Changing Nations

Wootton Bassett’s transfer was the biggest stallion news in 2020, reports Jocelyn de Moubray who goes on to review the progeny racing year for established stallions

Statistics by Jocelyn de Moubray - for the stats and tables see the pdf from page 90

IT HAS NOT been a year or a racing season like any other and for once in 2020 the most significant development in the European stallion business didn’t come on the racecourse.

A racing season with some two months taken out and a completely new Classic schedule saw, nevertheless, the emergence of some new stars among Europe’s stallions.

But, for the future and as a reflection of where the business currently is, nothing will have as great an impact as the announcement in August that Coolmore Stud had purchased Wootton Bassett from the Haras d’Etreham and its partners.

Wootton Bassett will stand at Coolmore in 2021 and, what makes this so significant, is that one of the world’s leading stallion farms should believe it is in their interests to pay what must have been a lot of money for a 12-year-old son of Iffraaj, who had started his stud career standing at the Haras d’Etreham for €6,000 and who had attracted only 70 mares in his first two years at stud.

Etreham bought Wootton Bassett at the end of his racing career for the price of a good yearling. His first crop produced from only 15 named foals the multiple Group 1 winner and European champion three-yearold Almanzor.

When the Coolmore deal was concluded in August, Almanzor was his sire’s only Group 1 winner, though by then he had also produced the Group 3 winners Wootton, The Summit and The Black Album.

No one would have doubted that Wootton Bassett was a very promising sire – and one who had succeeded in making an international mark, despite having started his career covering a handful of mainly average mares in France at a low fee. The surprise was that Coolmore was prepared to pay quite so much to secure Wootton Bassett.

The answer is in all probability down to his pedigree, as well, of course, of what Wootton Bassett has achieved from the opportunities he has had to date with around 200 progeny of three years and older from five crops.

You only to have to look at the pedigrees of Europe’s leading sires, the pedigrees of the yearlings presented at Europe’s select sales or the list of the sires who cover the most mares to see the problem which Wootton Bassett could help Coolmore to solve.

Stallions at any time or geographical situation are only successful if they are well suited to the mare pool available to them. The problem for the owners of a large number of Europe’s best mares is that they have a genetic background very similar to the stallions around them.

The success of Sadler’s Wells, Green Desert and Danehill and of their sons and daughters and descendants, coupled with the success of Urban Sea in producing two elite sires in Galileo and Sea The Stars, has meant that many of the most sought-after breeding stock have a very similar makeup.

Dubawi and Lope De Vega have emerged as elite sires in recent years, but it is in no small part due to the fact that neither Sadler’s Wells, Green Desert, Danehill nor Urban Sea appear in their pedigrees.

Wootton Bassett has made an exceptional start to his career and he, too, is free of all of the most common elements among Europe’s best mares. Since the sale Wootton Bassett’s record has improved further.

His first large crop of three-year-olds in 2020 included a Group 1 winner in Wooded, as well as a string of high-class horses such as Waltham, Tamahere, Guildsman, The Summit and Speak Of The Devil, while his four-year-old daughter Audarya has become another Group 1 winner.

His two-year-olds include the British Group winner Chindit and the promising French two-year-olds Midlife Crisis, and the filly Al Hawra, who is out of a Galileo mare.

Wootton Bassett has consistently returned results far above the average from each of his five crops to race.

His high-class progeny appear to be split evenly between colts and fillies and his progeny tend to be tough physically and mentally with around 90 per cent reaching the racetrack and many continuing at a high level of form over a long period.

He has high-class horses over all distances from 5f to 1m4f, and on all types of going as well as on the All-Weather.

And, above all, Wootton Bassett can cover mares from a wide variety of backgrounds, including those with combinations of, and inbreeding to, Sadler’s Wells, Danehill, Green Desert and Urban Sea.

The idea, we can safely assume, is that once Wootton Bassett covers some of the best mares in Ireland he will be able to secure a place among the elite sires. In the meantime, he had been covering large books of good mares at Etreham and he will have plenty to run for him between now and 2025 when his first Irish crop will be three.

Mr Consistency: Galileo

The table of the best sires of three-year-olds over a rolling four-year period doesn’t really change very quickly. Galileo and Dubawi have been at the top for some years now, while Teofilo, New Approach and Invincible Spirit are also veterans and regulars at the top of this listing.

Galileo continues to be the most consistent of all stallions despite his age, though the 2020 three-year-crop for both Dubawi and Invincible Spirit was below their usual high standard.

