Godolphin strike for blue-blooded Camelot colt at record €850,000
On a sweltering late summer afternoon the record price for a German auction melted as quickly as an Erdbeereis left out in the Baden-Baden sun as members of racing’s global elite went toe to toe for a Camelot (Montjeu) colt who has Classic-winning genes and a stallion’s pedigree.
The figures might not have been quite at the level of the famous Kentucky sales ring battles of yore between Coolmore and Sheikh Mohammed but their representatives at Baden-Baden gave more than a passable impression of their bosses as bloodstock’s behemoths slugged it out in the ring.
The Coolmore team, captained by David O’Loughlin and Joe Hernon, were up against Anthony Stroud and David Loder in the royal blue corner, while Joseph O’Brien, who was standing with Philip Baron von Ullman and the team around this year’s King George hero Goliath, attempted to make a bold bid for youth.
However, their bank balance was no match for that powering the Coolmore and Godolphin bids, and in a replay of countless auctions the world over for the past 45 years, it was the twin titans of the global sport who transformed a small patch of Bad-Wurttemberg into the centre of the bloodstock universe for a few minutes.
When the bid board hit €820,000 it tied the record for the auction but the knockout blow was yet to be landed. Still the heavy hits came, with Stroud pushing the board operator into using figures they had never inputted before at €830,000.
A counterpunch pushed it to €840,000 but unbeknownst to those watching in fevered silence, they were on the ropes and Stroud’s quick jab at €850,000 dealt the final blow, securing Gestut Brummerhof’s homebred son of Preis der Diana (Gr 1, 2200m) winner Diamanta (Maxios) for Godolphin at an auction and country record of €850,000 (approx. AU$1,389,800).
It is also the highest price for a Camelot yearling for three years, since Luxembourg’s full-brother Hiawatha made €1.2 million at Goffs, and it equals the second best price in Europe for a yearling by the sire, which was also paid by Godolphin. That was at Arqana two years ago for the colt out of a Frankel (Galileo) half-sister to Lope De Vega (Shamardal).
After signing for the record-breaker, Stroud was effusive in his praise for the striking dark bay, almost black, yearling.
“This colt is absolutely beautiful, by a sire of Classic winners and out of a Group 1 winner. He will be trained by Charlie [Appleby],” he confirmed.
“When you see Coolmore, Joseph O’Brien and Alex Elliott all bidding on a horse then you know you will have to stretch very hard to get the horse that you want but horses like this colt are rarely found on the market. Physically he has all the attributes and then he has a very good pedigree, comes from a very good farm and is out of a very good mare so he has everything we are looking for.”
That pedigree is also that of a young mare who has already proven her worth as a broodmare with her first foal. Three year-old Diya, by Dubawi (Dubai Millennium), won at Listed level for owner-breeder Gestut Brummerhof, on just her second start, although disappointed behind Erle (Reliable Man) in her attempt to emulate her dam and win the Diana itself.
Still only eight, she is a half-sister to the Listed winner Diamantis (Golden Horn) and to stakes-placed colt Diamant (Zamindar). They are out of the Group 3 runner-up Diamantgottin (Fantastic Light).
It is the third time Julia and Gregor Baum’s Gestut Brummerhof have held the distinction of breeding, consigning and selling the most expensive yearling ever to come under the hammer in Germany.
Once he had recovered his equilibrium, Gregor Baum remarked: “We were quietly confident that he would get a good price today. He is a gorgeous horse and all the right people were interested in him so we were very hopeful but you cannot know for sure until they sell. We didn’t think about the record which we had before.”
Godolphin added another grandson of Maxios (Monsun) to their string for 2025 when purchasing Gestut Fahrhof’s Teofilo (Galileo) colt out of the Listed-placed Conscious for €150,000 (approx. AU$245,300) to round their spending up to a cool €1 million (approx. AU$1,635,000).
Conscious is a half-sister to Group 3 Steel Princess (Danehill), the dam of Canadian Grade 1 winner Sarah Lynx (Montjeu).
Bittersweet fruit for von Finck
Friday was a bittersweet day for Helmut von Finck, who earlier this year lost his horse of a lifetime, Soldier Hollow (In The Wings), and confirmed to the media at the sales that his homebred Deutsches Derby (Gr 1, 2400m) winner Sammarco (Camelot), who shares his sire with the record-breaking sales-topper, had been reluctantly sold to Australia, where he will race on for a season before retiring to stud.
His owner-breeder had hoped to stand the 2022 Derby and Grosser Dallmayr-Preis winner in Germany, but with no bids coming in for the multiple Group winner and competition for the best German mares fiercely contested among the studs where high-profile recent recruits including Torquator Tasso (Adlerflug) and Japan (Galileo) reside, Von Finck felt there was no other option for Sammarco, particularly as he attempts to build the stud career of Destino, the Soldier Hollow brother to Dschingis Secret.
Soldier Hollow’s legacy is of incredible importance to von Finck so it gladdened his heart somewhat to see Alex Elliott go to €320,000 (approx. AU$523,200) for his homebred Soldier Hollow brother to the 2018 German champion two-year-old filly Whispering Angel. The Group 3 winner has produced this year’s Bavarian Classic (Gr 3, 2000m) winner Wilko (Mastercraftsman) as her first foal, and gives every indication of following in her dam as a broodmare of note.
That was one of the factors which drew a delighted Elliott to the colt, as he explained after signing the docket.
“He was the absolute standout for me physically in the sale and he is out of a mare who doesn’t miss to Soldier Hollow,” he said. “She’s bred a champion two-year-old by him [Whispering Angel] and I am so grateful that my client went with me and stretched to get him.”
