Sister to German Classic Winner Yields 1.25M Euros in Deauville

A member of the Gestut Ammerland dispersal, listed winner Sea The Sky (Ger) (Sea The Stars {Ire}–Sanwa {Ger}, by Monsun {Ger}) realized a €1.25 million final bid from Godolphin during the opening session of Arqana's Vente d'Elevage in Deauville Saturday. The €820,000 Baden-Baden September yearling purchase is a full-sister to German Derby victor Sea The Moon (Ger), out of a full-sister to German Classic winners Schiaparelli (Ger), Samum (Ger) and Salve Regina (Ger).

The post Sister to German Classic Winner Yields 1.25M Euros in Deauville appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

Fond Farewell to a Champion as Adlerflug Filly Tops BBAG 

IFFEZHEIM, Germany–From the established Classic sires to the young pretenders, the full range of the stallion scene was on offer at BBAG, with the yearlings in the main underpinned by some long established German dynasties. It was only right that as his last yearlings took to the ring in the country in which he earned a reputation that eventually spread worldwide, Adlerflug (Ger) was on top for one last time when his daughter (lot 52) from a solid Gestut Rottgen family brought the hammer down at €300,000.

Eleganz (Ire) she is named, and elegant she is. Her young winning dam Kizingo (Ire) (Oasis Dream {GB}) is a half-sister to the former German champion two-year-old Erasmus (Ger) (Reliable Man {GB}), the pair being out of the G1 Preis der Diana winner Enora (Ger) (Noverre {Ire}). She may yet even have a quick update as her two-year-old half-sister Erle (Ger) (Reliable Man {GB}) makes her debut at Baden-Baden on Saturday in the Gestut Etzean Winterkonigin Trial. 

The Adlerflug filly will not look out of place among the bluebloods in Imad Al Sagar's Blue Diamond Stud broodmare band, but first she will enter training with John and Thady Gosden, who have masterminded the career of the same owner's homebred treble Group 1 winner Nashwa (GB) (Frankel {GB}).

Hugo Merry, sent in to bat to secure the filly for the Blue Diamond Stud team, said, “She's an exceptional individual: fantastic, strong, a great walk. Her sire had to make it the hard way but he was fantastic and Imad Al Sagar loves the stallion. Oasis Dream is a really good broodmare sire, she's out of a winning mare who is a half-sister to a champion. What's not to like about her really?”

Al Sagar has recently announced the expansion of his Blue Diamond Stud operation with the purchase of Stonereath Farm in Kentucky in addition to his two existing farms just outside Newmarket. 

All told, the six members of Adlerflug's final crop to have graced the ring in Baden-Baden returned an average of €101,667. As the former syndicate manager for the stallion, Lars-Wilhelm Baumgarten has more reason to love Adlerflug than most, and his Liberty Racing syndicate signed for Gestut Brummerhof's colt out of the listed winner Anna Magnolia (Fr) (Makfi {GB}) at €100,000. 

Without some of the higher-priced lots seen at this auction in recent years, figures dipped slightly from a strong renewal in 2022. The clearance rate was down three points at 75% for 163 horses sold from 218 offered. The average price of €49,518 represented a drop of 7%, while the median was down 9% to €49,000 and the turnover of €8,071,500 was down by 4.5%.

Liberty Runs Free as Leading Buyer

Liberty Racing topped the buyers' table on the day with nine yearlings bought for €886,000, including another from the draft of Gestut Rottgen (lot 153), a son of Camelot (GB) and the G3 Hamburger Stutenpreis winner Anna Katharina (Ger) (Kallisto {Ger}) picked up for €180,000. The Liberty Racing syndicate was the brainchild of Lars-Wilhelm Baumgarten and is riding high on the success of Deutsches Derby winner Fantastic Moon (Ger) (Sea The Moon {Ger}). A win for that colt in Sunday's Grosser Preis would surely secure him Horse of the Year honours in Germany.

In Friday's TDN Baumgarten outlined the increase in interest in his syndicate, which has gone from 12 to almost 100 investors in the last three years, and he made good on his promise to of pumping his enhanced budget back into German racing with a busy day at BBAG on Friday.

He was also acting as vendor through Gestut Ohlerweiherhof, who sold lot 175, the Reliable Man (GB) half-sister to the Baumgarten-bred G1 Preis der Diana winner Muskoka (Ger) (Sea The Moon {Ger}) for €140,000 to Stall Golden Goal.

Smart Colt for First Lady of German Racing

Sarah Steinberg trained her first Group 1 winner when Stall Salzburg's Mendocino (Ger) (Adlerflug {Ger}) galloped to glory this time last year in the Grosser Preis von Baden. Since then she has become the first female trainer to land the Deutsches Derby and the winner of that race, the aforementioned Fantastic Moon, will bid to give the trainer back-to-back victories in the Grosser Preis on Sunday.

