Saturday's stakes successes has Bivouac and Wootton Bassett butting heads at the top

Cover image courtesy of Coolmore

The battle for the second season sires’ premiership has been a close one for quite some time, but Saturday’s stakes racing has transformed it into a two-horse race for the top between Bivouac and the late Wootton Bassett (GB). Less than $30,000 in domestic prize money separates them at the end of Saturday’s racing, with a half a million dollars back to third.

On Sunday, Swag (Bivouac) aided his sire in inching further ahead with a win in the $27,000 Grafton Guineas Prelude, but the race remains tighter than ever as the best son of Darley’s retired figurehead takes on the late Coolmore star taken too soon.

A closer comparison

When standing each stallion side by side on the numbers, their profiles stack up quite similarly. From near identical crop sizes, both have had a touch over 56% of their racing age foals hit the track so far.

Table: Bivouac and Wootton Bassett's Australasian statistics to date, Southern Hemisphere-born foals only

Wootton Bassett has produced four more Southern Hemisphere-bred runners across Australia and New Zealand than his Darley contemporary, although he has posted 17 more winners from that number. He also has one more stakes winner in total, while four of Bivouac’s six stakes winners have also struck black-type at two.

Wootton Bassett has led the way on juvenile winners, with 16 versus Bivouac’s 10, but still Bivouac has managed to record two juvenile stakes winners each season, three of whom won at Group level.

Bigger and better each season

Debuting at $66,000 (inc GST) after closing out his racing career with Group wins in all three seasons, Darley’s Bivouac closed out his first crop of 2-year-olds as eighth in the first season sires’ premiership, with five winners on Australian soil from 31 runners. Critically though, two of those winners were stakes winners, including G2 Silver Slipper Stakes winner Beiwacht who had improvement to come at the turn of the season.

Over in New Zealand, he also produced G2 Wakefield Challenge Stakes victress Intention (NZ), who was one of only two runners in the jurisdiction for him.

The triple Group 1 winner did not have to wait long into the spring for Beiwacht to resurface a bigger, better beast who emulated his father in the G1 Golden Rose Stakes - in race record time - before returning in the autumn to add the G1 All Aged Stakes to his flourishing resume. He remains in training for his 4-year-old season, just like his sire.

Juvenile Big Sky threw his hat in the ring for a G1 Blue Diamond Stakes tilt after a commanding victory in the G3 Chairman’s Stakes, but was scratched on race eve after his trainers detected an injury. The unbeaten colt is currently listed as active for Mick Price and Michael Kent Jnr on Racing Australia.

Bivouac’s season of stakes winners was far from over though, with Fireball Miss rising to become his second Group 1 winner in the G1 Queensland Oaks, and on Saturday, Cellarmaster (NZ) was the latest to add his name to his sire’s honour roll with victory in the G3 Winx Guineas.

Stamped with ability over type

Cellarmaster is the first foal for his dam Moet Belle (NZ) (Tavistock {NZ}), a half-sister to champion Melody Belle (NZ) (Commands) who resides across the Tasman at Haunui Farm.

“He was bred by Marie Leicester, a client of Haunui Farm, and we have a great relationship with Mark (Chitty) and Haunui so he came to us to prep for the Magic Millions sale,” said Bhima Thoroughbreds’ Mike Fleming, who offered the gelding at the 2024 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale.

Cellarmaster was knocked down to John O'Shea Racing and James Bester Bloodstock for $260,000, which was the best price achieved by Bhima for a Bivouac in 2024.

“He was a really nice, forward yearling,” Fleming recalled. “Being by a good Australian sire and being a forward type, it made sense that he went to Magics.”

“Marie has a great relationship with Darley,” said Haunui Farm’s Managing Director Mark Chitty.

“She likes to use well-performed Australian sires, and that has worked out well for her. Melody Belle is obviously by Commands. She thought Bivouac would be a really nice first mating for Moet Belle, who was unfortunately injured in training and never got to show her best on the track.