Sea The Stars turns 15 in 2021 and his record will change over the coming years – since 2017 he has been covering significantly more mares going up to between 150-200 a year from around 100 during his early years at stud.

The youngest of the leading proven sires are Lope De Vega and Siyouni, who were both born in 2007. They started out as relatively cheap sires and both could easily have better results still over the coming years.

In the years covered by these tables, Lope De Vega stood at between €12,000 and €45,000, whereas over the years to come his fee has gone up to between €50,000 and €100,000.

It is a similar story for Siyouni. His fee during the years 2013-2017 was between €7,000 and €30,000, and was subsequently was increased to between €45,000 and €100,000.

Lope De Vega has proved to be a successful sire in the US, which will obviously add to his commercial appeal, and, just at the moment the market appeared to be wary of Siyouni colts, the Aga Khan Studs’ sire produced an Arc winner in Sottsass and a Dewhurst winner in St Mark’s Basilica.

The stallions on the tables are listed separately until they have had six crops of three-year-olds to race because nearly every stallion will cover fewer mares of a lower quality in their third, fourth and fifth seasons at stud.

Those who retired to stud in 2012, 2013 and 2014 are likely to see better results over the coming years, while those who retired in 2015 and 2016 may have a few quieter immediate seasons.

Even Frankel covered fewer mares in his third and fourth years at stud, but, from this year’s two-year-olds, he has covered 150-200 mares at a high fee and so his results are likely to improve.

In any event he and his fellow Juddmonte sire Kingman are clearly going to be elite sires for as long as they are healthy and covering.

More in the pipeline

Nathaniel and Bated Breath are both likely to have better results from 2021 as they covered their biggest books in 2018 following the success of their early crops.

Camelot has attracted large books from the moment he retired to stud, but now has the additional appeal of his success in Australia.

Kingman’s success is such that his place among the elite is assured, and, of the others who retired to stud in 2015, Sea The Moon and No Nay Never could yet join him.

Bated Breath: biggest book covered in 2018

Lanwades Stud’s Sea The Moon’s second crop of three-year-olds was better than his first with Alpine Star winning a Group 1 in England and Wonderful Moon proving himself among the best of his generation in Germany.

The son of Sea The Stars had an excellent sales season with his yearlings and is one of the few sires to stand at a higher fee in 2021 than in 2020.

No Nay Never stood at €25,000 or less for his first four seasons at stud before the success of his first crop of two-year-olds propelled his fee to €100,000 and then €175,000. From 2022, No Nay Never’s two-year-olds will be from a different type of mare.

Among those with their first three-yearolds in 2020, Night Of Thunder, Golden Horn, Galiway and Make Believe are amongst those who have made a real mark.

Darley’s Night Of Thunder is clearly a good stallion, even if his best three-yearolds did not really progress after looking so good at the beginning of the strange COVID season (See pages 105-110).

Deutsches Derby winner In Swoop. He is by Adlerflug, whose 2000m+ progeny stats are impressive

Surprise package: Adlerflug

There are only seven sires who produced three per cent or more of their foals with a rating of 110 or higher in this crop of three-year-olds – Galileo, Dubawi, Kingman, Frankel, Sea The Stars, New Approach and Adlerflug.

If there is a surprise in this elite group it is Gestüt Schlenderhan’s Adlerflug. He is not a young sire, this is his eighth crop of three-year-olds, the son of In The Wings took a long time to attract significant support.

His three-year-olds of 2020 were conceived at a fee of €12,000 and include three Group 1 horses – In Swoop, Torquator Tasso and Dicaprio – three of the best middle-distance three-year-olds in Europe – from a crop of only 33 foals.

The final table (see pdf) shows the figures for three-year-olds from the last four years of those sires with more than 50 per cent of their three-year-old wins over 1m2f, the middle distance sires.

Again it is no surprise to see Galileo, Frankel and Dubawi at the top of this listing – Frankel’s record is close to that of his sire and likely to improve over the coming years.

Sea The Moon, Nathaniel and Adlerflug all look to be excellent value for those interested in this type of horse when you compare their stud fees with most of the others in the table.

The table also suggests there is an opening for a middle-distance sire with a different pedigree. On this listing Dubawi, Golden Horn, Le Havre, Mastercraftsman and Anodin are the only ones without Sadler’s Wells and/or Urban Sea in their pedigree.