In addition to Whispering Angel, Wamika (Shirocco) the dam of dual Listed winner and Group 2 Italian Derby (Gr 2, 2200m) second Winning Spirit (Soldier Hollow) and Listed scorer Wangari (Soldier Hollow).
Elliott purchased the horse on behalf of a new client to go into training with Ralph Beckett and the agent added: “He is the first horse I have bid on today so I am over the moon to be able to get him. It’s not often you outbid Anthony Stroud for one, he’s an exceptional judge of a horse.”
The agent also struck for a Too Darn Hot (Dubawi) colt offered by Gestut Fahrhof at €110,000 (approx. AU$179,800). Out of the Listed winner Guajara (Montjeu), he is a half-brother to last year’s German champion two-year-old colt Geography (Holy Roman Emperor) and to stakes-placed Groundbreaker (Oasis Dream).
Von Finck also sold a homebred Soldier Hollow filly, a sister to this season’s Group 3-placed Egina from the family of the Preis Der Diana winner Erle and last year’s auction topper Eleganz, for €160,000 (approx. AU$261,600) to Healthy Wood.
Red letter day for Etzean
The auction was an important one in more ways than one for Gestut Etzean, where the dual Group 1 winner Japan stands. Galileo’s (Sadler’s Wells) son is an important recruit for the German bloodstock industry so there was pressure on his first crop of yearlings to make an impression in the ring.
While the success of Japan’s stallion career is of the utmost importance, the other business of the farm must go on unhindered and with hopes pinned on a Lope De Vega filly and Japan colt who because of withdrawals ended up as successive lots, Etzean’s manager Ralf Kredel barely had time to draw breath as first the filly made €190,000 (approx. AU$310,700) to Ballylinch Stud and then the colt sold for €140,000 (approx. AU$228,900) to Blandford Bloodstock.
When he did eventually get time to breathe he pronounced himself more than happy with how the key sales had transpired.
“I can relax a little now as they were the big two for us,” he remarked. “I am very pleased with the price the Lope De Vega filly got, as I thought she might be a little bit small but I really liked her a lot. She has an excellent German pedigree and she will get every chance to upgrade it further as she is going to a very good home in Ballylinch.”
She is the second foal out of Lips Eagle, a daughter of Gleneagles (Galileo) and twice placed at Listed level, who is herself a half-sister to Group 1 winner Lucky Lion (High Chaparral).
Lizzy Sainty, the French representative for Ballylinch Stud, was on hand to buy the filly and said: “She is a really lovely model of a Lope De Vega filly who is an excellent sire and developing into one as a broodmare sire. She walked really well and we liked her a lot, she comes from top class breeders and has a lovely pedigree. John [O’Connor] will decide where she goes into training later.”
She was followed into the ring by Mountbatten, a half-brother to the 2020 Preis der Diana winner Miss Yoda (Sea The Stars), the daughter of Group winner and Group 1-placed Monami (Sholokhov), a half-sister to Oaks d’Italia (Gr 1, 2200m) winner Meridiana (Lomitas) and dam of four stakes performers.
It was a nerve-racking five minutes for the jovial Kredel, and the €140,000 price tag proved to be the first of three six-figure sales for Japan. While later in the day, Miss Yoda’s first foal, a colt by Wootton Bassett (Iffraaj), failed to make his reserve and was led out unsold at €125,000 (approx. AU$204,400) by the Westerberg Consignment.
However, Miss Yoda’s half-brother was the toast of Etzean.
Kredel remarked of the sale: “I am very pleased with the result for this Japan colt, obviously he is the outstanding colt from his first crop in the sale so I am relieved he did so well and he has been bought by a very good judge and is going to England, which is great and is all you can ask for.”
Japan has 71 reported yearlings in his first crop, which is approximately nine per cent of the German foal crop, an enormous proportion for one stallion, and it provides some context of the pressure on the team around him to succeed.
With so many yearlings and roughly 60 foals on the ground, breeders are supporting him strongly so the first hurdle has been cleared. The second one – sales ring success – may prove slightly trickier, as Kredel emphasised the downturn in the global market which was seen at preceding yearling auctions and is to be expected for the remainder of the sales season.
“Obviously the market is tough but it is going to be like that across Europe this year,” he said. “I am very pleased with the Japan yearlings at home and the ones at the sales.”
However, with three six-figure sales and an average of €51,215 (approx. AU$83,700) which is 4.7 times his initial €11,000 (approx. AU$18,000) covering fee, it is an encouraging start to the project, although only 14 of the 24 yearlings offered on Friday were sold.
“Japan is an international horse and the idea was to get an international horse to stand in Germany who would have appeal to breeders and buyers outside the country,” said Kredel. “I don’t think a horse of such high calibre as Japan had retired directly to stud in Germany for a long time, so he was the perfect horse for us.
“The plan is working so far.”
Statistics
Despite the record-breaking top lot there was no getting away from the reality that the industry is going through a challenging period with the market tougher at all levels than it has been for the last number of years.
The downward trend has been noticeable across all sales and Friday’s results continued that decline which began at the 2023 sale.
Godolphin’s €1,000,000 outlay represented 13.4 per cent of the sale’s turnover of €7,428,500 (approx. AU$12,146,000). Even that spend couldn’t prevent the sale from posting a decline of eight percentage points from last year’s figure.
That in itself was down by five points on the year before which was the zenith of the sale’s growth.
This year’s average price of €48,552 (approx. AU$79,300) was a dip of two points on last year while the median, despite dropping by 0.27 per cent year-on-year, was actually higher than the average at €48,745 (approx. AU$79,700). Both those figures showed greater drops last year with hindsight suggesting that the records posted by the 2021 sale were the peak of this current cycle.
A total of 153 of the 210 yearlings presented were sold which produced a clearance rate of 73 per cent, which again was lower than last year’s sale, and is the third year in succession that figure has fallen.