It is unusual, in this breeding landscape dominated by commerciality, to see a broodmare make multiple consecutive visits to the same stallion. Certainly, if a mare produces a good racehorse by a sire, she might be returned to him after that success becomes apparent. But she will have no doubt visited a variety of other stallions in the meantime, as breeders try to produce yearlings by a horse that will be hot at the right moment.
One group offers the most notable exception to this policy of variety: the Lads of Coolmore. Coolmore-owned mares were regularly “married” to Galileo when that superstar stallion was at the height of his production powers, and Coolmore was rewarded with the likes of the G1-winning sets of full-siblings Hydrangea, Hermosa and The United States (all out of Beauty Is Truth); Minding, Tuesday and Empress Josephine (all out of Lillie Langtry); and Gleneagles, Happily, Joan of Arc and Marvellous (all out of You’resothrilling). Of course, all of those listed G1 winners were (at least originally) campaigned by Coolmore, who was obviously not breeding for the commercial market.
Galileo has passed, and there is no stallion who dominates any single breeder’s program the way that he did for Coolmore. But the closest thing we’ve seen to Galileo in the U.S. for some time is Into Mischief, and in the wake of the success of Into Mischief’s son Sovereignty, Godolphin’s Michael Banahan enunciated an express plan to send the same mare to him multiple times because they believed it was a good mating:
We’re pretty keen on the idea of if you think it’s a really good mating to try it three times, because you might get it right once.¹
Sovereignty, as most probably know, is the product of his dam (Crowned)’s fourth visit to Into Mischief, following two fillies who were a winner and placed, respectively (the third mating didn’t produce a foal the year before Sovereignty arrived).
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Which is not to say that Blofeld is Into Mischief or Galileo, nor that Seville’s Princess has the resume of a mare in either the Coolmore or Godolphin broodmare bands. But Seville’s Princess will visit Blofeld for the fourth time (and third in a row) in 2026, and we thought it worthwhile to offer some justification for our decision, beyond the reasons that led to the mating in the first place, and which we have previously laid out here on multiple occasions.
And, in fact, there have been some Murmur Farm mares that have been successful on multiple visits to Blofeld: Missy Kim has produced the six-figure earners Bonded, Royal Spy and Mister Agent; Diva Meg has produced black-type placed Bold Diversion, six-figure earner Bondiva, plus two more winning full-siblings; and Golden Innis produced six-figure earners Goldenize and Golden Charm in back-to-back years before her passing. All of those were initially campaigned by Mrs. Murray who owns Murmur, stands Blofeld, and supported him heavily during his initial years at stud when he was covering books of just 25 to 30 mares.
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Only one of the Blofeld foals out of Seville’s Princess has attained racing age at this point, and Blo By the Field has put together a record of (6) 2-1-2 so far, showing enough promise to give us confidence in persevering with this match.
We will spare the reader another recitation of the merits of this mating,² but will simply highlight the fact that the Quality Road/Galileo cross has produced two Graded/Group winners and three more Graded/Group-placed horses from 22 runners (good for 23% group horses to runners), of which 18 are winners (82%). And Blofeld himself continues to put up numbers that make him the best stallion in the Mid-Atlantic across a range of statistical categories, and thus a great fit for just about any mare.
Housatonic Recommended Matings of 2024 – Seville’s Princess |
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The match of Seville’s Princess to the leading young Maryland sire Blofeld demonstrates the short-coming of nick ratings and why it is important only to use such a tool as one factor in planning one’s matings.
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