“We thought the colt would be nicely placed at Magic Millions, and he sold really well to two very good judges in John O’Shea and James Bester. That was great to see.”

“I remember the main comments at the sales that first year was that he (Bivouac) probably didn’t stamp his stock like some sires do, but they looked like they would be good autumn 2-year-olds and 3-year-olds, which most of them have turned out to be,” Fleming said.

“Cellarmaster always looked like he would make a lovely 3-year-old, and he has certainly gone that way.”

Cellarmaster raced once as a 2-year-old, but it has been since late December that he has started to really hit his straps, winning at a midweek Randwick meeting before dashing forth from 17th to eighth in the R. Listed Magic Millions 3YO Guineas. A winner at Canterbury in February, he was third in the G2 Phar Lap Stakes and fifth despite getting too far back again in the G3 Gunsynd Classic.

The Guineas was finally his moment to shine, though, and the gelding lifted in the final strides to win by a neck.

“Some horses just take a little longer,” Chitty said. “He was really good through the line in the Guineas, which is very exciting to Marie. She also bred Romanoff who won our 2000 Guineas this season, which is wonderful to achieve from small numbers.”

Moet Belle patronised a similarly superbly performed Darley sire in 2023 in Anamoe before her export back to New Zealand, where she produced a colt. He made NZ$300,000 to the bid of Laurel Oak Bloodstock when offered by Haunui Farm at this year’s New Zealand Bloodstock National Yearling Sale.

“He is a similar style of horse to Cellarmaster,” Chitty said of the Anamoe colt. “A nice athletic type who might take a little longer, but a very nice horse.”

And the waiting is all worth it when they score a win, particularly one at stakes level.

“Fundamentally, it’s nice to sell yearlings for big prices, but they have to be able to win as well,” Chitty said. “They have to do what Cellarmaster did on Saturday. He’s a horse that hasn’t been overtaxed and hopefully has more improvement to come. The ownership are talking about going back to the Magic Millions in the summer with him.

“We haven’t had any other Bivouacs, and one swallow doesn’t make a summer, but we wouldn’t mind a couple more if they are like him.”

Big reputation

Wootton Bassett, by contrast, arrived in Australia with a profile already established. From humble beginnings at Haras d’Etreham to transferring to Coolmore’s Irish roster in 2020, he established himself as a talented, versatile sire who had earned himself a better book of mares. He first shuttled to Australia in the spring of 2021 at a service fee of $71,500 (inc GST), and his fee never took a step back.

Finishing that first season in second position, splitting leading stakes-producers Ole Kirk and Farnan, some were quick to chalk the son of Iffraaj (GB) up to being another Northern Hemisphere sire who had failed to fire down under, but the numbers tell a slightly different story.

Of his 36 juvenile runners in his first Australian crop, Wootton Bassett produced 10 winners and six stakes performers, with the most notable being G1 Golden Slipper Stakes bridesmaid Wodeton, who earned over $1 million that season alone.

Once his first crop turned three, the gears started to turn a little faster. After a Flemington double on Saturday, with Wise Inlaw taking out the Listed AR Creswick Stakes and talented juvenile Marwooba striking in the Listed Taj Rossi Series Final, he sits on six stakes winners in Australia, with a seventh - Listed-winning Excite - in New Zealand.

To top the group off, Providence arrived on time in the G1 Queensland Derby to claim the feature, promptly earning himself a spot on the plane to Hong Kong, where he will be trained by former Godolphin conditioner James Cummings.

Wootton Bassett’s loss early in the 2025 breeding season was a heavy one for the Coolmore team in both hemispheres. The stallion had been primed to receive 80 of the operation’s best mares, and he was able to cover 39 before his passing, including Shout The Bar (Not A Single Doubt), Sunlight (Zoustar), Sunshine In Paris (Invader), and Learning To Fly (Justify {USA}).

An emerging cross

Bred by TJT Bloodstock, Marwooba is one of four winners from five runners by the sire to be sold by Yarraman Park Stud, who have also been the vendors of Listed-winning Excite and Group-performed metropolitan winner Wootton Lass.

