Stars Come Out For BBAG 

BADEN-BADEN, Germany–There was a dramatic start to the day on the eve of Germany's premier yearling sale at BBAG when a number of agents, vets and consignors were evacuated as the Radisson Blu Badischer Hof Hotel caught fire in the early hours of Thursday morning. Solenn Gouesnard of Haras d'Ombreville was taken to hospital temporarily with smoke inhalation but everyone else escaped unscathed, though many were left without clothes and passports.

“We spent all night on the street in pyjamas,” said Matt Coleman, who had arrived with a group which had travelled straight from the Tattersalls sale in Newmarket the evening before.

Despite disruptions to the start of viewing for some of the international visitors to Iffezheim, there was an air of optimism on the sales grounds ahead of Germany's major sale. 

BBAG's managing director Klaus Eulenberger said, “The pedigrees are really good this year and the horses are nice too. The vendors have done an excellent job.”

A slightly smaller catalogue of 223 yearlings, down from 257 in 2020, has been reduced further by 27 scratchings.

“The only small disappointment is to have so many withdrawals, that's unusual for this sale,” Eulenberger continued. “We have the usual major buyers here so we're happy with that. There's a good mood in Germany and it's great with the Baden-Baden racetrack now under new management. We have had two fantastic race days here on Sunday and [Wednesday] already.”

The usual six race meetings during the Baden-Baden Festival has been reduced to four this year, with the action set to continue on Saturday and Sunday. BBAG is also now a shareholder in the racecourse which sits alongside the complex.

“It's very important for us selling horses here to have a racetrack that is working well,” Eulenberger explained. “This is the best racetrack in Germany and we are quite happy that we have a foot in the door and are partly responsible for what's going on. We've all known each other for a long time and we have a great collaboration with the guys there. We're running a racecourse with friends and the whole region is behind it.”

The action on the track on Wednesday provided a superb double update in consecutive races for lot 84, a Sea The Moon (Ger) filly offered by Gestüt Ohlerweierhof on behalf of breeder Lars-Wilhelm Baumgarten. The chestnut filly's half-siblings, 3-year-old Morning Eagle (Ger) (Adlerflug {Ger}) and 2-year-old Manolas (GB) (Rajsaman {Fr}), are both trained by Henk Grewe and shed their maiden status within an hour of each other at Baden-Baden.

Eulenberger said,  “After the first race the dam had no winner on the page but after the third race she had two! And they won in style. It was great to see.”

Their dam Morning Mist (Ger) is a Peintre Celebre half-sister to dual French Classic winner and Gestüt Ebbesloh-based sire Brametot (Ire) (Rajsaman {Fr}), while the family also boasts the most celebrated German stallion of the modern era in Monsun (Ger), who was a half-brother to grandam Morning Light (Ger) (Law Society {Ire}).

Gestüt Görlsdorf's full-sister to the German Derby winner and popular sire Sea The Moon was the most expensive yearling at last year's sale at a record-equalling  €820,000, the second year in a row that a filly by Sea The Stars (Ire) had topped trade. In 2018, the co-sale-topper at €280,000 was another daughter of Sea The Stars who would go on to be named Miss Yoda (Ger) and win last year's G1 Preis der Diana for her owner Georg Von Opel. 

For breeder Gestut Etzean, this was only the first half of a remarkable double, however, as the farm run by the Kredel family also bred the winner of the same Classic this year in Palmas (Ger). She is a daughter of their own stallion Lord Of England (Ger), who also featured as the grandsire of the runner-up Isfahani (Ger) and of the G1 Deutsches Derby winner Sisfahan (Fr), both by Isfahan (Ger). Etzean this year offers a full-sister to Miss Yoda as lot 192, their dam Monami  (Ger) being a former champion 2-year-old and by another previous resident of the stud, Sholokhov (Ire). Also in the draft is a Soldier Hollow (GB) colt out of a full-sister to Palmas (lot 202), the Classic winner having been the final foal of her dam Peace Time (Ger) (Surumu {Ger}).

Will it be another big year for Sea The Stars in Iffezheim? There is certainly every chance as another of his standout lots from six yearlings catalogued and five on the sales ground after withdrawals is the half-sister to the Derby winners Windstoss (Ger) (Shirocco {Ger}) and Weltstar (Ger) (Soldier Hollow {GB}). The elegant dark brown filly is consigned as lot 54 by her breeder Gestüt Röttgen.

“She shows herself very well and I am quite hopeful that the market will like her,” said Röttgen's manager Frank Dorff on Thursday morning. “She has a very good pedigree–it's very German but I hope that this rare opportunity to buy into a strong German family which is a bit of an outcross for some breeders will appeal.

