Wootton Bassett snares first southern hemisphere-bred Group 1 winner as Providence shines Down Under

Click here to add us to your Google preferred sources or find out more here

Coolmore’s star-crossed stallion Wootton Bassett sired his first southern hemisphere Group 1 winner when the Chris Waller-trained Providence delivered a brilliant display to win Saturday’s Queensland Derby in Australia. 

Owned by the powerful consortium of China Horse Club, Newgate, Sir Owen Glenn’s Go Bloodstock and Trilogy, the three-year-old colt came into the race off the back of a third-placed finish in Group 3 company and he added a first stakes win to his record when pulling a length clear of stablemate Monopolistic, who is raced by the same ownership group. 

Bred by Jonathan Munz's GSA Bloodstock, Providence is from Wootton Bassett’s first southern hemisphere-bred crop and was a A$650,000 buy for his owners from the Bhima Thoroughbreds draft at the 2024 Inglis Easter yearling sale. 

He is the first stakes winner out of the Group 2-placed Fastnet Rock mare Southbank, who also made the podium in the Group 1 Thousand Guineas. 

Providence heads up Wootton Bassett’s five southern hemisphere-bred stakes winners and these also include Group 2 scorer West Of Swindon. His two crops of runners in the south has yielded 62 winners. 

All told, Providence becomes the stallion’s 20th elite-level winner, while his global stakes count now stands at 86. 

The colt became the first Group 1 bred on the Wootton Bassett-Fastnet Rock cross, a nick which has produced three stakes winners. 

Wootton Bassett died while on shuttle duty in the Hunter Valley last September after suffering from choke, a serious equine condition where the esophagus gets blocked by food, which led to rapidly deteriorating acute pneumonia.

Read more:

'They're hard to get these ones' - Dreamasar continuing Livia’s dream broodmare record 

'Fast, classy fillies like her are hard to come by' - Wathnan swoop for talented Godspeed 

Goffs Book 2 sale-topper provides Rathbarry Stud's globetrotter State Of Rest with first winner