Lloyd Webber wife romps in with £3.7m horse sale

AndreW lloyd Webber’s musicals have yielded astonishing box-office success, which helps explain how, at the age of 70, he’s amassed an estimated £740 million fortune and a stupendous collection of Victorian art.

But his wife Madeleine has just given a stunning demonstration that she, too, has the Midas touch, selling a yearling from her Watership down stud in Berkshire for £3.675 million at tattersalls auction in newmarket.

it is the highest price for a yearling this year and the second-highest price ever paid at a european sale.

What makes this coup all the more remarkable was that the still unnamed yearling— bought by Sheikh Fahad al-thani of Qatar who beat off determined bidding by dubai’s Sheikh Hamdan alMaktoum — has, as yet, offered no evidence of brilliance.

it is, however, the son of the prolific stallion dubawi and the top mare, dar re Mi — and the younger brother of the colt, too darn Hot.

three days after the auction, too darn Hot proved his pedigree when Frankie dettori rode him to victory in the dewhurst Stakes, and is now priced as a 6-4 chance for the 2,000 Guineas next spring, as well as favourite for the derby.

Madeleine lloyd Webber, who was introduced to her husband by his horse-loving neighbours in Watership down, established the stud, close to the couple’s home, Sydmonton Court, in 1992.

But Madeleine, 55, insists on sharing the credit with her husband, who last year became the first composer to equal the record set by the legendary rodgers and Hammerstein by having four Broadway shows running simultaneously – the Phantom of the Opera, Cats, Sunset Boulevard and School Of rock.

‘Andrew has been a fantastic support,’ she tells me.

Perhaps lloyd Webber, who retired from the lords last year, explaining that his work schedule was ‘the busiest of my career to date’, will knock out a musical in celebration.