) but to another Coolmore breed-shaper in Galileo (Sadler’s Wells), in the northern hemisphere this year Wootton Bassett didn’t just break that pair’s shared record of seven Group winners in a single two-year-old crop but smashed it, with ten.

Furthermore, he had another ten juveniles with official ratings of 100 or more who didn’t manage to win in Group company.

A stunning four of his two-year-old Group winners were successful at the top level, helping him to 13 individual elite-level winners in total. The quartet was Camille Pissarro in Longchamp’s Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere (Gr 1, 1400m), Tennessee Stud in the Criterium de Saint-Cloud (Gr 1, 2000m), Twain in the Saint-Cloud’s Criterium International (Gr 1, 1600m) and Henri Matisse in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf (Gr 1, 8f) at Del Mar.

“There’s been a lot of great stallions who took many years to sire four individual Group 1-winning two-year-olds, and a lot more who never reached that many,” Santry said. “For Wootton Bassett to have four in a single crop is just phenomenal.

“He profiles perfectly to be a successful two-year-old sire in Australia, with his own race record of being unbeaten at two, mostly over 1200 metres.”

That said, confidence levels are high at Coolmore that Wootton Bassett’s stock will only grow better with age.

His total of 13 individual elite-level winners are headed by Almanzor – now a successful sire himself at New Zealand’s Cambridge Stud – who won three times at two but went on to become Champion 3YO Colt in Europe, Ireland and France in 2016. In total, he notched three Group 1s amid eight career wins from 1400 metres to 2100 metres.

Four of Wootton Bassett’s five highest-rated runners on official ratings so far have been middle-distance performers, in Almanzor and his fellow Champion Stakes (Gr 1, 1m 2f) winner King Of Steel, plus dual top-tier winners Al Riffa and Audarya. Al Riffa and King Of Steel have won up to 2400 metres.

“I think he’ll have a good chance at winning the Australian first-season sires’ title,” Santry said, “but this is only the beginning. Wait until his three-year-olds and older horses kick in. He looks like he’s going to be set for a huge future in Australia.

“He’s an elite sire of three-year-olds and older horses. It’ll be next year with his three-year-olds and later on that we really see how classy this stallion is. Getting all these two-year-olds now is a bonus. He could be a very elite three- and four-year-old sire.”

Wootton Bassett’s trajectory continues a remarkable story for the stallion.

From his first season at stud, at France’s Haras d’Etreham in 2012, he sired just 23 foals at a service fee of €6,000. After he rapidly built a reputation as one of the best sires in France, Coolmore swooped in 2020 to buy him in an extraordinary purchase, for a 12-year-old stallion, reportedly worth some €50 million.

Australian breeders and racegoers seem likely to end up extremely thankful that as part of the strategy of recouping their outlay Coolmore were always going to shuttle him.

When he kicked off at Coolmore Ireland for €100,000, he was provided the very best of mares the giant breeding operation had to offer – including no fewer than 58 daughters of Galileo in his first season there, plus five Sadler’s Wells (Northern Dancer) mares and six by Sea The Stars (Cape Cross).

Such quality has ensured his results have continued to grow, to the point where he will stand the upcoming northern hemisphere breeding season for €300,000 (approx. AU$500,460), making him one of the highest-priced stallions on the planet.

In Australia, he covered books of 190 and 169 mares in his first two seasons at $71,500, then 131 in 2023 at $93,500 – before 120 in his first fee-on-arrangement season this year.

Thanks to his first winner Pallaton and a high earner in West Of Swindon, Wootton Bassett is currently fourth among Australian first-season sires, and seventh on the two-year-old table.

“I think he’s only going to get better and better,” Santry said.

“Usually, you see a big difference between the first season sires’ table and the second. That first season list is usually turned on its head by the end of their three-year-old season.

“The cream eventually comes to the top, but it can take a bit longer for some sires to get there. I think what we’ll see from Wootton Bassett is he’s at the top from the get go and he stays there for a very long time.”

 

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