The Art of Breeding: Camille Pissarro, Henri Matisse and Delacroix Bolster the Coolmore Ranks

[Wandering Eyes]

Anyone who hit the Irish Stallion Trail over the last weekend would have noticed the plethora of sons of Wootton Bassett to have joined the throng this year. Five to be precise, standing at five different studs, with two of those, the French Classic winners Camille Pissarro and Henri Matisse, based at Coolmore's main farm near Fethard and at Castlehyde Stud in Fermoy.

Their illustrious sire joined the Coolmore roster in 2021, having stood his first nine years in France at Haras d'Etreham, rising from a €6,000 debutant to €40,000. Wootton Bassett hit the stratosphere in stallion-fee terms on arrival in Ireland, where he started out at €100,000 and, in 2025, covered at €300,000. It is fair to say that his death from acute pneumonia last September rocked the bloodstock world.

“It was a big disaster,” admits Coolmore's director of sales David O'Loughlin. But, of course, in the wake of any active stallion's death, there are still consolation prizes to come. 

“We're glass-half-full people. We've got four crops in the can, and we're very lucky to have had him. We've two stallions already and four or five in the pipeline if we're lucky and things play out the right way.”

O'Loughlin acknowledges the role played by Etreham's Nicolas de Chambure in taking a chance on Wootton Bassett in the first place and points to the growing number of horses who will attempt to extend his sire-line. 

“Tally-Ho has King Of Steel and Maranoa Charlie,” he says. “Then there's Unquestionable, Topgear and we've a couple. All these horses have come into Ireland, so he's going to get a great chance.

“[In training] we've Puerto Rico, Hawk Mountain, Albert Einstein, Constitution River, all very promising horses. And Twain is on the way back, so he's going to go on as a four-year-old and he's from the family of Galileo, so he would be a very exciting stallion prospect.”

He adds, “Wootton Bassett was really an outcross. He's Iffraaj, Gone West, Mr Prospector, so I'd say that's a big part of his success. And he was out of a Primo Domini mare; it's a bit out there, so maybe that's one of the reasons why he's working.”

O'Loughlin's colleague Mark Byrne says that he can't remember the respective farms having been so busy with visitors since the culmination of the breeding stock sales. It's not just Camille Pissarro and Henri Matisse they've come to see of course. Delacroix, winner last year of a scintillating Eclipse as well as the Irish Champion Stakes reinforces the Dubawi blood introduced to Coolmore last year in the form of Henry Longfellow. A son of the top-class miler Tepin (Bernstein), Delacroix is also, crucially for this operation, free of Galileo blood. 

He says of the Wootton Bassett pair, both of whom are out of mares by Pivotal, “They're hugely exciting horses. Henri Matisse probably really came to prominence when he won the Railway and he beat Hotazhell, who went on to win a Group 1. He danced a lot of dances at two and finished up by winning the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf. 

“And then to be the fastest ever French 2,000 Guineas winner is an incredible record. You just have to look at his pedigree. He's out of a champion mare who's already produced a champion in Tenebrism. So he's bred in the purple and he's free of Galileo blood as well, so he can cover a lot of mares around Ireland, England and France.”

 

Henri Matisse with Paul Quinn | Coolmore

 

His dam is the brilliant Immortal Verse, a representative of the deep and successful Mill Princess family nurtured at Kilfrush Stud over decades. Henri Matisse's pedigree could even be enhanced this year by the aforementioned Hawk Mountain, winner of the G1 Futurity Trophy and a son of dual Group 1 winner Hydrangea (Galileo), who also descends from the Mill Princess family. 

Camille Pissarro on the other hand emulated Wootton Bassett by winning the G1 Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere before finishing third to Henri Matisse in the G1 Poule d'Essai des Poulains then winning the Prix du Jockey Club.

“He won his maiden in April and through his two-year-old career ran every month all the way to October,” Byrne says. 

Of the decision to stand Camille Pissarro, a half-brother to fellow Group 1 winner Golden Horde, at Coolmore Stud and Henri Matisse at Castlehyde, he adds, “We have to balance them out, the two Wootton Bassetts out of Pivotal mares, but at the same time, there's been an awful lot of investment in Castlehyde in the last few years and they have a lovely yard, lovely stallions. It's a really good stud farm: they've produced a lot of good racehorses for clients. Ace Impact was born and raised there for a while, and so was Barnavara. So there's been very good horses that have come off their farm. It's only fair that they get a horse like Henri Matisse.”

Byrne continues, “We're looking at three very exciting first-season sires and they all have huge importance. Any one of them, or all three of them, could be super stallions. Delacroix is by Dubawi and he's out of a super race mare and brilliant producer. 

“That day in the Coral Eclipse, he was very exciting in the finish. His final furlong was the the fastest ever run in the race and he has a lot of key ingredients. Dubawi out of those super race mares is a really good ingredient for sires. You've got the same with Zarak and Too Darn Hot. Let's hope history repeats itself.”

