Sad news for arts lovers with an eye on the horses - Sadler’s Wells, dubbed the greatest-ever sire of racehorses, died this week aged 30. His parents were the champion sire Northern Dancer and Fairy Bridge, and the arts supplied the names for racing's most legendary dynasty that would dance to victory again and again. Half-brother to Nijinsky and Nureyev, sire of Old Vic, Sadler's Wells brought the dancing line in horseracing to a superb peak.
Trained by Vincent O'Brien (who also trained Triple Crown-winner Nijinsky), he was a multiple winner as a three-year-old in 1984, and was within a year rated as the world's most sought-after stud. Over the next quarter-century he sired an astounding cascade of winners - and artistic names seemed to help.
Yeats, Old Vic, Islington, Opera House, In The Wings, King’s Theatre, Dream Well, El Prado and Alexandrova were some of the starry progeny with names relevant to the theatre world after which he was named (WB Yeats was an inspiration for the founding of the Sadler's Wells/Old Vic theatre axis). Other brilliant offspring were Montjeu, Derby-winners High Chaparral and Galileo, Istabraq and Doyen.
Sadler's Wells's son Old Vic, who died in February, proved another champion sire. One of Sadler's Wells's daughters, Playful Act, was sold as a breeding mare in 2007 for a world record price of $10.5 million - another daughter is Lilian Bayliss (sic), named for the doughty dame Lilian Baylis who reopened the derelict Sadler's Wells theatre in 1931 and managed it and the Old Vic to theatrical glory. Sadly neither the equine Ninette de Valois nor her daughter Marie Rambert matched their human counterparts in glory.
Sadler's Wells produced 293 Stakes winners and 74 Group 1 winners (the top rank horses in racing), until being retired from stud in 2008. He was rated Champion Sire in Great Britain and Ireland an unprecedented, and probably unbeatable, 14 times. Former jockey Pat Eddery, a regular partner of Sadler's Wells in his racing career, said, "He probably was the best sire of them all." Three-quarters of last year's Derby field were related to him.
The horse died naturally on Tuesday this week at Coolmore Stud, Tipperary, where he had lived since 1984.
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