WOOTTON BASSETT is rarely out of the headlines, and this past weekend was no different.

He had a winner on each day of the three-day Curragh meeting, Thrice getting the Group 3 Heider Family Stables Gallinule Stakes on Friday in the stewards’ room, Brussels winning a maiden comfortably on his debut on Saturday, and then Albert Einstein enhancing his reputation when landing the Group 3 Gain Marble Hill Stakes on Sunday.

With a name such as Albert Einstein, one has got to expect brilliance. Fifteen days after a winning debut at Naas, Albert Einstein produced a smart turn of foot to lead inside the final half a furlong to win on Sunday by three-parts of a length. “He’s a very fast horse,” Aidan O’Brien remarked.

He added: “We were hoping it was going to be a fast-run race, which I thought it was, but Ryan said he’d have liked them to have gone even faster.

“The lads said he [Albert Einstein] was rated an eight as a yearling, and that’s as high as the rating goes. He’s 540kg, that’s a very big horse, and he’s only a two-year-old. He’s been very special in everything he’s done.”

Owned by Westerberg with the Coolmore partners, and carrying the colours of Derrick Smith, Albert Einstein was bred by Coolmore out of Yet (War Front). That mare raced just three times, winning at Dundalk first time out. She was the mount of Ryan Moore when down the field in the Queen Mary Stakes at Royal Ascot, and on her final outing finished second in the Group 2 Airlie Stud Stakes at the Curragh. Albert Einstein is her first foal.

Yet is one of three winners, the three runners from her first four foals, out of Butterflies (Galileo). That mare’s first win, at Gowran Park, came on her third outing, and she came closest to winning a stakes race when beaten a neck in the Group 3 Munster Oaks.

In addition to Yet, Butterflies is dam of the group-placed Carracci (Quality Road), and this year’s Leopardstown maiden winner Butterfly Wings (Justify). Butterflies has a yearling colt by Gun Runner (Candy Ride).

You’resothrilling

Butterflies is a full-sister to the dam of the Group 1 Prix Saint-Alary winner Above The Curve (American Pharoah), She is also a half-sister to the great Giant’s Causeway (Storm Cat); Group 2 winner You’resothrilling (Storm Cat) who is the dam of four Group 1 winners by Galileo (Sadler’s Wells), namely Gleneagles, Happily, Joan Of Arc and Marvellous; and to the dam of dual Group 1 winner Decorated Knight (Galileo).

Also bred by Coolmore, Thrice doubled his tally of wins last week, having won a maiden at Listowel at two. He is now one of 62 stakes winners for Wootton Bassett, and 41 of these have gained their best result in a group race. Thrice shares with Group 2 juvenile winner Green Impact, and four Group 3 winners, the distinction of being stakes winners out of Galileo mares.

In Thrice’s case, the mare is the unraced Mississippilanding, a full-sister to the Leopardstown listed winner Giuseppe Garibaldi (Galileo). Their dam Queenscliff (Danehill Dancer) is a granddaughter of the Grade 1 Yellow Ribbon Stakes winner Queen To Conquer (King’s Bishop).

Topgear wins

While all of this was happening in Ireland, Wootton Bassett’s ultra-consistent six-year-old son Topgear made a good start to this season when he recorded his third French Group 3 triumph, in the Prix du Palais-Royal at ParisLongchamp, and he had ended last year with victory in the Group 2 Challenge Stakes in Newmarket.

Now a seven-time winner, he has been out of the first three just twice in 15 starts, both times on the only occasions he tackled Group 1 company.

A €200,000 Arqana yearling, Topgear is the best of three winning offspring of Miss Lech (Giant’s Causeway), and she was runner-up at Belmont Park at two and three, and finally won a race at four in Gulfstream Park on what was the penultimate start of her eight-race career. Her four winning siblings are headed by the Grade 2 Santa Anita winner Guilt Trip (Pulpit).

This is the family of Americain (Dynaformer), winner of the Group 1 Melbourne Cup on my only visit down under to Australia.

Lloyd Webber has a live Royal Ascot hope

BRED by David Redvers and Framont Limited, Mgheera was traded as a yearling for €145,000 at Arqana and ran initially in the colours of Al Shaqab Racing.

The daughter of Zoustar (Northern Meteor) was placed at three in Deauville, but having presumably failed to satisfy the expectations of connections, she was sent for resale that summer and sold for a paltry €3,500.

Her fortune changed that year and she won three times, while gaining valuable blacktype in a listed race in Italy. Kept in training at four, Mgheera won a listed race at Chantilly and placed on a number of occasions in group company.

She headlined a Tattersalls online sale last September, but did not sell at 300,000gns. Instead, she was sold to McKeever Bloodstock at Arqana in December for a little less, realising €250,000.

While she already had a smart race record, and a solid dam line, Mgheera was not purchased to head off immediately to stud. Instead, her new owners Andrew Lloyd Webber and Arthur Mitchell put her in training with Ed Walker, and the five-year-old has won her first two starts this year, the Group 3 Prix du Saint-Georges at ParisLongchamp, and now the Group 2 Temple Stakes at Haydock. Clearly, Mgheera is improving with age.

Invincible Spirit

Mgheera is one of two winners out of the Invincible Spirit (Green Desert) mare Blue Aegean. She sold as a breezer 11 years ago at the Tattersalls Craven Sale for 210,000gns, one of the top 10 prices at the sale that year. She was bought for Godolphin and joined Charlie Appleby.

Blue Aegean won three times, was in the first three on seven of her 11 starts, but she came up short every time she was tried in stakes company. Godolphin sold her as a four-year-old, with a covering by Pivotal (Polar Falcon), for 55,000gns. The foal she was carrying paid for the transaction, selling for €90,000 as a yearling.

Looking back on the first four generations of this pedigree, Mgheera is the best runner, and she looks the type who could eventually be up to winning at Group 1 level over the minimum trip.

All of Blue Aegean’s wins were over five furlongs. She is a half-sister to the Group 3 two-year-old winner Distinctive (Tobougg), though that filly stretched to win both her starts over six furlongs.

Mgheera is from the first crop conceived in England by Zoustar, and that crop was headed by the Group 1 Cheveley Park Stakes winner Lezoo, one of 10 winners at the highest level he has sired. His time spent at Tweenhills Farm & Stud also produced the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint winner Starlust, and he was from Zoustar’s second year’s coverings in Britain. Starlust is also out of a daughter of the Irish National Stud great Invincible Spirit.