Matings Mix: Super support for Coolmore's best mares

Cover image courtesy of The Image Is Everything

As Coolmore Stud prepares for the 2026 breeding season, their roster looks a little different from last year. A new flagship has emerged for the organisation with Home Affairs, who enjoyed an incredibly strong run with his first 2-year-olds, and gun New Zealand stallion Super Seth has joined the roster in Jerry’s Plains.

With several promising young stallions welcoming their first foals and preparing to see their first yearlings at auction, it has been an exciting period matching up the bluechip members of the Coolmore broodmare band.

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A Super edition to the roster

Multiple Group 1-producing stallion Super Seth joins the Coolmore Stud roster in 2026 and it is little surprise to discover that his first Australian book will be loaded with some of the organisation’s finest young mares to kick off the next chapter of his career.

“Super Seth is a hugely exciting addition to our roster for this season and we will be supporting with mares of the highest quality,” Moore said. “When paired with the Australian pool of mares, we think he is capable of producing the types of horses that can compete in all the Grand Final races for two and 3-year-olds in Australia.”

Four of Super Seth’s 10 stakes winners are Group 1 winners, and he produced four stakes winners during the 2025/26 season, including G3 Rough Habit Plate winner Kilman (NZ) and La Dorada (NZ) returning to form in the G2 Levin Classic. He also achieved his highest sales price to date this year when Andrew Williams Bloodstock (FBAA) bought a filly of his from Wentwood Grange’s Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale draft for $950,000.

The diversity of mares he has achieved these results with have given him plenty of options with Coolmore’s band.

“He’s produced Guineas winners in Australia out of mares by Oasis Dream and O’Reilly, and a Champion 2YO out of a Savabeel mare. When we send him the likes of Amelia’s Jewel, Climbing Star, Coolangatta, and Tiggy Wiggy it will be interesting to see what he is capable of.”

West Australian star Amelia’s Jewel (Siyouni {Fr}) won the G1 Northerly Stakes amongst eight Group victories and 10 stakes wins altogether. She was a $3.8 million Inglis Chairman’s Sale purchase for Tom Magnier last year and was sent to Wootton Bassett (GB) for her maiden season.

Magnier purchased G1 Robert Sangster Stakes winner Climbing Star (NZ) (Zoustar) the same year at the Magic Millions Broodmare Sale for $2.1 million, before sending her to I Am Invincible for her first season. Dual Group 1-winning sprinter Coolangatta (Written Tycoon) delivered a Snitzel colt in 2025 before visiting City Of Troy (USA).

European Champion 2YO Filly and G1 Cheveley Park Stakes winner Tiggy Wiggy (Ire) (Kodiac {GB}) is the most established of the group, with two stakes performers to her credit already. Her first foal Year Of The Tiger (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) was third in the G1 Futurity Trophy and fourth in the G1 Dewhurst Stakes, while her current 3-year-old Central Europe (Frankel {GB}) was runner-up in both the G2 Skyline Stakes and G3 Pago Pago Stakes last season.

Tiggy Wiggy is a half-sister to the dam of Wootton Bassett’s G1 Prix de la Foret winner Maranoa Charlie (Fr), who joined the roster of Tally Ho Stud this year. She delivered a Wootton Bassett filly in 2025 before visiting City Of Troy.

“We have also accumulated a number of high-class I Am Invincible mares in recent years and they can’t go to Home Affairs, so Estriella and Tiz Invincible are young mares who will get their opportunity with Super Seth this season,” Moore said.

Estriella (I Am Invincible) and Tiz Invincible (I Am Invincible) were both $2.8 million purchases at the 2025 Chairman’s Sale, and will patronise Jerry’s Plains’ super recruit early in their breeding careers. Estriella will visit him having missed in 2025, while Tiz Invincible awaits her first foal by Wootton Bassett later in August.

Replicating what works for a champion

Home Affairs has the kind of beginning to his stud career that most stallion owners dream about. The son of I Am Invincible finished his first season with runners as the Champion First Season Sire in both Australia and New Zealand, and challenged the late Snitzel down to the wire for the Champion 2YO Sire honours. His domestic prize money of $4,969,325 exceeded the first crop record set by Too Darn Hot (GB) in 2023/24.