In the meantime, Steinberg has added a well-bred new recruit to her increasingly high-profile stable when Stall Salzburg when to €260,000 for the full-brother to G1 Preis von Europa winner Donjah (Ger) (Teofilo {Ire}) from the draft of Gestut Karlshof.

Stars Still Shine

Sea The Stars yearlings have topped the BBAG Sale on a number of occasions and, though he had to settle for the second-top spot this time around, the Aga Khan Studs sire was the leader overall with four yearlings sold for an average of €158,750. The quartet was headed by lot 39, a filly out of the Group 2 winner Ashiana (Ger) (Mastercraftsman {Ire}) to be trained by Bruno Grizzetti. She was sold by her breeder Gestut Auenquelle for €260,000.

Trainer Andreas Suborics was also in the market for a Sea The Stars yearling, and lot 156, the filly out of Beata (Fr) from Stauffenberg Bloodstock, was close to his heart as a half-sister to his four-time group winner Best Of Lips (Ire) (The Gurkha {Ire}).

Beata, a dual-winning daughter of Silver Frost (Ire) and the treble Group 2 winner Bright Moon (Alysheba), was bought from the Wildenstein Dispersal in 2016 for €88,000. Her daughter was sold for €220,000.

Wootton Bassett to the Fore Once More

There's no escaping Wootton Bassett (GB) at the moment and he too featured among the leading lots of the session when Gestut Brummerhof's colt from the Wertheimer family of Group 1 winners Plumania (GB) and Left Hand (GB) was the sole purchase of the day by Coolmore at €170,000.

Alex Elliott conducted the bidding on behalf of MV Magnier, and said on signing for lot 183, “He's going back to Ireland and he's a beautiful horse. The team that was here, headed by David O'Loughlin, loved him. He's out of a Galileo mare, so it's the same cross as Al Riffa. The big sires like Dubawi, Frankel, Sea The Stars, they all had a huge licence to do what they've done, but where Wootton Bassett has come from, and what he's transmitting, I've never seen anything like it. It's phenomenal. We've had a bit of luck with him with [Derby runner-up] King Of Steel, who goes to the Irish Champion next weekend.”

Elliott also signed for two yearlings by Zarak (Fr), including lot 53, from Haras d'Ombreville, for €160,000. The colt is a brother to the listed-placed four-time winner Titanium (Fr).

Elliott continued, “Ralph [Beckett] and I bought him on spec because we loved him so much, but Amo Racing have taken him. He's out of a Verglas mare, like King Of Steel. We actually bought two Zaraks, one for a small partnership, lot 19, and then Kia [Joorabchian] kindly took this one.”

He added, “I think I had 90 pedigrees to look at and there were 12 horses left on the short list so there have been plenty to bid on, and every year it's a place that's been lucky for us.”

Six Zarak yearlings were sold on the day for an average of €101,833, including lot 123 from Gestut Karlshof for €170,000, who is out of the unraced Nazarabad (Ger), an Isfahan (Ger) half-sister to Group 3 winner No Limit Credit (Ger) (Night Of Thunder {Ire}). The Faust family's Gestut Karlshof, which has Straight (Ger), who is also by Zarak, running in Sunday's Grosser Preis, was the sale's leading vendor with 12 yearlings sold for €1.18 million.

Breeze-up Vendors Step In

One of the talking points among potential buyers in Baden-Baden was the lack of breathing room between sales. The staging of a horses-in-training sale at Tattersalls on the same day has been a source of frustration for some, and that event leads straight into the next yearling auction on Tuesday, the Somerville Sale. 

That said, there was a bigger group of British and Irish travellers than ever in Germany, with some new faces including extra members of the breeze-up sector. Making his second trip to BBAG was Roderick Kavanagh, who saw his recent graduate Vandeek snare the G1 Sumbe Prix Morny two weeks ago in Deauville.

Kavanagh, who operates as Glending Stables, signed for a Shalaa (Ire) filly and a colt by the Gestut Etzean-based Amaron (GB). He said, “I came last year and bought an Areion colt who sold well at Goresbridge and he had gone to Joseph O'Brien, so that always encourages you to come back. You're able to access very good bloodlines here. We probably left it a bit late as we only came in the night before so we weren't able to see the horses until the morning of the sale, but my partner Cormac O'Flynn and I worked it hard and we found two well-bred horses who look like athletes. They may not be the most commercial but even when they were going out for wind tests today I thought to myself that the Germans have been so strict with their breed to keep it so clean and free of issues.

