EBN: Moon has Görlsdorf seaing stars

Gestüt Görlsdorf, situated in the far north-eastern corner of Germany about 50 miles north of Berlin, is enjoying its best-ever season and has good prospects of ending the year as both leading breeder and leading owner in Germany. This is due in great measure to their outstanding three-year-old Sea The Moon, the impressive winner of the Gr.1 Deutsches Derby in early July and, at the time of writing, not only unbeaten in four starts but also ante-post favourite for the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe. He is due to run in the Gr.1 Grosser Preis von Baden next Sunday, Germany’s most prestigious weight-for-age race and, if he wins there, will go to Paris as a red hot favourite.

Görlsdorf’s sudden arrival in the big time this year suggests that the stud is a relatively recent foundation, but this is far from the case. It is in fact the fourth-oldest thoroughbred stud still in existence in Germany and was founded in 1883 by Count Wilhelm von Redern. In 1895 the Görlsdorf-bred Impuls, by their resident stallion Fulmen, imported from England, also won the Deutsches Derby, so success in that classic is nothing new.

The von Redern family continued to own and manage the stud up until the second world war, at the end of which it was in a state of devastation, like the rest of the country. After the war the whole area found itself behind the Iron Curtain, but thoroughbred breeding was kept going at the stud, which was by now nationalized and known as “VEB” (i.e. people’s?? stud) Gestüt Görlsdorf and, during the whole of the communist era, they continued to send out winners, including no fewer than 47 East German Classics, seven of them in the GDR Derby. After the reunification of Germany, the question arose of what to do with Görlsdorf and its large collection of mainly unfashionable mares. Finally Dr Hinrich Bischoff, a Berlin lawyer who ran the successful charter airline Germania Air, leased the property and reduced the number of mares from 80 to 37. The stud was now the property of the Treuhand, the government agency responsible for disposing of the state property of the GDR, but they could not find a buyer. Finally Dr Bischoff himself bought the property of 124 hectares (about 300 acres) and all the bloodstock for DM6 million in 1995, at the time claiming that he was doing this “for philanthropic reasons.”

Dr Bischoff continued to run his airline, and his daughter Heike, a dentist in Berlin, and her husband, journalist Niko Lafrentz, took over the running of the stud. New stallions were acquired, but proved mainly to be duds, and breeding continued with mares from the old GDR families. Dr Hinrich died in 2005 and his daughter now owns the stud. “She’s the boss,” says her husband, “and the successes of the past few years are down to her and her taking control of everything.” It was soon realised that the broodmare herd had to be upgraded, and that the old stallions had to go. A new stallion was acquired in 2007, leased from Gestüt Röttgen: Sternkönig, a Gr.1 winner and third in the 1993 Deutsches Derby (generally regarded as the best postwar race in Germany) to Lando and Monsun. Sternkönig, from the same family as the Arc winner Star Appeal and top National Hunt sire Strong Gale, was upstaged by this pair, both as a racehorse and as a sire, but he was still a class act and a major factor in Görlsdorf’s successful run. Unfortunately he had to be put down in 2010 after a paddock accident: “he was my favourite,” says Heike Bischoff, “and it was a terrible shock to us all.”

At the same time she and her husband were scouring the market for mares with the right pedigrees. Niko Lafrentz recalls how they travelled to Newmarket for the December Mares Sale in 2010. “There were several names on our list,” he says, “but Sanwa was the one we wanted. She was by Monsun and a full-sister to three Classic winners in Germany. We were prepared to go to 200,000gns, and saw off the other German breeders who were interested, but the vendor was bidding against us and we dropped out at 205,000gns. Afterwards we met at the bar under the staircase and he asked us, “what price above 200,000 would we be prepared to pay?” “Wrong question,” I replied; “for how much under 200,000 are you prepared to sell?” We came to no agreement, but he phoned us the next day – we were in a taxi – and the deal was struck for 175,000gns.” Sanwa, who was bred by Gestüt Karlshof and sold to Gestüt Höny-Hof, never ran and had changed hands a couple of times, but she was from one of Germany’s most successful families and in foal to Sea The Stars.

