‘Horse of a Lifetime’ Wootton Bassett Remembered On His Death At Age 17

[Wandering Eyes]

The boy-made-good story of Wootton Bassett is as time-honoured as life itself. To a degree, it is a rags-to-riches tale, particularly when it comes to the phenomenal trajectory of his stallion career. And it is a story which is ending far too soon.

The 17-year-old stallion died on Tuesday at Coolmore Australia in the Hunter Valley after developing acute pneumonia from a bout of choke, a condition in which food blocks the oesophagus, often leading to complications. His passing comes at a time when Wootton Bassett was in his pomp; his reputation, already on a high, is being augmented year on year by a burgeoning array of runners at the highest level. 

In 2025 alone, they include the French Classic winners Henri Matisse and Camille Pissarro, G1 Prix du Moulin winner Sahlan, G1 Irish St Leger hero and Melbourne Cup hopeful Al Riffa, and the brilliant filly Whirl. A growing number of his sons at stud means that Wootton Bassett has also featured as paternal grandsire this year of Gezora and Woodshauna, winners of the G1 Prix de Diane and G1 Prix Jean Prat. His 2025 fee in Europe was €300,000, behind only Dubawi and Frankel, who, as the world's most expensive stallions, each stood for £350,000. Quite something for a horse who started his career covering mares in France for €6,000, dropping to €4,000 for his third and fourth seasons at Haras d'Etreham.

Not everything comes down to money of course, but in the stallion business, tracking the rise and fall of nomination fees is a telling marker of a horse's success and reception by a market which can quickly be blown hither and thither by the winds of fashion. That Wootton Bassett would rise to the level he has would have been hard to predict. His first four crops at those lowly fees numbered 23, 18, 45 and 47 foals respectively. Then came a champion three-year-old from his first crop – the 2016 Prix du Jockey Club, Irish Champion Stakes, and Champion Stakes winner Almanzor – and the penny began to drop that this was a stallion who could be a little out of the ordinary. 

Thereafter, his stock began to rise – both literally when it came to crop numbers, and reputationally. His current tally of individual Group 1 winners stands at 16, but that will only grow in the years – perhaps even weeks – to come, as the autumn's major contests are settled. In this Saturday's G1 Middle Park Stakes, for example, his sons Puerto Rico, Kansas and Brussels remain engaged, while Beautify is among the fancied runners for the G1 Cheveley Park Stakes.

Wootton Bassett's stallion career has been conducted from France, Ireland and Australia, but his life began in England where he was bred by Colin and Melba Bryce at their Laundry Cottage Stud. For a relatively small farm, the Hertfordshire nursery has packed quite a punch in recent years, with the 10-time Group 1 winner Via Sistina (Fastnet Rock) also being among the Bryces' graduates.

Of the Iffraaj colt born on February 4, 2008, to their Primo Dominie mare Balladonia, Colin Bryce recalled on Tuesday, “I suppose there are two things about Wootton Bassett that I would say. One, he was the most incredibly chilled horse that we have ever had on the stud. He would lie down in his stable all the time, snoozing, sleeping, whatever, and you would give him a little bit of a tap and help him get ready for action, and he'd do whatever you wanted to do. Then when you'd finished, down he went again and had a gentle snooze. He was so easy to handle, so kind, and a beautiful, very dark day horse to go with it.”

He continued, “And the second thing I would say about Wootton Bassett is, although we bred him and are very proud to have done so, really without the skill of Nicolas de Chambure and the way he developed the stallion's career, I think he wouldn't have got to where he got to.

“We've been privileged to breed him, and we were privileged to be involved, using him to cover our mares and buying his early stock. We've been involved all the way through until he became too expensive for us at Coolmore in the last few years. But we still watched with interest, and have loved to see him doing so well.

“Obviously he was massively upgrading his mares all the way through, and so there was a natural talent there, but I think Nicolas mined that very intelligently. He was a rising star of the stallion ranks, and has risen almost to the top of the pile. He may yet do so in memoriam.”

It was Bobby O'Ryan who signed for the young Wootton Bassett at the DBS Premier Yearling Sale (now Goffs UK), buying him for £46,000 to join Richard Fahey's stable. He raced in the ownership of Frank Brady & The Cosmic Cases, who already had Wootton Bassett's half-brother, the seven-time winner and Listed-placed Mister Hardy (Kyllachy), in training.

“I know our yard is sad this morning,” Fahey said on Tuesday, speaking from the Tattersalls Ireland Yearling Sale.

“It's the people who looked after him that you feel for, the Coolmore team and everyone involved with him directly and the people who cared for him along the way.”

From Fahey's Yorkshire base, Wootton Bassett ran in Scotland, England and France in his first unbeaten season, raking in the prize-money from York's DBS Premier Yearling Stakes and the Weatherbys Insurance £300,000 2-Y-O Stakes at Doncaster before completing his season with victory in the G1 Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere, a race which had been won the previous year by another luminary of the European stallion ranks, Siyouni. 

“We knew he was a very good horse from the start really,” Fahey said. “We cheated a bit as we went for the sales races and took the easier option, but the Lagardere was always going to be his race.

