Henry Longfellow

Henry Longfellow sired his first reported foal, a bay filly out of Aurora Borealis (Montjeu), at Noralla Stud Farm. The dam is a daughter of listed winner Elaflaak (Gulch). "She's a very attractive filly, full of quality and very correct--a great advert for her sire," said Tina Dargan. A Group 1-winning juvenile, Henry Longfellow is bred on the same cross as 2025 Champion Sire Night Of Thunder, as he is by Dubawi out of a Galileo mare, in this case Minding, a seven-time Group 1-winner and champion. He stands for...

Anyone who hit the Irish Stallion Trail over the last weekend would have noticed the plethora of sons of Wootton Bassett to have joined the throng this year. Five to be precise, standing at five different studs, with two of those, the French Classic winners Camille Pissarro and Henri Matisse, based at Coolmore's main farm near Fethard and at Castlehyde Stud in Fermoy. Their illustrious sire joined the Coolmore roster in 2021, having stood his first nine years in France at Haras d'Etreham, rising from a €6,000 debutant to €40,000....

No Nay Never heads the Coolmore roster for the 2026 breeding season at €100,000, while the G1 Coral-Eclipse and G1 Irish Champion Stakes winner Delacroix, a son of Dubawi and the outstanding racemare Tepin, has been introduced at €40,000. Only the late Wootton Bassett has sired more individual Group-winning juveniles in Europe this year than No Nay Never, whose standout two-year-olds have included the G1 Cheveley Park Stakes heroine True Love and the G2 Norfolk Stakes winner Charles Darwin. The G1 City Of York Stakes scorer Never So Brave has...

For the third time in four years, Sioux Nation was the busiest Flat stallion at stud in Britain and Ireland in 2025, according to the Return of Mares, which has been published by Weatherbys. The son of Scat Daddy, who stands at Coolmore's Castlehyde Stud in County Cork, was usurped last year by his ill-fated stud-mate, Calyx, but he returned to the top of the charts during the latest breeding season, having covered 282 mares. The busiest stallion of any description was Whytemount Stud's Affinisea on 314, ahead of Boardsmill...

Fifty years ago this spring John Magnier moved into Coolmore Stud ahead of the now infamous and audacious annual raids on the Kentucky yearling market. At the Keeneland July Select Sale of 1975, Magnier, along with the esteemed trainer Vincent O'Brien and key ally Robert Sangster, started their recruitment drive of what O'Brien described as "baby stallions".  In his biography, O'Brien stated, "We would try and turn the tide: we would organise a syndicate to buy yearlings which I would train, and from which we could make our own stallions."...

For this third part in our series on value sires in Europe, we are approaching the level where the word value perhaps becomes more meaningful in that we are dealing with stallions in the €10,000 to €19,999 fee bracket.  In this mid range, some sires are passing through, either on their way up as popularity and commercial demand soars, or dropping in fee during the sometimes notoriously difficult years in a stallion's career. Notably that often comes in the third and fourth seasons at stud when they are no longer...

It's probably now just about safe for the TDN team to leave our desks briefly without fear of another stallion fee announcement dropping into the inbox. So, now that the numbers are in, here is a little further investigation as to who's going where and for how much. There were cautionary notes among last year's stallion fee announcements, just as there have been again this time around, which is no surprise given that the foal crop in Britain and Ireland has dropped again, this time by six per cent, to...

Group 1 winner and unbeaten juvenile Henry Longfellow (Ire) has been retired and will take up stallion duties at Coolmore Stud in Ireland next year.  The Dubawi (Ire) colt ran out an impressive winner of the G1 National Stakes at two and, while he failed to register a victory as a three-year-old, he was just a neck behind Rosallion (Ire) (Blue Point {Ire}) in a pulsating renewal of the St James's Palace Stakes at Royal Ascot.  Trained by Aidan O'Brien, Henry Longfellow also filled the frame in the G1 Prix...

The entries for the first two Classics of the season have been released, with 49 horses entered in each of the Qipco 2,000 Guineas and Qipco 1,000 Guineas. The colts will line up at Newmarket on Saturday, May 4 when it is likely that much of the attention will focus on the unbeaten City Of Troy (Justify), who at this stage is the ante-post favourite for the 2,000 Guineas. Trained by Aidan O'Brien, he has left Ireland for two of his three starts to win the G2 Superlative S. at...

In Europe, the TDN Rising Stars are awarded by Sean Cronin and Tom Frary, and no amount of begging, bleating or bribery from other members of the editorial team or external forces can persuade this duo to award one if they are not in agreement. Their decisions are based on performance, pedigree and, as the award title suggests, the likelihood of that individual becoming a stakes winner. Following the first five selections published yesterday, Tom Frary selects his five to keep an eye on in 2024. This could prove a...

The Devil's Dyke stretches in pretty much a straight line for more than seven miles through parts of Cambridgeshire and Suffolk. The best part, according to this scribbler anyway, is the section roughly a mile and half long which cleaves Newmarket's July Course from the Rowley Mile, with a break in the dyke allowing the two courses to join briefly just beyond the ten-furlong mark on the latter. A Dutch author, Iman Jacob Wilkens, once claimed that Cambridge's Gog Magog Hills was the true location of the City of Troy,...

While the G1 Irish St Leger is officially the feature race on The Curragh's second part of the Irish Champions Festival, Sunday's fixture is really first and foremost about Ballydoyle's TDN Rising Star City Of Troy (Justify) who graces the G1 Goffs Vincent O'Brien National S. Of all the stable's 2-year-old stars over the past 25 years, he already looks at home accompanying the same metaphoric space as the likes of Johannesburg, Fasliyev, Air Force Blue, Hawk Wing, Rock Of Gibraltar (Ire) and Little Big Bear (Ire) which is an...