“He was a very nice yearling, a big, powerful kind of horse,” recalled Yarraman Park’s Harry Mitchell. The colt was offered in the Hunter Valley nursery’s Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale draft last year, and was a $400,000 purchase for Hawkes Racing.

“He was probably slightly on the heavier side as a yearling, being out of a Fastnet Rock mare, but that’s not derogatory of him at all. There was always a lot of power to him, and now he is shaping up quite well. He has demonstrated he can run a mile, so he should be quite a nice horse as a 3-year-old.”

Marwooba’s dam Marguns is one of 17 Fastnet Rock mares to produce a winner by Wootton Bassett, from 24 runners bred worldwide on the cross so far. Three of his Australian stakes winners - including Derby hero Providence and G3 Red Anchor Stakes winner Napoleonic - are out of Fastnet Rock mares, plus French Listed winner Moon Cloud (Fr). A further four stakes performers, three in Australia, have emerged from the cross.

Mitchell noted that, between their own matings and yearlings bred by clients, it was a cross that just kept coming up.

“All four of our Wootton Bassetts we sold last year were out of Fastnet mares,” he said. “Excite was not as heavy a type as Marwooba, similar but not quite as much strength. Fastnet Rock is a very good broodmare sire. We try to match it up physically, not just the page, and it is one that has been working.

“We have a few more coming through bred on the cross, so it will be interesting to see how they progress.”

Mitchell anticipates the demand for the stallion to return full swing at the 2027 sales, given the upswing he has had in the 2025/26 season. What is most striking of all is the stallion’s stakes performers; while he might rank almost equal to Bivouac on stakes winners, Wootton Bassett has had 24 stakes performers arise from his first two Australian born crops.

“They loved him, and then everyone went off him a bit, and that is the way it goes often, but he has been a great stallion,” Mitchell said. “What he has been doing in Europe is phenomenal.”

Wootton Bassett’s most recent G1 Prix du Jockey Club winner Constitution River (Ire) laid claim to a future spot on the Coolmore stallion roster with victory in Saturday’s G1 Coral-Eclipse Stakes.

“It’s very sad for the industry that we lost him. It’s very tough when you lose them before their time.”

Contributing to the gene pool

Bivouac’s son Beiwacht is booked to race on another season and, having won two Group 1s now over 1400 metres, will almost certainly join his sire on the Darley roster within the next couple of years. It is just a matter of how he adds to his record between then and now. G3 Pago Pago Stakes placegetter Outspan is back in work and will look to put his best foot forward in the spring.

With Exceed And Excel retired now and his last crop of foals about to turn two, Bivouac is his best performed son at stud to date, and has made steady progress in taking up his sire’s mantle. He covered a book of 104 in the spring as his 2-year-olds and early 3-year-olds drew attention back on him.

“I think he will be a good value horse to breed to this year,” said Fleming. “We bought a weanling by him this year as well, and we believe he is going to be a sire that is more seriously looked at at the 2027 yearling sales.”

Two sons of Wootton Bassett have retired to stud in Australia for 2026, with quite different profiles; the imported entire Royal Patronage (Fr) joins the Darling View Thoroughbreds roster in Western Australia after winning the G1 Canterbury Handicap, and blueblooded Wodeton has joined the Newgate Farm roster in New South Wales.

They join Swettenham Stud’s Wooded (Ire), whose first Southern Hemisphere crop turn three in the coming weeks, and Cambridge Stud’s Almanzor (Fr), who added another Group 1 winner this season with G1 Telegraph Handicap winner First Five (NZ), as sire sons of the late stallion available in Australasia.

Several Australian-born colts remain on the track to add to Wootton Bassett’s legacy in the future, including Marwooba and G1 Doomben 10,000 third Napoleonic, as his final crop arrives this spring.

Before then, there’s just three more weekends of racing before the end of the racing season, and the second season showdown is closer than ever.