Seven Days: A Photo Finish Like No Other

[Wandering Eyes]

Unbridled joy was present in bundles at Hamburg on Sunday as recent amateur-turned-apprentice Nina Baltromei urged Hochkonig to victory on the line in the 156th Deutsches Derby, denying the Karl Burke-trained Convergent (Fastnet Rock) by the merest of margins.

Hochkonig is by the Lomitas stallion Polish Vulcano, who stands at the Darboven family's Gestut Idee, which sponsors the Derby and is where the 17-year-old was bred. We'll be hearing from the stallion's breeder Albert Darboven in tomorrow's TDN, but for the breeders of Hochkonig, racing photographers Marc and Gabi Ruehl, Sunday's victory was somewhat surreal.

Marc has been photographing Derby winners at Hamburg since Walter Swinburn won aboard Luigi back in 1988. He told TDN on Monday, “It was unbelievable. But the day before I told Nina that I was just going to focus on her and Hochkonig – and it worked!”

Hochkonig was the second Classic winner of the season for trainer Yasmin Almenrader after the victory of Matilda in the G2 German 2,000 Guineas. The Soldier Hollow filly has subsequently been bought by Peter Brant of White Birch Farm and switched to the French stable of Francis Graffard. 

“Yasmin does a great job every time,” said Gabi. “We've seen it this year with Matilda and Hocking, but we have won so many races with Yasmin and she is all about the horse. We are in touch with her daily.”

The Ruehls live near Cologne, about ten minutes from Gestut Schlenderhan where, for them, the Hochkonig story began 25 years ago with the purchase of his Schlenderhan-bred granddam Habina, by 1977 Derby winner The Minstrel.

In fact, Derby winners from various nations run free in Hochkonig's pedigree. Though his grandsire Lomitas could manage only second in the Deutsches Derby back in 1991, the subsequent German Horse of the Year  is himself a grandson of the most recent winner of the British Triple Crown, Nijinsky. Hochkonig's dam is by the Derby Italiano winner Kallisto and, as mentioned, has The Minstrel as her damsire. Six generations back on the page you will find Violetta, bred by the Moller family of White Lodge Stud and herself by Sir Victor Sassoon's 1953 Derby winner Pinza. She in turn features as the granddam of Teenoso (Youth), the winner at Epsom 30 years after Pinza, and the third dam of 2006 Derby hero Sir Percy (Mark Of Esteem).

“We are just happy to have provided the next Derby winner for this line,” said Marc. “The German preference is for stamina, this is what Germany is famous for, we don't have too many horses running over 1,000 metres.”

The Ruehls usually welcome “two or three foals a year” and currently have six mares at their property.

“I had my first horse when I was nine and and later bought a Thoroughbred mare with my father, so the horses came first but I have been a professional photographer since I was 18,” said Marc.

“I was concentrating on taking the photos but it was easy because I could see Hochkonig was near the front fighting. After he crossed the line I was sure he had won but I was a little bit nervous until we had the result.”

Of the couple's decision to use Polish Vulcano for Halinara, he explained, “He is a son of Lomitas and we wanted the cross with The Minstrel because of Nijinsky, and also he is a really nice stallion. He doesn't have many runners but those who have run have done very well. It's the same with Kallisto. We used him often and we had great success with him.”

Halinara will return to Polish Vulcano next season, as will her daughter Halima (Tertullian), and this year she has a filly foal by Alter Adler. 

Modestly, there were no photos of the Ruehls with Hochkonig displayed among the reams of photos of the Derby winner on their website. We did however coax them into tracking down the attached image of Marc celebrating in fine style. 

“We are not the owner, we are only the breeder,” Marc said, and his wife added, “But we enjoyed yesterday evening with the owner and the trainer. It is so important to enjoy these wonderful moments.”

It is indeed. 

Delacroix Proves His Worth

The feature race in Britain over the weekend was the Coral-Eclipse Stakes, in which Aidan O'Brien scored another perfect ten when Delacroix followed the likes of Giant's Causeway, St Mark's Basilica and City Of Troy in handing another win to the trainer. Only just though.

In a hard scrabble of a finish, Ryan Moore rousted Delacroix home down the outside to deny favourite Ombudsman (Night Of Thunder), having been temporarily boxed in and bumped by stable-mate Camille Pissarro (Wootton Bassett), ridden by Christophe Soumillon.

'The lads have been looking for a Dubawi all their lives and he is out of a champion. He is a total outcross for all the mares,” said O'Brien of Delacroix, and we hope that Henry Longfellow, presumably happily out grazing in a Coolmore paddock after a busy covering season, took no offence. But of course, Delacroix, as suggested, is indeed a much more useful future option to the Coolmore broodmare band than the similarly good-looking Henry Longfellow as Delacroix is out of the Bernstein mare Tepin, and therefore free of Galileo blood, while the latter is out of Minding. 