“He's been an incredible sire and an incredible horse, and he was a good-minded, kind horse.”

At three, Wootton Bassett managed a fifth-placed finish in the Poule d'Essai des Poulains back at Longchamp, and was seventh in Frankel's St James's Palace Stakes. Dropping back from a mile, he ran twice more in the Prix Maurice de Gheest and Haydock Sprint Cup but never recaptured the winning ways of his juvenile season. Retiring after those four unplaced starts in 2011, he was bought by Nicolas de Chambure to stand at his family's Haras d'Etreham in Normandy. Not only did the stud play an important role as the home of Wootton Bassett in his formative years as a stallion, but Etreham is also the breeder of his breakout star Almanzor. The latter was bought by his trainer Jean-Claude Rouget for €100,000 and was one of two first-crop sons of Wootton Bassett to fetch six figures at the Arqana August Sale of 2014. That in itself was telling for a stallion who was launched at such a lowly fee.

For de Chambure, the fourth generation of his family to take the helm at Haras d'Etreham, Wootton Bassett was the first stallion he signed up to join the roster in the year following his return to run the stud after stints working in Ireland, America and Australia. 

Casting his mind back to his decision to buy him, de Chambure said, “I've always been a bit cautious about too much inbreeding, and so he was a bit of an outcross and he was also carrying blood that we didn't really have much of in France. I thought he was going to be well suited to the French population of mares.

“As a racehorse he showed toughness, and I know a lot of people don't believe it, but I really fell in love with him physically when I saw him at Richard Fahey's. It probably took a while for the breeders to share that. I was lucky that he transmitted his looks and his walk.”

He added, “Ed Sackville was very important in making the deal happen at the time. We did the deal together and he introduced me to the owner and to Richard. He was also very positive about the horse, and having his confidence and his support was also a big help for me to make the deal.”

Despite his own faith in Wootton Bassett, and the support of Colin Bryce as the first shareholder in the stallion's syndicate, de Chambure admits that it remains difficult to get a sire off the ground. 

“When you retire a horse it's a four-year commitment, so it's not easy. When you're syndicating those horses, even if you have a good group of loyal clients, in the end it's really you that has to carry the whole thing, with your team, so it can be a bit lonely. And it was: it felt very lonely indeed with Wootton Bassett for a few years.

“But he's been so good; he could improve his mares so much. He was the horse of a lifetime, he got us out of trouble. Even with the difficult start, he pulled his way up and he made himself, really.”

De Chambure adds, “That day in Chantilly when Almanzor won the Jockey Club, it was by far my best day, my best memory at the races, because it meant a lot for us. And just seeing Wootton Bassett continuing to do so well for Coolmore, who didn't go halfway in supporting him. They went all the way and sent all their best mares, and the results have been incredible.

“But, you know, that's what makes it even more sad, because I think he would have been a breed-shaper. To have another few years with those really good mares, it would have been great to see. We've got a few generations to come, daughters and sons, and hopefully they will leave a strong mark.”

Wootton Bassett has had no shortage of support in more recent years, and it is quantity which is backed up by quality. His departure will only enhance the demand for the remaining three crops of youngsters to come, beginning with the 19 yearlings at the Goffs Orby Sale next week and a further 30 at Book 1 of the Tattersalls October Sale. The 206 mares registered as being covered by him earlier this year, in what has transpired to be his final season in Europe, include Lady Bowthorpe, Opera Singer, Ramatuelle, Tahiyra, and Treve, as well as the dams of  Camille Pissarro, Churchill, Palace Pier, and Vandeek. The list goes on.

Following his private purchase for an undisclosed but presumably vast sum, Wootton Bassett has been on the Coolmore roster since 2021, dividing his time between County Tipperary and shuttle stints to New South Wales. In Australia, his first-crop numbered 10 winners from 36 runners to put him in second place, behind Ole Kirk, in the racing season that ended in August. His return to Australia this year was at a record fee of A$385,000.

“In his time at Coolmore, he developed into a world-class sire, with 25 stakes winners and six Group 1 winners from his current two- and three-year-old crops conceived in Ireland. Included amongst these are multiple Group 1-winning sons Camille Pissaro and Henri Matisse as well as this season's multiple Group 1-winning filly, Whirl,” read a statement released on Tuesday by Coolmore to announce the stallion's death.

“His current two-year-old crop in Europe already includes six Group winners. Albert Einstein, who defeated subsequent Group 1 winner Power Blue in the G3 Marble Hill Stakes, is considered by both Aidan O'Brien and Ryan Moore to be one of the best two-year-olds ever seen in Ballydoyle.”

At the time of writing, Wootton Bassett, who was the champion sire of two-year-olds in 2024, is poised to take that title again and to be the European champion sire of 2025. He has come a long way. 

The one consolation on a sad day for those involved in the horse's life is that, in a sense, the very best of the breed never die. Their bloodlines can live on for generations, and this indeed looks to be the case for Wootton Bassett. In that regard, his story has chapters still to be written, even though its leading actor has now left the stage. 

 

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