He joined an elite bracket of stallions in siring a G1 Golden Slipper Stakes winner in his first crop with Guest House, who will join him on the Coolmore roster at the close of his racing career, plus three other stakes winners and a total of 20 winners on either side of the Tasman. As such, his fee rises to $176,000 (inc GST) in 2026.

“Not many stallions start off at stud in the manner that Home Affairs has,” said Coolmore’s Marketing And Nominations Tom Moore. “He has emulated Danehill and Extreme Choice by producing a Golden Slipper-winning colt from his first crop and his progeny earned more prize money than any first crop sire in history.

“He is a stallion that looks like he will only continue to get better as his progeny get older and we will be using him heavily this season.”

Flamboyant Lass (Stratum), dam of Guest House, is top of the billing to go to Home Affairs this season. She was offered by Newgate Consignment at this year’s Inglis Chairman’s Sale in foal to Storm Boy, and Tom Magnier landed the winning bid at $800,000.

“It didn’t take a lot of time to come up with a mating for Flamboyant Lass, the dam of Home Affairs’ Golden Slipper winner Guest House,” Moore said. “She was bought with the intention of being married to him for the foreseeable future.

"Amongst the other highlight mares due to visit Home Affairs are Learning To Fly, Nimalee and Zougotcha, each of whom are young mares with deep pedigrees and elite performance, capable of producing anything.”

Three-time Group 1 winner Zougotcha (Zoustar) was added to the Coolmore broodmare band in 2025, when she was a $5.25 million sale-topper at the Magic Millions Gold Coast National Broodmare Sale. She visited I Am Invincible in her maiden season at stud.

The first foal of G1 Queen Of The Turf Stakes winner Nimalee (So You Think {NZ}), a colt by Snitzel, was popular at the Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale this year when selling to Avenue Bloodstock for $1.1 million. She has a colt by Wootton Bassett to head to the sales in 2027 and is currently in foal to Home Affairs with a due date in mid September.

Dual Group winner and Group 1-placed Learning To Fly (Justify {USA}) will welcome her first foal in 2026, also by Wootton Bassett.

First foal anticipation for City Of Troy and Switzerland

For two of the younger members of the roster, the anticipation has built waiting for their first crop of foals to appear. Champion racehorse City Of Troy has returned to the Southern Hemisphere, where he served a book of 158 mares in 2025, to join G1 Coolmore Stud Stakes winner Switzerland, who covered a book of 195.

“City Of Troy is a stallion we took a strong position in last season and we’re eagerly awaiting his first foals,” Moore said. “He was an incredible racehorse who was the best of his generation as a 2-year-old and a World Champion at three.

“Being by Justify out of a Galileo mare, we think he is absolutely nailed-on for Fastnet Rock mares, and thankfully we have a significant number of them. A couple of our Fastnet Rock mares that are down to go to him are Ennis Hill and Amicus.”

G3 Chairman’s Stakes winner Ennis Hill (Fastnet Rock) hails from one of Coolmore’s most prolific families, being a daughter of G2 Reisling Stakes winner Hips Don’t Lie (NZ) (Stravinsky {USA}) and a full sister to Listed-winning Lake Geneva and Coolmore sire Acrobat. She is also the dam of Learning To Fly.

Ciaron Maher Bloodstock and Linda Shanahan outlaid $1.3 million to secure her Justify (USA) filly at this year’s Easter sale and she traveled to the States in 2025 to revisit the stallion.

“Ennis Hill is in foal to Justify to produce a full sibling to Learning To Fly, who was arguably the best filly of her generation at two,” Moore said. This mating would produce a three-quarter-sibling to Learning To Fly and her sister who sold for $1,300,000 to Ciaron Maher at Easter this year.

“Amicus was a high-class Group 1 winning Fastnet Rock mare and has produced two Group winners by Galileo, so we think she is a perfect candidate for City Of Troy.”