Two sons of Dubawi out of two top-class racemares. It will be interesting to see which one ends up as the better sire, but that's a puzzle for the future. For now, Delacroix has bounced back from Derby disappointment to deliver a blow for the three-year-olds in the first generational clash of the season. His victory means that O'Brien's tally of Group 1 wins for the year now runs to ten and includes the Derby, Oaks, Irish Derby, Prix du Jockey Club and Poule d'Essai des Poulains. And we're only halfway through the season.

The Wootton Boys

With the Prix de Diane having fallen to Almanzor's daughter Gezora, it was time for another of Wootton Bassett's stallion sons to shine on Sunday when Wooded provided the winner of the Prix Jean Prat, Woodshauna. The latter, like his sire, is trained by Francis Graffard, and Woodshauna, from his first crop, becomes the first Group 1 winner – and stakes winner of any description – for Wooded, who stands at Al Shaqab's Haras de Bouquetot.

Bred by Patrick Lemarié of Haras de Magouet, Woodshauna's victory gave a terrific boost to the form of the G3 Prix Texanita, which he won on May 16, beating subsequent G1 Commonwealth Cup winner Time For Sandals (Sands Of Mali) by a head. For that run, he had been wearing the colours of Al Shaqab Racing, but Woodshauna landed his Group 1 success in the silks of John Stewart's Resolute Racing, having been bought at the Goffs London Sale for £625,000 and kept in training with Graffard.

It was a good day for graduates of Arqana's October Yearling Sale, as Woodshauna had originally been, as over in Warsaw, Chestnut Rocket (Intello) landed the Polish Derby for owner JK Grzegorowski.

From the same sale the following year came Cape Ashizuri, who became the second winner for his young sire St Mark's Basilica with a two-length victory at Ayr on Sunday. Bred by Barrownstown Stud, the colt is a half-brother to G1 Prix Morny winner The Wow Signal (Starspangledbanner) and, like him, is trained by John and Sean Quinn, who picked him up at Arqana for €75,000.

Wootton Bassett was himself represented by his latest stakes winner on Deauville's cracking Sunday card when Nighttime got the ball rolling in the opening Listed Prix Roland de Chambure, named in honour of the former owner of Haras d'Etreham, where Wootton Bassett famously started his stud career. This came a day after fellow juvenile Daytona took the inaugural running of the Listed Pat Smullen Irish EBF Stakes at Naas.

Nighttime represents a nice mixture of two major owner-breeders as, though she runs in the blue and white livery of the Wertheimers, who bred her, she is out of Daytime, a once-raced Juddmonte-bred daughter of those overachieving parents Frankel and Midday (Oasis Dream). Blood will out.

Palace Pier Emerging 

It is probably fair to say that Palace Pier has been the surprise chart-riser in the freshman sire ranks in recent weeks, and he now has seven winners to his credit, including the Listed-placed Sirius A. All seven of those winners have come in Britain, including a double at Sandown and Beverley last Friday, and, most tellingly, at a strike-rate of 44 per cent winners to runners. 

Palace Pier, by Kingman, was a later starter himself, but was unbeaten at two when winning a maiden and a novice contest on August 30 and September 18, before bursting onto the scene when winning the following season's G1 St James's Palace Stakes on his first start in Pattern company. 

His closest rival on strike-rate among the first-season sires is Haras de Bouquetot's Armor, who has three winners from seven runners (43 per cent), while Nando Parrado and Starman are operating at 28 and 27 per cent respectively. With 12 winners, including Group 3 winners Lady Iman and Venetian Sun, Starman remains at the head of the table overall.

Looming Threat to British Racing

The British Horseracing Authority may currently be missing a chief executive and a chair but it means business when it comes to addressing the serious threat to British racing from the proposals for a flat rate of tax across all forms of gambling.

Following a Royal Ascot week launch of the report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Racing and Bloodstock (APPG), the campaign stepped up a notch last week with a visit to Newmarket by a group of senior Conservative politicians, including Leader of the Opposition Kemi Badenoch MP, to hear the concerns of some of racing's participants. This was followed by an appearance on Luck on Sunday of APPG co-chair and Labour MP Dan Carden. 

Newmarket, Britain's largest training and breeding hub, is a Conservative stronghold and has Carden's co-chair Nick Timothy as its representative in parliament, but cross-party support to quash the idea of a racing tax rise is vital.

Speaking at last week's meeting at Tattersalls, William Haggas questioned the sway that shadow ministers could have in this issue, asking Badenoch, “Actually, what can you do about it? With all due respect you are not in power at the moment.”

Her reply appeared to offer some reassurance. She said, “We can get the message to them. That is our job.”

Indeed, from the benches of power, Lisa Nandy, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, answered a question in the House of Commons from Caroline Dinenage MP regarding the “looming and imminent crisis” facing the sport.

Nandy said, “We understand not just the joy that horseracing brings to millions of people in the UK and across the world but also the huge economic benefits and we are absolutely determined to back British horseracing to the hilt.”

Encouraging words. Let's hope her government in turn backs the minister.

 

 

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