 

Delacroix

-300x214.jpg" alt="" width="636" height="454" /> Delacroix settles in at Coolmore

 

Knowing how hard it is for the smaller independent studs to secure a stallion in the first place, one wonders if the team at Coolmore ever gets blasé in welcoming new recruits. After all, this year's pair of Wootton Bassetts plus a Dubawi follows on from last year's pair of Derby winners plus a Dubawi. It's a pinch-me line-up for any operation, and this sextet has been assembled in only the last two years.

“You never get used to it,” Byrne says firmly. “Of the six, their dams have either produced or won Group 1s themselves, and some of the dams have even done both. That's incredible. The distaff side of the pedigrees, and then the stallions they're by – Justify, Wootton Basset, Dubawi, Deep Impact. They could be anything.”

O'Loughlin adds, “John Magnier, Michael Tabor, Derrick Smith, George von Opel – they have been doing that for a long time, buying all those mares, buying yearling fillies, racing them, and we're starting to see results. It's taken a long time, but we're seeing the results in the stallion yard. It's a lot of investment, but there's such a passion for it, a determination to get the best they can.

“We're so lucky in Ireland to have what we have. Like Gay O'Callaghan, what he gave for Sands Of Mali, and Tally-Ho, what they've given for Maranoa Charlie. It's incredible to have these Irish families, and they've poured in so much money.

“It all goes back in. There's no one taking dividends and heading off into the sunset with it. We're very lucky in Ireland that we have organisations, individuals, families like that, that are prepared to keep putting it back into the industry they love.”

He continues, “It's a passion for it, and when you really see it is at the Goffs November Foal Sale. The amount of young people, running around looking at foals, and if we're lucky those people are going to stick with the game.

“The pinhooking is the entrée because it's affordable, and the out is fairly soon, so if they do well at that, they go again, and then eventually they buy mares, but the mares have become so expensive. It's very hard for young people to get into a nice mare, but they build up their pot. Nobody takes out, everybody puts it back in, and before long you see them with a couple of nice mares.

“Pinhooking is a great education for them. They're learning about conformation, they're learning about what works, they're learning how to buy a horse, sell a horse. They lose money. That would be the best education they get. They learn from their mistakes, and they go back in. 

“If you think of the older brigade, the Eddie O'Learys, the Paul Shanahans. We all remember them being around – they were the young pinhookers 30 years ago. And more Eddie O'Learys, Tony O'Callaghans, Gay O'Callaghans, Paul Shanahans will come from these young people.”

Let's adjust the title of the older brigade to the experienced brigade, and among that we can certainly add the name of David O'Loughlin, a Classic-winning breeder in his own right thanks to Authorized among a number of classy horses with which he has been associated. Lest we think of this brigade as a hard-nosed commercial bunch, O'Loughlin admits to having shed a few tears when Auguste Rodin won the Derby. Later this year, it will be his first foals, along with those of the following year's Derby winner City Of Troy, among those being keenly inspected by the pinhookers. 

“The vision of the boss, loading up the mare, sending her off to Japan,” he says of Rhododendron's trip to Hokkaido in what would transpire to be Deep Impact's final season at stud. “We were so lucky that the mares were out there and they got covered before he got injured, and the Yoshidas were so good to us.”

Auguste Rodin and City Of Troy have each had a first foal arrive within the last week.

“City Of Troy's first foal is here [on the farm], and he's a very good first foal, so it's a really exciting start, because he's obviously a very important horse,” says Byrne. “He's in rarefied air for what he did as a racehorse, and he covered a great book of mares from world-class breeders, owner-breeders, commercial breeders.

“We touched on the importance of the Derby but it's not just us, you see what Japan are doing, and they're building their stallions off one-and-a-half miles to two miles. Deep Impact won over two miles, so they're big believers in class and ability, and they're not worried about distance, and I think that's showing on the racetrack now, from years of investing in those top-class mares and top-class racehorses.”

He adds, “Over the years, I think two of the best stallion prospects we've ever had, even before they covered a mare, were City Of Troy and Auguste Rodin, for what they won between them, the quality of those Group 1s, the pedigrees and the physicals. They're remarkable horses.”

O'Loughlin emphasises his colleague's point. “Coolmore is very much about the Derby,” he says. “We strongly believe in it as the most important stallion-making race. Galileo and Montjeu, the incredible success Coolmore has had, came from the Derby, and the Derby-type stallions. We can see that legacy going on with Auguste Rodin, City Of Troy. And for me, Wootton Bassett's legacy will not be complete unless he gets a Derby winner.

“I remember when we were talking as a team about buying the horse, that was one of the first questions we asked. Would he be able to get a horse to win at a mile and a half? And we took a view that with all the Galileo mares, maybe that would happen.”

In King Of Steel and Whirl, Wootton Bassett's offspring have already gone close at Epsom, with a runner-up in the Derby and the Oaks. The final crop of Wootton Bassett to be born in the coming months will of course feature some very special dam-lines, too. It is unfair to pick just one from such illustrious mates, but in Fennela, a Sea The Stars half-sister to City Of Troy's dam Together Forever (Galileo), there is written more than one Derby storyline. 

O'Loughlin adds, “Hopefully, in the four crops we have in the can, there's a Derby winner. But as long as we're here, we will be trying to breed a Derby winner. It's the race we want to win. We want to stand the winner of the Derby. It's very much what our entire racing and breeding operation is about.”

 

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