W is for Arc winner

WALDGEIST’S VICTORY in the 2019 Qatar Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe was significant in many ways. The chestnut son of Galileo gave his trainer André Fabre a record eighth win in France’s most celebrated race.

It gave his sire a second Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winner following Found allowing him to emulate his sire Sadler’s Wells, who produced the Arc winners Carnegie and Montjeu.

It was also a second Arc for Waldgeist’s co-breeder Dietrich von Boetticher’s Gestüt Ammerland, also the breeder of Hurricane Run.

In 2020, Waldgeist starts his stud career based at Ballylinch Stud in Ireland alongside Lope De Vega who raced in the same Ammerland colours.

Waldgeist’s Arc win and his impressive career were also a crowning achievement for two other studs.

For Newsells Park Stud, the British farm where Waldgeist was raised and where his dam Waldlerche and grand-dam Waldmark have always been based, it was a new pinnacle which fulfilled the ambitions Klaus Jacobs held when he bought the farm at the beginning of the 21st century.

Gestüt Ravenberg is a small stud in the north-west of Germany at Gutersloh, which is found between Munster and Hanover. Ravensberg is small by any standards with only three active mares and yet the current owner Johann Delius, and his father before him, have succeeded in nurturing a female family which has become one of the most potent in Europe.

The six-year-old mare Waldrun was purchased for the stud in 1949 and this winning daughter of Alchemist founded the dynasty which made the stud famous in Germany and has led, nine generations later, to Waldgeist and several other international Group 1 winners of recent years.

Klaus Jacobs, the Swiss-based German born industrialist, purchased Newsells Park in 2000. In his mid-60s the chocolate, coffee and temporary employment tycoon’s plan was to emulate his father Walther Jacobs, who had founded Gestüt Fährhof in Germany and made it the country’s leading stud farm.

“One of the first things Mr Jacobs did was to buy a few filly foals,” says Gary Coffey, Newsells Park Stud’s racing manager. “When I first visited the stud the following summer for my job interview Robert Acton, who was then the general manager, showed me a group of yearling fillies in a paddock and asked me what I thought of them. I said I liked the chestnut although she looked a little fat – the chestnut filly was Waldmark.”

Waldmark had been boguht privately from Ravensberg and was the second foal of the top race-mare Wurftaube, who had marked a revival of Ravensberg’s fortunes with a six-win sequence as a three-year-old which saw the daughter of Acatenango named Germany’s champion three-year-old filly in 1996.

Wurftaube broke her maiden on her second start over 1m2f in May and then went on to win five more, including Group races in Hamburg and Baden-Baden and ending her three-year-old season by winning the Group 2 German St Leger by 11l.

She returned at four to win another Group 2 and finish second to the Clive Brittain-trained Luso in the Group 1 WGZ Bank Deutschlandpreis, but was not quite as good as she had been at three.

Waldmark, who comes from the third crop of Mark Of Esteem, was sent into training with Sir Michael Stoute.

“She was a good filly,” Coffey says. “She won her only start at two and then we ran her in the Oaks at Epsom, but she didn’t stay. Waldmark had a lot of speed and she should have won the Falmouth Stakes in Newmarket, which was a Group 2 in those days, but got a poor ride and finished second.”

As she was the owner’s favourite mare it was not surprising that she went twice to visit Sadler’s Wells in her first three seasons producing two ordinary colts and in between a filly by Peintre Celebre.

“The first Sadler’s Wells colt was a yearling when I arrived at Newsells,” says general manager Julian Dollar. “He was big and slow and looked like a dinosaur!

“The Peintre Celebre filly was on the small side, but she was athletic and we sold her well in Deauville; the boss was talking about buying her back, which I wasn’t sure was the best policy, but she went for €210,000.” Waldmark’s next two foals were a colt by Montjeu (Masked Marvel) and a filly by Monsun (Waldlerche), both sold at Deauville.

“We had two Montjeu colts in our draft in Deauville in 2009,” adds Dollar. “I remember the Coolmore team asking us to walk the pair around the yard together. In the end Coolmore didn’t bid on Masked Marvel and, once he had reached his reserve, the only real interest came from Jeremy Brummit, who bought him for Bjorn Nielsen.”

Klaus Jacobs died shortly afterwards, before the Montjeu colt reached the racecourse and when Waldmark was only just in-foal to Germany’s top stallion Monsun. “Masked Marvel was a top racehorse,” Dollar remembers. “His St Leger win was a big moment for the stud – it was not our first Group 1 winner, but it was the first Classic. “The following year I used to go regularly to John Gosden’s to watch Nathaniel, our new purchase, work and every time he was beaten easily by Masked Marvel.

“For some reason Masked Marvel didn’t reproduce his best on the racecourse at four, but in the mornings he was still very good indeed.”

WALDLERCHE went to the Arqana sale in August 2010, a filly from Monsun’s €150,000 crop. At that point her dam had produced four foals, but only one minor Compiegne winner, Gifted Icon.

“Waldlerche was a correct yearling even if she was big and a little plain,” Dollar continues. “She was like so many of the family, just not one of the pretty little oil paintings people are looking for at yearling sales.

“I think if we offered the fillies from this family as broodmares everyone would understand and would want to buy them, but as yearlings they are not what the market values.”

In the end, von Boetticher bought half of her in partnership with Newsells to go into training with Fabre. Waldlerche was a good racehorse. She won her only start at two and a Group 3 over 1m2f on her seasonal debut at three. She had some problems afterwards and only made two more starts finishing fourth in a Group 3 and then second in a Listed on her final start.

