The English page - More success for German breeding

Last weekend´s Dublin Racing Festival at Leopardstown must be regarded as a major success. Big and enthusiastic crowds, especially when one considers the circumstances, and excellent racing with top class winners, many of whom will be expected to go on to further success in Cheltenham next month. Big winner of the weekend was Ireland´s top N.H. trainer Willie Mullins, who won six of the eight Grade One races. But he missed out on the two most important races of all, Saturday´s Irish Gold Cup and Sunday´s Irish Champion Hurdle, won by Gordon Elliott´s Conflated and Henry de Bromhead´s Honeysuckle  (Sulamani) respectively, both of whom have German elements in their pedigrees.

Admittedly in the case of Conflated (Yeats) we have to go back a bit; his second dam Saucy Gale was a daughter of the Gestüt Röttgen-bred Strong Gale (Lord Gayle). Strong Gale, closely related to Röttgen´s 1975 Arc winner Star Appeal, was like that one trained by Theo Grieper and won the 1981 Grand Prix Prince Rose at Ostend, at that time a really big race. After his racing career was over he was sold to the Cashmans´ Rathbarry Stud and stud there for his highly successful stud career. He was six times champion N.H. sire in GB/IRE and was for many years a dominant factor in N.H. breeding.

However the German element in Honeysuckle´s breeding is much closer, as her dam First Royal (Lando) was German-bred and twice ran placed over hurdles at Baden-Baden in 1997, at a time when Iffezheim staged many good quality races over jumps. She was bred by Thomas Jordan but the family also did very well for Gestüt Hof Ittlingen and before that for the Leisten family. First Royal´s own dam First Neba (Nebos) never ran, but both her dam First Smile (Surumu) and the next dam First Love (Limbo) won listed races in Germany. Honeysuckle is now arguably the most popular horse in training in Ireland; she is unbeaten in 14 starts, ten of them at Grade One level and is odds-on favourite to win the Cheltenham Champion Hurdle for the second time.

Another extremely interesting winner at Leopardstown was Vauban (Galiway), easy winner of the Grade One 4yo hurdle race and now favourite for the Triumph Hurdle at Cheltenham. One would not think this from the name, but he is actually a member of the celebrated Ravensberg “W” family. His dam Waldfest (Hurricane Run) was bred by Jürgen Winter´s Haras de la Perelle and she is closely related to Masked Marvel, now doing well as a N.H. sire, and to German Derby winner Waldpark as well of course to Arc winner Waldgeist.

Vauban, owned by Susannah Ricci, was one of Willie Mullins´ six Grade One winners at the meeting. Sunday looked like being a black day for bookies the first five favourites all won, including Mullins´ hotpots and Honeysuckle. A ton of money was running on Mullins´ 5/4 favourite Pink in the Park in the final bumper, but after leading in the straight she was run out of it in the final furlong and in the end was beaten just half a length in fifth place. This was the closest finish of the meeting and the Crawford brothers´ Lily du Berlais was finally declared the winner by a nose. She is a 6yo daughter of Shirocco (Monsun), and the 2004 German Derby winner has long been established as a leading N.H., indeed dual purpose sire, as he is not only sire of another winner of the German Derby in Windstoss, now himself embarking on a stallion career at Röttgen, but also of such jumping greats as Champion Hurdle winner Annie Power. Shirocco stands at Glenview Stud, part of the Rathbarry group, so the Cashman family, who hit the jackpot with a German-bred N.H. stallion Strong Gale some 30+ years ago, have now done it again.

Of course it would be wrong to assume that these German sires only get top horses over jumps; probably the most successful of all German sires standing abroad was Gestüt Fährhof´s globetrotter Silvano (Lomitas). He was one of the winningmost German racehorses of all time, winning the Arlington Million in 2001 as well as Group One races in Hong Kong and Singapore. Sadly he died last year at the age of 25 but his progeny are still winning top races. He spent almost all his stud career at Maine Chance Farm in South Africa (in the same ownership as Fährhof) and was champion sire five times in South Africa. On a brief visit to Germany he sired Lucky Speed, winner of the 2013 German Derby and now a promising N.H. sire at Sunnyhill Stud in Co. Kildare. Last week Silvano had the first two in the Group Two Gauteng Guineas at Turffontein.

Another country where German-breds are doing really well is Japan, and this is due to the fact that Japanese breeders, and in particular the Yoshida family, have bought many of the best German fillies in recent years, including several German classic winners. We saw this recently at Chukyo, where there two winners out of German classic winning mares. However the British and Irish N.H. scene remains currently the most fertile soil for runners by German-bred sires. This week also we have seen winners by Night Wish, Maxios, Getaway, Kamsin, Malinas, and Vadamos as well as several by Shirocco, who is enjoying his best ever season; while there were winners this week at the French jumps meeting at Pau by Lauro, Anzillero and Masked Marvel. Obviously this is going to continue for some time yet, and as there is next to nothing happening in German racing at present, we shall continue to report on these foreign victories.

David Conolly-Smith