Sanwa foaled a colt by the Gilltown stallion on 27th January 2011. He was named Sea The Moon and was sent into training with Markus Klug at Röttgen in Cologne. First however he was sent back to Newmarket to be offered for sale as a yearling: “we wanted 240,000gns,” remembered Niko Lafrentz, “and we would have recouped all the costs of the mare, but nobody was prepared to go that high, so we bought him back for 230,000 and took him home.” It was soon clear to everyone that he was very talented, and when he made his debut in a Cologne maiden over a mile on 22nd September last year, he started as a strong favourite, despite the presence of other highly-rated juveniles from top stables. No-one who saw that race will easily forget it, as Sea The Moon made almost all the running to win in a virtual canter. This publication reported that he was “most impressive ... could well make an impact at a much higher level ... an exciting prospect.”

A very accurate prediction, as Sea The Moon is stillunbeaten and his spectacular victory in the Deutsches Derby showed him to be an exceptional performer. Although there have been rumours about his wellbeing recently, as there often are about hot favourites in big races, he has now been confirmed as a definite runner in the Grosser Preis von Baden with Christophe Soumillon again in the saddle. He is, of course, by no means the only Görlsdorf-bred to have starred in recent months. The four-year-old filly Hey Little Görl (Sternkönig) won last year’s Gr.3 Deutsches St Leger, the mare Berlin Berlin recently finished runner-up in the Gr.1 Grosser Preis von Berlin, the three-year-old fillies Meerjungfrau and Wunder both started off by winning their first three races, including at Group level; the former, now owned by trainer Andreas Wöhler, is now in the USA, while Wunder, fifth in the Gr.1 Preis der Diana this year after being badly hampered, is on course for the Gr.1 Prix de l’Opera.

Görlsdorf now stands no stallion, but they have shares in Adlerflug, the sire of Wunder who stands at Gestüt Harzburg, and Maxios, a first season stallion at Fahrhof and one of the best sons of Monsun, and also own breeding rights in Gestüt Etzean’s Lord Of England, who covered Sanwa this year. Lord Of England may seem an odd choice, but only a month ago he was the sire of the winner of this year’s Preis der Diana. A glimpse at the list of their mares show that most of them – some still going back to the old East German families, who have enjoyed something of a renaissance – have classy pedigrees and have been covered by top international stallions. The policy is to retain the fillies and sell the colts at the BBAG yearling sale, to be held next Tuesday. The one exception to this was the filly Sea The Sun, a full-sister to Sea The Moon, who was sold at Newmarket last December as a foal for 320,000gns to Sunderland Holdings, the owner of Sea The Stars.

Heike Bischoffs breeding philosophy is to have her mares covered, with rare exceptions, only every second year. “As we now have no stallion of our own, we have to send them away – sometimes a long distance –and I think that it can be very stressful for the mare and her foal. They sometimes come back quite distressed and need time to recover.” Whatever the truth behind this theory, the results certainly speak for themselves, as Görlsdorf has never had such a run of success as in the last couple of years.

As a result, only 15 live foals were reported in 2013, with Sea The Sun sold [see above] and the other seven fillies retained, while seven colts will be sold at the BBAG sale this week. Among them is a half-brother to the above-mentioned Hey Little Görl by Adlerflug (Lot 58), a Rock Of Gibraltar colt from one of the best of the old East German families (Lot 148), a Soldier Hollow colt closely related to the Gr.1 winners Integral, Echelon and Entrepreneur (Lot 132), and a half-brother by German Champion sire Aerion to Wunder [see above] (Lot 209). All seven have pages full of black-type. It has been an excellent year so far for Görlsdorf, and all the signs suggest that it can get even better.