It's not a foal share, she is being offered because we have so many fillies out of the dam and I thought she would be attractive to an international market. So we'll see.”

The filly's dam Wellenspiel (Ger), a dual-winning daughter of Sternkonig from a family which has been developed by Röttgen “almost forever”, according to Dorff,  has a full-sister to Weltstar, the second of her consecutive German Derby winners, on the ground but she is not in foal this year. 

Dorff added, “We kept her Dubawi [2-year-old] because she had an X-ray issue but she is in training now and is cantering.”

Also among the Röttgen draft are four yearlings from the first crop of one of the farm's resident stallions, Millowitsch (Ger). The 8-year-old son of Sehrezad (Ire) who was himself by Machiavellian's son Titus Livius (Ire), was a seven-time winner between six furlongs and an extended mile. Millowitsch was bred by the farm's longstanding client Dr. Alexandra Renz and has covered a small number of mares owned by his breeder and by Röttgen.

“Millowitsch was born and raised at Röttgen so I have known him all his life,” Dorff explained. “He was a very tough racehorse and won five group races, and placed or won on 20 of his 21 starts at two, three, four and five. He was very tough and honest and for Germany he is an outcross for everyone. His sireline is a bit curious but they were all tough racehorses so this is a bit of an experiment for us. We are happy with what we have seen as they are very deep horses, compact, and good movers. In Germany we need some fast horses.”

Alongside the Millowitsch yearlings is the stallion's half-brother by another Röttgen resident Protectionist (Ger), who is offered for Renz as lot 83. Their dam Muriel (Ire) (Fath) was placed in the G3 Goldene Peitsche at Baden-Baden and has produced four black-type earners among her five winners.

Another first-crop sire with a sibling in the sale is Dschingis Secret (Ger), who was bred by Helmut von Finck at Gestüt Park Wiedingen and won six group races, including the G1 Grosser Preis von Berlin. His sole representative at BBAG has been withdrawn but his full-sister, a filly by Soldier Hollow (GB), who is also owned by von Finck, and out of Divya (Ger) (Platini {Ger}) is consigned as lot 180. Along with Dschingis Secret, who is now at Haras de Saint Arnoult in France, the filly is a full-sister to group winners Destino (Ger) and Deia (Ger) as well as the group-placed Diana Storm (Ger) and Dschingis First (Ger).

The sale will commence at 10am local time.

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Ohlerweierhof Living Derby Dream With Isfahan

SANKT WENDEL, Germany–Among the current batch of second-crop stallions in Europe, only two thus far have sired a Group 1 winner. The all-conquering Mehmas (Ire), last season's record-breaking champion freshman, has two, while the other name on the list may be less familiar to those outside Germany.

Isafahan (Ger) (Lord Of England {Ger}), bred by his trainer Andreas Wohler, won the G1 Deutsches Derby of 2016, and five years later his first-crop Sisfahan (Fr), also chestnut and bearing the same green and pink colours of Darius Racing, emulated his father by taking the country's most prized race. 

For Dr Stefan Oschmann of Darius Racing, it was the best possible start to his stallion's career, for the same owner also has Isfahan's first group winner and G1 Preis der Diana runner-up Isfahani (Ger). But it was also a wonderful boost for the young husband-and-wife team of Timo Degel and Nastasja Volz-Degel at Gestut Ohlerweierhof, who not only stand the stallion but also broke in and pre-trained Sisfahan and Isfahani for Oschmann.

“For us this was the stuff of dreams,” says Timo Degel as he shows the imposing Isfahan and his stud-mate Tai Chi (Ger) (High Chaparral {Ire}) on a beautiful sunny morning at the stud just a handful of kilometres from the German border with France. Two hours to the south, Nastasja is already at BBAG Yearling Sale at Iffezheim to oversee Ohlerweierhof's draft of 14 youngsters raised both at their own farm and at another major German operation, Gestut Ebbesloh, which is one of their major clients, both for sales consignment and pre-training.

Like his wife, Degel is a former amateur rider, and he has taken to handling the stallions in their care with all the calm and patient assurance of a skilled horseman. In the surrounding 120 hectares of pasture graze mares and foals, while on a distant hillside above the rolling paddocks a small string of fledgling racehorses are put through their paces among the verdant peace and quiet afforded by the farm, which has been in Nastasja's family for generations.

“Some of the people from the village don't even realise we are here,” says Degel of the tucked-away operation. “They come out for a walk and suddenly realise there are horses everywhere.”

It hasn't always been Thoroughbreds on the Volz family farm. After the dairy cattle of Nastasja's grandfather came military and riding horses bred by her father, who later adopted a love of speedier equine genes and bought his first Thoroughbred mare in the 1980s. The farm continued as a private family concern until becoming a proper commercial entity and stallion farm under guidance of the current generation in 2017, the year that coincided with Isfahan's retirement to stud.

