WHAT a year it has been for the 2012 Epsom and Irish Derby winner Camelot. Seven years after he landed the Group 1 Racing Post Trophy at two, his daughter Wonderment became the first member of his second crop to ascend to Group 1 glory, landing the Criterium de Saint-Cloud for trainer Nicolas Clement. She is also his first Group 1 winning juvenile.

This year has also seen Latrobe land the Group 1 Dubai Duty Free Irish Derby, while the three-year-old filly Athena won the Grade 1 Belmont Oaks Invitational Stakes. Fighting Irish is a Group 2 winning juvenile, Wait Forever won the Italian 2000 Guineas, Hunting Horn won at Royal Ascot and Pollara is a Group 3 winner in France.

In Europe Camelot has a remarkable 50% winners to runners strike rate and progeny earnings north of £4 million in those first two crops.

Clement joined with bloodstock agent Tina Rau, one of the original dozen Darley (now Godolphin) Flying Start graduates, to purchase Wonderment at last year’s Arqana October Yearling Sale for €60,000. She is the second foal and winner for her dam Wiwilia, a daughter of Konigstiger (Tiger Hill). The first winner was the €45,000 Goffs Orby yearling Short Call.

DANCING

Lucy Horner at Worsall Grange Stud in North Yorkshire must have been dancing a jig last weekend when Wonderment landed her maiden Group 1 victory. Back in July at the Tattersalls Ireland Ascot Mixed Sale she paid £2,500 for Wonderment’s winning Kodiac (Danehill) half-sister Short Call, and no doubt she has had a few calls from agents and breeders offering her profit!

That devaluation was in sharp contrast to the values placed on the 2018 yearling half-sister to Wonderment. This daughter of Dawn Approach (New Approach) was ‘given away’ last year as a foal for €5,000, but two weeks ago at Arqana she sold for €87,000! On the ground is a colt foal by Sea The Stars (Cape Cross).

Wonderment’s dam Wiwilia is a dual two-year-old winner, but in a country that we rarely see mentioned in pedigrees – Switzerland. She did so after being purchased the same year at Baden-Baden for €20,000 and won more than that in prizemoney.

This family received a major update two years ago when Wiwilia’s half-brother Wake Forest (Sir Percy) landed the Grade 1 Man O’War Stakes at Belmont and he has been placed a number of times at that level in the USA and Canada.

Prior to going to race stateside he was a Group 3 winner in Germany and placed in the Group 1 Premio Presidente della Repubblica in Italy.

This is a leading German female line, winners appearing in the first three removes of the pedigree also numbering the 2011 Group 1 Deutsches Derby winner Waldpark (Dubawi), the dual Group 1 winner Waldgeist (Galileo) and the 2011 Group 1 St Leger winner Masked Marvel (Montjeu) among them.