“The Amaron colt is from Gestut Etzean, who we bought the Areion from last year. He's quite a similar model; he's got a fair bit of furnishing to do, which hopefully will come over the winter as he matures, but he's really athletic and looks like a racehorse.”

The post Fond Farewell to a Champion as Adlerflug Filly Tops BBAG  appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

Living the Good Life in Baden-Baden

IFFEZHEIM, Germany–Baden-Baden, so good they named it twice. Okay, so the BBAG sales complex and its neighbouring grand racecourse may be in the small nearby village of Iffezheim but it is Baden-Baden that lends its name to the current stop on the European yearling sales tour, now that Donville is in the rear-view mirror.

The caravan rolls on, and it is always wise to stay on for a few days in Baden-Baden if time allows as, whether you're a pedigree purist or you simply enjoy a good day out at the races, all your needs will be catered for over the coming weekend at one of the most beautiful tracks in Europe. You can even take your dog and, if you really must, your children. 

First, though, there's the not-so-small matter of several hundred of Germany's best yearlings to get through tomorrow, along with some incomers from France, Ireland, Britain, Switzerland and even Hungary.

Had you been here two years ago you could have seen two future Classic stars. The Deutsches Derby winner Fantastic Moon (Ger) was sold by his breeders Philipp and Marion Stauffenberg for €49,000 to Lars-Wilhelm Baumgarten's Liberty Racing. On the same day Baumgarten switched roles to sell a Sea The Moon filly for €80,000. She is now named Muskoka (Ger) and is the winner of the Preis der Diana, giving Baumgarten a rare Classic double as both owner and breeder. Fantastic Moon reappears at Baden-Baden on Sunday in the Grosser Preis, which this year carries enhanced prize-money of €400,000 and also features the Preis der Diana runner-up Kassada (Ger), yet another by Sea The Moon, as well as the Derby runner-up Mr Hollywood (Ire) (Iquitos {Ger}).

Before then, Muskoka's half-sister by Reliable Man (GB) will be offered for sale as lot 175 on Friday from the draft of Timo and Nastasja Degel's Gestut Ohlerweiherhof, a growing force, both on the German sales and stallion scene, with the 2016 Deutsches Derby winner Isfahan (Ger) on its roster.

It has been quite the year for Baumgarten, who is likely to be extra busy during Friday's sale as he attempts to sign up the next intake of yearlings for what will be an enhanced Liberty Racing presence for next year.

“I am very happy with the season. If you win the Derby and the Diana it's amazing, a childhood dream,” he told TDN.

“We are making the syndicate bigger this year. We started with 12 investors in 2020 and now we have near 100 in this year, so we are creating four syndicates for next season. We've raised €2 million for the horseracing industry in Germany and I'm happy that a lot of people trust me and my team–that was on my mind as we created it.”

He continued, “The sport in Germany is not easy. We have fewer horses in training in the country this year compared to last year, and we have lost 2,000 horses over 20 years. So the industry is not in the best shape but we are doing our best to find new owners.”

One of the saddest losses to the German stallion ranks in recent years was that of Adlerflug (Ger), who died in April 2021 the year after he became champion sire in his native country. Baumgarten was closely connected to the stallion as the manager of the syndicate of breeders involved in his stud career.

This is the final year that Adlerflug will be represented by yearlings at BBAG, where he has six catalogued. He has been succeeded at stud by his Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe-winning son Torquator Tasso (Ger), who was Germany's busiest stallion in 2023, covering 85 mares in his first season at Gestut Auenquelle.

Baumgarten added, “The loss of Adlerflug was sad for me. He was so good in his last three years and he passed away too early. He has some good yearlings here and I hope that they sell well, and that he can give us perhaps a sire in his last crop. It is amazing for Germany that Torquator Tasso is in this country, and that he did not go to France or England. We need sire power.”

Baumgarten's Reliable Man filly is not the only half-sibling to one of this year's Classic winners present at BBAG as Gestut Fahrhof is consigning lot 165, a first-crop daughter of Pinatubo (Ire) out of the Group 3-winning Speightstown mare Hargeisa, whose second foal is the German 1000 Guineas victrix Habana (Ger).

There's not much breathing room in the sales calendar at present, with the Goffs Premier Sale having only just concluded and the Somerville Sale looming, hard on the heels of another horses-in-training sale at Tattersalls on Friday. However, plenty of British and Irish visitors have made their way to Germany. A noticeably larger contingent of British trainers present at BBAG includes Alice Haynes, Lemos de Souza, Kevin Philippart de Foy, Willie Butler and Tom Clover, all of whom were on the hunt early on Thursday morning, along with the regulars Ralph Beckett and Andrew Balding, plus a wide range of agents and breeze-up pinhookers.

