created a dynasty

Master, Pizza Bianca, Qualify, Rivet and Zhukova; and Exceed And Excel, who provided Excelebration, Margot Did, Mischief Magic, Outstrip and this season’s 1,000 Guineas heroine Mawj.

The best Australian racemares also became hot property among breeders on the global stage, often to bring some Choisir-esque grit to matings with more classically bred sires.

Blue Diamond Prelude winner Believe’N’Succeed, a daughter of Exceed And Excel who was already the dam of New Zealand Group 1winning sprinter Bounding, was bought to be mated with Galileo at Coolmore in Ireland and produced no less than a Derby winner in Anthony Van Dyck from one such tryst. Bounding, meanwhile, was bought by Stonestreet Farm in Kentucky, for whom she has delivered a couple of winners.

Hveger, a Group 1-placed Danehill full-sister to one great Aussie globetrotter in Elvstroem and half-sister to another in Haradasun, was also taken to Ireland to be a regular concubine for Galileo. The match produced four Pattern winners, including elite scorers Highland Reel and Cape Of Good Hope, as well as the placed mare Cercle De La Vie, who became the dam of dual Group 1-winning two-year-old Angel Bleu.

In the family: Choisir’s sons, daughters and grandchildren in winning action (clockwise, from top left): Stimulation, Olympic Glory, The Last Lion, My Dream Boat, Persuasive, Winter and Starspangledbanner time on stud rosters managed to get the odd good one, not least former Llety Stud resident Stimulation, who supplied Sagaro Stakes scorer Sweet Selection and smart two-year-olds Dave Dexter and Union Rose. Divine Prophet, who briefly shuttled to Tara Stud, and ill-fated Darley sire The Last Lion also left a few useful winners between them.

Divine Prophet’s full-brother Proisir, who finished a close second to Dundeel in the Spring Champion Stakes and Randwick Guineas, is, meanwhile, one of the most respected young stallions in the southern hemisphere.

He is already booked out this year at Rich Hill Stud in New Zealand at NZ$70,000 (£34,000/€40,000), ten times his introductory fee, after siring Group 1 winners Dark Destroyer, Legarto, Levante, Pier and Prowess, plus Group 1-placed Aspen Colorado, Feel The Rush, Riodini, Vancooga and Waitak from just 230 runners. He is on course to claim his first New Zealand sire title by a margin of around NZ$1.5 million.

Divine Prophet, who formerly carried out southern-hemisphere stud duty at Aquis Farm in Australia, is moving to Highview Stud in New

Zealand this year to capitalise on his brother’s popularity.

Starspangledbanner at Coolmore and State Of Rest at Newgate Farm are the principal standard-bearers for the Choisir sire-line in Australia, although The Mission and Worthy Cause have delivered Group winners at small fees in lower-profile roles elsewhere in the country.

Choisir’s achievements as a broodmare sire continue to grow, too.

His highest-earning maternal grandchild is Winter, winner of the Newmarket and Curragh 1,000 Guineas, Coronation Stakes and Nassau Stakes. Coolmore’s homebred filly is by Galileo out of Laddies Poker Two, another Royal Ascot success for her sire when landing a gamble in the Wokingham Handicap in 2010.

Choisir’s uncanny affinity with Ascot is seen in many of the other Group 1 winners his daughters have produced. Creative Force, by Dubawi out of Choose Me, won the British Champions Sprint at the track and was beaten a neck into second by Naval Crown in the Platinum

Jubilee Stakes at the royal meeting last year, while his Dark Angel halfsister Persuasive landed the Sandringham Handicap at Royal Ascot before taking the scalps of Ribchester and Churchill in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes at the royal racecourse.

MOREOVER, Oxted (below) – by Mayson out of Charlotte Rosina – won the King’s Stand Stakes and My Dream Boat – by Lord Shanakill out of Betty Burke – sprang a surprise in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes there.

Choisir is also the damsire of Australia’s latest sprint sensation In Secret, who struck in the Coolmore Stud Stakes in November and took the Newmarket in March. Godolphin’s three-year-old filly is by I Am Invincible out of Group 3-winning sprinter Eloping.

Another bright prospect for the sire in this department is the Jean-Claude Rouget-trained two-year-old filly Voodoo Magic, who scored by clear water on her debut at Longchamp last month. She is by Wootton Bassett out of Fille Du Septembre, who won a maiden over the minimum trip at Dundalk on her own first outing. Choisir’s daughters have proved perfect for sharpening up stamina influence Galileo, with the cross producing seven winners and four black-type performers from just eight runners. They also appear to complement Australian champion sire I Am Invincible, as the nick is responsible for six winners and three black-type horses from seven starters.

At a more realistic level, Dream Ahead and Magnus are two other sires to bear in mind for Choisir mares. Previous matings on those lines have produced six winners from seven runners (including Creative Force and Persuasive’s Listed-winning half-sister Tisbutadream) and four winners from four runners respectively.

Choisir’s influence goes further than his own achievements as a sire, sire of sires and broodmare sire, though. There is no doubt that he contributed to a heightened respect of Australian bloodlines in the new millennium, which has seen the AUS suffix appear in the pedigrees of big-race winners all around the world.

In the afterglow of his groundbreaking Royal Ascot double, more and more Australian horses travelled north to take their chances at the meeting, and many of those or other countrymen were shuttled north to cover mares in European studs.

Two champion sires at home in Australia have made a particularly significant impact on breeding in Europe: Fastnet Rock, on the mark with Irish-conceived Group 1 winners Diamondsandrubies, Fascinating Rock, Intricately, Laganore, One

MANY other top-class Australian-bred racemares were also paired with Galileo in Europe in the last decade. Atlantic Jewel sparked with the son of Sadler’s Wells in spectacular fashion, producing Hong Kong star Russian Emperor, while Milanova bred Group 3 winner Pretty Perfect from him, and Nechita delivered Forbearance on the cross.

Furthermore, two of the best fillies or mares anywhere in the northern hemisphere this year are by other sires out of elite Australian mares.

Liberty Island, who has landed the Japanese 1,000 Guineas and Oaks, the latter by six lengths, was bred by Northern Farm by sending Yankee Rose, a daughter of All American who won the Inglis Sires’ and Spring Champion Stakes, to Duramente.

In Italian, who left her rivals for dead in the Just A Game Stakes at Belmont Park this month, is, meanwhile, by Dubawi out of Florentina, a Group 3-winning daughter of Redoute’s Choice. She was bred in Britain by Australian John Camilleri and sold to US owner Peter Brant for 475,000gns at Book 1 of the Tattersalls October Yearling Sale in a transaction that highlights the international appeal of Australian breeding.

So, all things considered, it’s no exaggeration to say that Choisir’s two victories in the space of five days at Royal Ascot in 2003 helped shape the direction of world breeding in the new millennium. The stocky chestnut, memorably once compared by his connections with a Brahma bull, has fittingly left a huge legacy.