“Andreas Jacobs, who’d taken over responsibility for Newsells from his father, was in South Africa that winter at the same time as Christy Grassick,” explains Dollar. “And they made a plan together that Waldlerche would go to Galileo and the yearling would go into training with Fabre for a partnership between Coolmore, Newsells and Ammerland.”

The foal turned out to be Waldgeist. Like his dam and grand-dam Waldgeist won on his two-year-old debut before surpassing both of them by winning the Group 1 Criterium de Saint Cloud beating Best Solution and Capri, who both went on to be multiple Group 1 winners.

At three he was probably unlucky not to win the Prix du Jockey-Club (G1) when he was just impeded for a vital stride or two before losing a short head verdict to Brametot.

Waldgeist made his next start in the Irish Derby (G1) and his connections were expecting him to improve over the longer trip and to go close to winning.

He finished only fourth behind Capri and for a few weeks his future was in the balance as various offers from abroad where considered. Next time he raced, beaten in a Group 3 at Ascot, Waldgeist was owned by a partnership between Ammerland and Newsells alone.

As a four-year-old Waldgeist recovered his verve, at five he was probably better still and his career finished with his come-frombehind victory over Enable, Sottsass and Japan in the Arc.

“Waldgeist was,” Dollar maintains, “an amazingly tough and sound horse. §It will be a long time before we breed another one as good as he was!

“The Arc win was an emotional moment for all of us. He is the grandson of Klaus Jacobs’ favourite mare, from a wonderful German family and a champion. I think if you had told Mr Jacobs back at the beginning of Newsells that within 20 years he would win the Arc with such a horse, he would have been thrilled.”

Coffey agrees saying: “Waldgeist was a horse with a great turn of foot and one who never gave up. And as far as I am aware he never took a lame step during his four seasons with Fabre – we seriously considered keeping him in training as a six-year-old.” I N THE END the partners von Boetticher and Newsells decided Waldgeist deserved to have his chance as a stallion and he was retired to Ballylinch.

After Waldlerche, Waldmark produced two non-winners by Manduro, a colt and 2011 filly named Bright Beacon, whose first foal named Al Dabaran was a Listed winner and Group-placed at two in 2019.

She was followed by Waldnah, a New Approach filly, who won a Listed race for Newsells and has been retained as a mare. Waldmark was then barren for five years before producing a 2017 Frankel filly called Waldfabel, who is in training with John Gosden, and a Sea The Stars colt in 2019 who Dollar describes as “really, really nice”.

Waldlerche, meanwhile, has produced the Group 2-winning filly Waldlied, the very useful Sea The Stars colt Waldstern, who died in a training accident before he had the chance to fulfill his potential, followed by the Kingman colt Waldkonig. Her 2018 Galileo filly has gone into training with Fabre.

Waldlerche is currently in-foal to Dubawi and will return to Galileo again in 2020.

“We were,” recalls Dollar, “very surprised there was not more interest in Waldkonig when he went to the October Book 1 Sale as a yearling. I thought he was a crackerjack, a bit on the leggy side perhaps, but with so much quality and so athletic.”

In the ring the only person interested at 600,000gns was co-breeder von Boetticher, who was happy to let Newsells retain 25 per cent share in the colt.

“Waldkonig didn’t go into Gosden’s main yard until August,” Coffey explains. “Mr Gosden has always liked him and was very keen to get a run into him at two to give him the experience.”

At Wolverhampton in December, Waldkonig beat his ten rivals very easily, winning eased down by 9l.

A maiden at Wolverhampton does not often lead on to the best races, but given the recent history of this family and the combination of speed and stamina Waldkonig displayed in the extended mile on this racing debut, everything is still possible.

To return to Ravensberg and its “W” family Waldrun, who started the dynasty and its forest or “wald” names, produced a Deutsches Derby winner Wildere in 1958, as well as the dam of another, Waidwerk, in 1965. The family returned to prominence with Wurftaube in 1996 and, if it is her direct descendants who have made a real mark, other recent winners from the family include the Group 1 winners Wake Forest and Wonderment. Wurftaube, who died in 2019 at the age of 26, produced the 2011 Deutsches Derby winner Waldpark (Dubawi) and her first four daughters have already produced international stakes horses.

Her first foal Waldbeere, a full-sister to Waldmark, is owned by Gestüt Brummerhof and although she never raced has already produced three black-type winners headed by the Shamardal gelding Waldpfad, a Group 3 winner and Group 1-placed in England in 2019.

She has an unraced three-year-old Kingman colt called Waldkonigin in training with Dominic Moser.

Wurftaube’s 2002 daughter of Halling, Waldblume, has produced a Sea The Moon filly Waldblumchen. She came out of a claimer to finish third in a Listed at ParisLongchamp in 2019.

And then Waldjagd, a Group-placed daughter of Observatory owned by the Haras de Saint Pair, has produced Urwald, the winner of a Listed race at ParisLongchamp in 2019 and who stays in training at four in 2020.

The concept of female families is one which has little sense in the commercial breeding world outside Germany, and yet the history of the Ravensberg “W” family more than suggests that thoroughbred dynasties can exist.

The descendants of one mare have kept Ravensberg competitive in the best races for 70 years now and although there are, of course, many ordinary descendants of Waldrun too, Waldlerche, born some 60 years later, has to be one of the best mares based in Europe today.