Teofilo's growing affinity with Oasis Dream mares a key theme of awesome autumn

Doncaster, Saint-Cloud, Melbourne. No sooner had the dust settled on Jim Bolger’s Group 1 weekend, when the Bolger-bred juveniles Gear Up and Mac Swiney won the Criterium de Saint-Cloud and Vertem Futurity Trophy within minutes of each other, than the master horseman’s reach had extended to the other side of the world as the breeder of Tuesday’s Melbourne Cup hero Twilight Payment.

Bolger’s breeding programme has long consisted of patronising stallions bred and raced by the trainer, as finely illustrated by the fact that Mac Swiney and Gear Up are sons of New Approach and Teofilo. As such, he has remained a constant support throughout Teofilo’s stud career, whether as the force behind his first Group 1 winner, Parish Hall, or the European Classic winners Trading Leather and Pleascach. Now add a Melbourne Cup winner to the list in Twilight Payment.

Bred by Bolger out of Dream On Buddy, the Joseph O’Brien-trained Twilight Payment is a second Melbourne Cup winner for Teofilo following the success of Godolphin’s homebred Cross Counter in 2018. That record places him in elite company, with Monsun, Zabeel, Sir Tristram and Blarney Kiss the only other stallions to have sired multiple winners of the race in the past 50 years.