stauffenberg bloodstock
German precision
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ON’T MENTION THE B WORD. Actually don’t mention either of the B-words – Brexit and Boris. For Stauffenberg Bloodstock the unpredictable nature of the latest occupant of No 10 Downing Street is the variable whose impact on the carefully planned exercise in logistics that is its annual trip to Newmarket is creating some uncertainty. When Boris, Brexit and everything else is left to one side, Philipp Stauffenberg is anticipating the Tattersalls October Yearling Sales with quiet excitement. Five years after taking the bold decision to consign the Stauffenberg Bloodstock yearlings under his own banner, he travels to Newmarket with his largest consignment yet. “This year we are going to Tattersalls with our biggest consignment ever of 22 horses for Books 1 and 2 with nine pinhooks, some homebreds and horses for clients. It is quite a big challenge coming from Germany and we don’t know what Boris will do yet so it is a little unnerving!” he says. Stauffenberg and his wife Marion maintain a select broodmare band at their farm in Munster, a property and enterprise which was enabled by the success of Que Belle. The sale of their dual Classic winner financed the purchase of Schlossgut Ittlingen in 1999 and the couple spent their first decade at the farm building and developing their foundation families. Although she died in 1998, La Concordia has left a lasting legacy as the second dam of Prix de l’Opera winner Lady Marian, who was the first Group 1 winner bred by the couple. They retained Lady Marian’s year-younger Rainbow Quest sister La Reine Noire. The Group 1 winners Lady Marian and Lucky Speed are two of the best horses bred at Ittlingen, a farm which is as much a part of German bloodstock’s history as it is its present and future.
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Philipp Stauffenberg is bringing his biggest yearling consignment to date to sell at Tattersalls, but he is not enjoying watching recent events in Westminster. Aisling Crowe chats with the German breeder and pinhooker For 40 years the castle, which traces back to the 14th century, was home to Carl Fastenrath’s Gestüt Quenhorn where champions such as Arjon, Zank and Ziethen were born and where the Die Spaetlase Sale was held for a number of years in the 1980s and 1990s. Seven years ago, Stauffenberg began operating pinhooking syndicates for investors and it is these syndicate yearlings, as well as a mixture of homebreds and those belonging to clients, which Stauffenberg Bloodstock will consign at Park Paddocks. He explains the rationale behind the success of the Stauffenberg pinhooks. “The investors in the syndicate look for profit so the aim is to put together a portfolio of foals by stallions with different attributes,” he says. “We try to buy foals who will make up into Orby, Book 1 and Book 2 yearlings but
it has been getting increasingly difficult to get Book 1 foals. The competition for high-end foals at the sales has got furious over the last years and the selection of foals we can buy for value is smaller. This is why we have tried to widen the number and so we have three for Book 1 and six for Book 2.” Last year, the fifth consigning under their own name, a venture that was encouraged by Angus Gold, Tom Goff and Andreas Putsch, who has sold yearlings through the consignment, Stauffenberg Bloodstock was the leading consignor in Book 2 by average price. Stauffenberg attributes this to focusing on quality rather than quantity, an approach he continues to employ with the larger draft of 16 yearlings he sends this year and the half dozen Stauffenberg will present in Book 1. In that sale is Lot 185, a colt by Siyouni, who received the type of pedigree boost every vendor dreams of recently when Danceteria, his four-year-old half-brother by Redoute’s Choice, won the Group 1 Grosser DallmayerPreis Bayerisches Zuchtrennen for David Menuisier. Even without that impressive upgrade, the colt’s pedigree still has much to boast about as his dam is a half-sister to Classic winner and sire Lope De Vega. “He was a lucky pinhook!” Stauffenberg exclaims. “Danceteria was not even a black-type horse when we bought him and now he is a Group 1 winner, it is the update you always hope for! “He was quite a costly foal at €180,000, but is an exceptional walker and is a lovely individual with a great temperament. I really like the way he uses himself.” Lope De Vega himself is the sire of Lot 117, the first foal out of What Say You, a winning full-sister to 2018 St Leger third Southern France. If any of his foal purchases of 2018 were to receive the ultimate upgrade, Stauffenberg thought it would be this filly. “I had hoped that Southern France would