The Faust family's Gestut Karlshof continues to enjoy a great run as both owner and breeder, and their colours will be represented in Sunday's G1 Grosser Preis von Baden by the Andreas Wohler-trained Straight (Ger) (Zarak {Fr}), winner of the G2 Union-Rennen earlier this season. The colt is another with a sibling in the sale: his half-brother by Brametot (Ire) features as lot 71 and represents Karlshof's signature family of Sacarina (GB) (Old Vic {GB}). So deep is that blue hen's imprint in the stud's bloodlines that she appears as the fourth dam of the of this colt, who has been named Seducer. Hard to think of a better name for a future stallion.

Karlshof also offers a strapping chestnut colt from the first crop of Ghaiyyath (Ire). Catalogued as lot 176, he is closely related to another recent group winner from the farm, the G3 Schwarzgold Rennen winner and German 1000 Guineas runner-up No Limit Credit (Ger) (Night Of Thunder {Ire}).

Late updates are always welcome for any consignor and lot 59 was given a boost on Wednesday when his relative Carolina Reaper (GB), trained by Charlie Johnston, became the third group winner for her young sire Too Darn Hot (GB) in the G3 Zukunfts Rennen next door to the sales complex. It's a page which doesn't require too much of a lift as the Sea The Stars (Ire) yearling colt in question, offered by Stauffenberg Bloodstock, is out of a Dubawi half-sister to Lordship Stud's St Leger winner Sixties Icon (GB), who is in turn out of the Oaks winner Love Divine (GB). The latter's Listed-winning half-sister Dark Promise (GB) is the dam of Carolina Reaper. 

While this year's draft from the Stauffenbergs features two Sea The Stars yearlings, there are none by his son Sea The Moon, whose name has loomed large in this year's German Classics. Five of those can be found in the next row along, however, in the consignment of Sea The Moon's breeder Gestut Gorlsdorf, along with a Belardo (Ire) colt out of the most appropriately named mare in the catalogue: Baden Baden (and, yes, she's by Sea The Moon, out of Berlin Berlin). Her yearling is perhaps so good that he has also been named twice. He's called Bonn Bonn. Or maybe that should be Bon Bon. 

 

 

The post Living the Good Life in Baden-Baden appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

Half-Sister To Arc Hero Torquator Tasso One Of The Stars Of BBAG’s Yearling Catalogue

A 235-strong catalogue, featuring a Guiliani (Ire) half-sister to G1 Prix de l'Arc de Tromphe hero Torquator Tasso (Ger) (Adlerflug {Ger}) and a full to Group 1 hero Tunnes (Ger) (lot 75), was revealed for the BBAG Yearling Sale on Saturday.

Set for Baden-Baden at 10 a.m. on Sept. 1, the sale boasts an additional 37 full- or half-siblings to group winners, with 51% of the yearlings catalogued out of black-type dams or dams who are siblings to black-type horses. Some of other lots of note include lot 44, a full-brother to Group 1 winner Donjah (Ger) (Teofilo {Ire}); a Gleneagles (Ire) half-brother to G1 Pretty Polly S. heroine La Petite Coco (Ire) (Ruler Of The World {Ire}) (lot 54); lot 174, a Sea The Moon (Ger) half-sister to G1 German Oaks victress Miss Yoda (Ger) (Sea The Stars {Ire}); and lot 188, a half-sister to fellow German Oaks scorer Toskana Belle (Fr) (Shamalgan {Fr}) by Dabirsim (Fr).

There are a variety of stallions represented, including Sea The Moon (Ger) (8), Soldier Hollow (GB) (9), Areion (Ger) (7), Cracksman (GB) (2), Kingman (GB) (1), Adlerflug (Ger) (6), Zarak (Fr) (6) Acclamation (GB) (1), Australia (GB) (2), Bated Breath (GB) (1), Camelot (GB) (1), Churchill (Ire) (1), Frankel (GB) (1), Gleneagles (Ire) (1), Harry Angel (Ire) (1), Holy Roman Emperor (Ire) (1), Kendargent (Fr) (2), Le Havre (Ire) (3), Mastercraftsman (Ire) (2), Mehmas (Ire) (2), Nathaniel (Ire) (2), New Bay (GB) (1), No Nay Never (1), Saxon Warrior (Jpn) (1), Sea The Stars (Ire) (5), Teofilo (Ire) (2), and Wooton Bassett (GB) (2). All of the yearlings barring one have been nominated to the 19 BBAG auctions races, as well.

For more information on the sale and the full catalogue, please visit the BBAG website.

The post Half-Sister To Arc Hero Torquator Tasso One Of The Stars Of BBAG’s Yearling Catalogue appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

Verified by MonsterInsights