“Dr Oschmann bought around 30 mares for his stallion and that's when we stopped milking cows,” explains Degel, whose team broke in around 60 yearlings over the winter. “Both the stallions here are still owned by their racing owners but we look after them like they are our own.”

He continues, “My wife also has a training licence and so for our hobby we race four horses of our own, but our business is really the breeding and the pre-training. We do pre-training for a lot of big studs like Ebbesloh, Karlshof, and all the Darius Racing horses were here, so we had the Derby winner and the Oaks second here. You can see in both those horses a lot of their father–the same top line and good bone. We thought from the 19 by Isafahan we had in pre-training that they wouldn't be horses for the 2-year-old season but actually he had a good first season. From the last five or six years a lot of good horses have been in our hands so we are very proud.”

The sole yearling by Isfahan at the BBAG Sale on Friday has been withdrawn but Tai Chi is represented by four yearlings in the catalogue and had his name in lights recently when his 2-year-old son Arnis Master (Ger) won the valuable BBAG sales race at Cologne. Both Arnis Master and Sisfahan are out of mares by Kendargent (Fr), the latter having been bred by that Deauville-based stallion's owner and leading French breeder Guy Pariente.

Sisfahan's dam Kendalee (Fr) did not present the most promising page to promote her first offspring's merits on the Flat. She was herself a dual winner over hurdles in France, while her dam also won over jumps, as did her smart half-brother, the Grade 1-winning hurdler Beaumec De Houelle (Fr) (Martaline {GB}). Offered by Pariente's Haras de Colleville in Arqana's November Sale, the yearling colt who would become known as Sisfahan was bought by Oschmann's racing manager Holger Faust of HFTB Agency for €16,000.

Faust has an even closer link to Isfahani as she was bred by his parents Bruno and Michaela, the notably good breeders and owners of Gestut Karlshof. Moreover, he selected Isfahan for Darius Racing for €35,000 at the BBAG Yearling Sale of 2014, bringing his tally to two Derby winners bought for Oschmann for just €51,000.

This weekend, during the culmination of Baden-Baden's major racing festival, Isfahani and Sisfahan, both under the care of champion trainer Henk Grewe, will be given the chance to take another step forward from their Classic engagements. On Saturday, Isfahani lines up for the G2 T von Zastrow Stutenpreis, while Isfahan is entered for Sunday's G1 Grosser Preis von Baden.

“It's just perfect at the end of the day that he has had some success,” says Faust of Isfahan, who covered 92 mares in his first year but dropped to around 35 for his third crop, which are now yearlings. That number rose again in 2021 to 62.

“We bought mares for him, put them in foal and put them back in the sale to try to give people a chance, but nobody wanted Isfahan and lots of the mares were sold to go abroad. Not that many of Isfahan's first crop ended up in Germany–only about 22–but Isfahani, Sisfahan and Anoush (Ger) have ended up as really good horses.”

Looking ahead to the weekend, he added, “Sisfahan feels good and looks good and we are quite confident for Sunday, but he is taking on some very good horses. Isfahani has been quite unlucky, which sounds like a strange thing to say about a filly who won a group race in the stewards' room on debut. But when she went back to Italy for the Derby she lost a shoe at the start and was then struck into during the race but she still ran fourth.”

He continued, “In the Preis der Diana we were very happy with her second place. I think she will start favourite on Saturday and she should have a very good chance.

We go step by step. I hope Saturday and Sunday work out for us and then we may send them to England or France, but first we have to do our homework.”

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German Freshman Champion Isfahan To Stand At €4,500

Dr Stefan Oschmann, owner of Isfahan (Ger), Germany’s champion first-season sire of 2020, has announced that the son of Lord Of England (Ger) will stand for €4,500 next year.

The winner of the G1 Deutsches Derby in 2016 for Oschmann’s Darius Racing when trained by Andreas Wohler, Isfahan stands at Gestut Ohlerweiherhof. From his 10 first-crop runners he was represented by five winners, including Isfahani (Ger), who landed the G3 Premio Guido Berardelli in Rome on her debut for Henk Grewe.

Dr Oschmann remarked, “It was a very good first season for Isfahan. In addition to being champion first-season sire, he was also leading sire of 2-year-olds by domestic and international winnings of all stallions in Germany.”

He added, “Isfahan was a Derby winner and the focus of his offspring is actually on the Classic campaign for 3-year-olds, so it is very encouraging that he got off to a good start with his 2-year-olds. His sire Lord of England is a stalwart among German stallions and his grandsire Dashing Blade was a multiple champion sire in Germany. Now Isfahan has also won a championship.”

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