G1 One Thousand Guineas victress Amicus (Fastnet Rock), whose dam is a half to successful dual hemisphere sire Starspangledbanner, produced G2 Moonee Valley Gold Cup winner and G1 Melbourne Cup third Okita Soushi (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) as her first foal. G3 Gallinule Stakes winner Chief Little Rock (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) is her second to race and has been a multiple placegetter at stakes level on top of his win.

“We raced Switzerland and know how good he was,” said Moore. The Coolmore team also race his full brother St Gotthard (Snitzel), winner of the G3 Ken Russell Memorial Classic in his first preparation, and purchased another full brother for $2 million at Easter this year.

“He was an elite 2-year-old and even better at three, just like Home Affairs, who also won the Coolmore Stud Stakes in similar fashion. We’re looking forward to welcoming a number of foals by him here at Coolmore this season and we’re eager to get behind him again.”

Two notable names in Switzerland’s second book are Diamondsareforever (Ire) (Justify {USA}), a juvenile winning daughter of G1 Pretty Polly Stakes victress Diamondsandrubies (Ire) (Fastnet Rock), and $1.15 million broodmare purchase Fashion Faux Pas (USA) (Flatter {USA}).

“From a physical standpoint, we think he is a relatively straightforward horse to breed to, as a medium-sized, robust, correct horse with loads of quality and very good limbs,” Moore said. “We think he will tidy up Diamondsareforever who is an impeccably-bred daughter of Justify, out of Irish Group 1 winner Diamondsandrubies.

“Her first foal was a very good Frankel and we sent her to Switzerland because we felt they were a compatible match on both type and pedigree, as she is a big, scopey mare. She’s booked to go back to him.”

Diamondsareforever hails from the family of multiple Group-winning sire Eminent (Ire) and descends from Alruccaba (Ire) (Crystal Palace {Fr}), the ancestress of triple Group 1-winning mare Alpinista (GB) (Frankel {GB}) and G2 Sandown Guineas winner Snitzanova (Snitzel).

“Fashion Faux Pas produced a $1,100,000 Extreme Choice yearling this year and is the dam of Nations League, who is well-regarded in Chris Waller’s stable so we wanted to stick with the Snitzel line with her. She’s expecting a Shinzo this season but we’re keen to give her a go with Switzerland. She was a fast mare with a high-class American pedigree, just like Switzerland.”

Nations League (Snitzel) was a $1.7 million yearling himself and was placed close behind subsequent Group 1 placegetter Stormy Marco (Wootton Bassett {GB}) in the autumn. Fashion Faux Pas will have a filly from the last crop of Snitzel heading to the sales in 2027.

Big backing in Shinzo’s third season

G1 Golden Slipper Stakes winner Shinzo welcomed his first foals in 2025 and proved as popular as anticipated at the weanling sales earlier this year, concluding the sales season as the leading first season sire by average of $138,636 and a top lot of $600,000.

Noorilim Park offered the filly, who is a half-sister to G3 Blue Diamond Preview (fillies) winner Miss Roseiano (Exceed And Excel), at the Inglis Australian Weanling Sale, where she was bought by SP Bloodstock.

In acknowledgement of Shinzo entering his tricky third season, Coolmore have stacked the odds in the stallion’s favour and have given him another book full of quality. One such mare visiting him in 2026 is dual Listed winner and Group-performed Lady Of Honour (No Nay Never {USA}).

“Lady Of Honour was a talented race mare and her first foal was an outstanding Wootton Bassett filly that sold at Easter this year to Ozzie Kheir and Matt Becker,” Moore said. The filly made $510,000.

“She was stunning, and her Shinzo colt going to the sales next year is equally as good, if not better. He’s such a nice colt that we must send her back.

“Shinzo is a horse that we feel we need to have exposure to this season in his third season given the quality of his stock. We did it with Home Affairs in his subsequent third season and that’s why we have a significant number of Home Affairs yearlings to sell next year, so we’re backing Shinzo in a similar way this season.”

Table: Mating schedule for some of Coolmore Stud's broodmares