Wootton Bassett wins the Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere at Longchamp

Wootton Bassett, pictured winning the Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere, is having an excellent season at stud

Scandinavia and Qirat bred for Group 1 success

By John Ingles

Horse Racing

Mon August 04, 2025 · 5M ago

John Ingles discusses some of the pedigree topics arising from Glorious Goodwood.

Justify and Wootton Bassett delivering for Ballydoyle

Scandinavia became the new favourite for the St Leger when beating year-older stablemate Illinois in Tuesday’s Goodwood Cup. But with a son of Justify running down a son of Galileo in the final hundred yards, the result was a snapshot of the change of reign from one Coolmore great to potentially another.

Illinois was bidding to become what may well be his sire’s final Group 1 winner. He looks the best of Galileo’s remaining offspring in training who have yet to win at the top level and could yet become a last Group 1 winner for his late sire, now having been runner-up four times in such contests.

But with the Galileo era all but over, as far as current Coolmore stallions are concerned Scandinavia’s sire Justify is clearly the apple of Aidan O’Brien’s eye. Indeed, speaking after the Goodwood Cup, O’Brien repeated the bold assertion that he has made before that the offspring of US triple crown winner Justify are ‘Galileos with more class’! ‘Class’, however you definite it, wasn’t exactly something Galileo’s runners were lacking, at least judging from his tally of more than a hundred Group/Grade 1 winners.

Scandinavia wins the Goodwood Cup

On the other hand, Scandinavia comes along a year after Derby winner City of Troy who was from the same crop as Opera Singer, a Group 1 winner at Goodwood herself last year for O’Brien in the Nassau Stakes after winning the Prix Marcel Boussac at two. And it’s not just Ballydoyle that is enjoying classic success with Justify’s runners; if Scandinavia does go on to win the St Leger, he’d be a second classic winner for his sire this year after Godolphin’s 2000 Guineas winner Ruling Court.

It would be wrong to attribute all of Scandinavia’s ability to his sire, though, becomes he comes from a terrific family which O’Brien knows very well. His unraced dam Fabulous – a daughter of Galileo – is a half-sister to none other than Giant’s Causeway who, 25 years ago this week – is it really that long ago? – had just won the Sussex Stakes in the middle of a five-race run of Group 1 victories which earned him the ‘Iron Horse’ tag.

Scandinavia’s dam is also a half-sister to the outstanding broodmare You’resothrilling, a full sister to Giant’s Causeway. The dam of eight winners, all by Galileo and all of whom achieved a Timeform rating of 110 at the very least, four of those were Group 1 winners for Ballydoyle, namely Gleneagles, Happily, Marvellous and Joan of Arc.

Presumably there is plenty of young stock by Justify in the Coolmore pipeline earmarked to go into training at Ballydoyle in the seasons ahead, which is some thought given what O’Brien was able to achieve with a stable full of Galileos. So far this year, though, Scandinavia is one of only six individual runners by Justify to have run for Ballydoyle. The only two-year-old among them so far is Moments of Joy who was third in the Chesham Stakes.

But there’s no shortage of Wootton Bassetts at Ballydoyle at present, Coolmore’s other stand-out stallion in the post-Galileo era. He too supplied O’Brien with a Group 1 winner at Goodwood when Whirl followed up her Pretty Polly Stakes win in the Nassau Stakes run in the worst of the conditions at Goodwood. Wootton Bassett is going great guns this season – Whirl’s stablemates Camille Pissarro and Henri Matisse have won the colts’ classics in France – and he’s now breathing down the neck of Night of Thunder in the British/Irish sires’ championship.

Juddmonte ‘cash machine’ Emulous pays out again for Beckett

Qirat wins the Sussex Stakes at 150/1 under Richard Kingscote

Anyone taking a chance on Qirat keeping his unbeaten record at Goodwood – he won two handicaps there last year – however unlikely that seemed given his pacemaking role on his first start above listed company in the Sussex Stakes, would have been amply rewarded with an SP of 150/1. Hopefully one or two readers of Timeform’s Horses To Follow stuck with Qirat – one of the ‘fifty’ - in face of his seemingly daunting task!

While the focus after the race was naturally on Qirat’s starting price in a race where he was largely there to do the donkey work for Juddmonte’s odds-on favourite Field of Gold, his trainer Ralph Beckett paid tribute after the race to his dam Emulous, describing her as ‘a cash machine’.

The daughter of Dansili, who won seven races in Ireland for Dermot Weld, notably the 2011 Matron Stakes, and achieved a Timeform rating of 123, becomes the latest among a number of Juddmonte broodmares to have produced more than one Group 1 winner.

It was only last October that Qirat’s year-older half-sister and stablemate Bluestocking ended her career by winning the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in a season when she also won the Pretty Polly Stakes and Prix Vermeille.

Beckett has also trained Emulous’ other two winners to date, the fillies Desirous, winner of a Goodwood handicap herself, and Pomelo who were by Kingman and Dubawi respectively. Qirat, incidentally, became a second Sussex Stakes winner for his sire Showcasing after Mohaather who won it in 2020.

Beckett didn’t manage to get a win out of Emulous’ three-year-old Dissident, a gelded son of Frankel who had only four starts for the yard. He changed hands at the July Sale, so it will be interesting to see if Gary and Josh Moore can conjure something from him.

But that’s not the extent of Beckett’s association with this family as until very recently he also trained useful three-year-old filly Cathedral, a granddaughter of Emulous. The €800,000 Amo Racing breeze-up purchase ran her best race when fourth in the Coronation Stakes and was runner-up in the Group 3 Prix Chloe last time but is now with her owner’s new retained trainer Kevin Philippart de Foy.

Emulous is also the dam of two-year-old filly Serenetta, a daughter of Kingman who has yet to race, and she had a filly foal by Frankel last year.

Goodwood in the blood?

JM Jungle wins the King George Qatar Stakes

A coincidence perhaps, but it was interesting that three of the week’s Group winners were by sires who themselves won at Glorious Goodwood as two-year-olds. JM Jungle won the King George Stakes, showing all the pace of his sire Bungle Inthejungle who won the Molecomb Stakes over the same five furlongs.

Earlier in the week, Witness Stand, the 40/1 winner of a handicap at the same meeting last year and runner-up to Qirat back at Goodwood later last summer, caused another upset when winning the Lennox Stakes at 25/1. He’s a son of Expert Eye who won the Vintage Stakes impressively over the same seven-furlong trip.

Another Vintage winner, Galileo Gold, was the sire of Friday’s Thoroughbred Stakes winner Seagulls Eleven, father and son both trained by Hugo Palmer. Both Expert Eye and Galileo Gold finished second in the Sussex Stakes when returning to Goodwood as three-year-olds. Incidentally, Witness Stand and Seagulls Eleven are also the highest-rated offspring of their respective sires.

Expert Eye and Galileo Gold weren’t the only Vintage winners to sire a winner last week, either. The 2014 winner Highland Reel is the sire of smart stayer Kyle of Lochalsh who ran away with the week’s longest race, the Goodwood Handicap.