Global Success For German Bloodlines

One of the ironies of the modern racing world is that the ongoing slump which German racing has been enduring in the current century has been accompanied by a boom for German bloodstock. The extent to which the sport's financial woes have created problems for German racing is shown by a glance at the jockeys' premiership tables. When Peter Schiergen topped the jockeys' table in Germany in 1995, his total of 271 winners broke the previous European seasonal record of 269, set in Great Britain by Sir Gordon Richards in 1947. A mere 20 years later, a total of 86 winners was enough to secure the premiership.

The same period, however, has seen a massive expansion of the international success and popularity of the German Thoroughbred. If one horse can be given the lion's share of the credit for this boom, it is the remarkable Monsun (Ger) (Konigsstuhl {Ger}).

A high-class 2400 metre performer, but not the best German horse of his generation in an era in which the best German horses rarely figured among Europe's elite, Monsun retired to Gestut Schlenderhahn as a 6-year-old in 1996. He had proved himself a solid performer, generally competitive in Germany's top 2400 metre races. He had won eight group races, and had finished second both in the G1 German Derby and in the country's biggest weight-for-age race, the G1 Grosser Preis von Baden. However, his only two trips abroad had seen him finishing sixth in the G1 Coronation Cup in England and second in the G2 Prix du Conseil du Paris in France. While his form was quantifiable, it was impossible to make a meaningful evaluation of his pedigree because it was completely unlike that of any notable stallion anywhere in the world. A polite way to describe his lineage might have been that he offered breeders “a complete outcross”–which could be seen as a euphemism for 'composed only of elements which have not been successful in recent years, and flying completely in the face of fashion'–but, for whatever reason, Monsun proved himself to be one of the most influential stallions the world has ever seen. Almost single-handedly, he turned German breeding on its head.

Monsun was instantly successful, his first crop supplying the quinella in the 2000 German Derby, courtesy of his sons Samum (Ger) and Subiaco (Ger). The former came from one of the several mares who enjoyed notable success from repeat visits to Monsun: subsequent coverings by Monsun enabled Sacarina (GB) (Old Vic {GB}) to produce 2002 German Oaks winner Salve Regina (Ger) and 2006 German Derby winner Schiaparelli (Ger) as well as Sanwa (Ger), dam of wide-margin 2014 German Derby winner Sea The Moon (Ger) (Sea The Stars {Ire}). Monsun's first-season stud fee in 1996 was 10,000 DM (which equates to roughly €5,000). By 2008 it was €150,000, and in the four subsequent seasons prior to his death aged 22 in September 2012, his fee was “private”, which presumably means significantly more than €150,000.

Monsun achieved a lifetime stakes-winners-to-foals ratio in excess of 15%, a figure which is almost inconceivable in the modern era. He was helped by generally covering small books: for instance, one crop had a 33% ratio, with 13 of his 39 foals born in 2003 scoring at stakes level. He was Germany's champion sire four times (in 2000, '02, '04 and '06), but that fact totally underplays his dominance: from early in the current century, the best of his horses did most their racing abroad, thus doing little to help their father in the domestic sires' table.

Shirocco (Ger) (Monsun {Ger}) was the first horse to make it crystal-clear to an international audience that Monsun was among the true elite. Having won the German Derby and the G1 Gran Premio di Jockey Club in Italy in 2004 under Andreas Schutz's care, he was sent to France to join Andre Fabre's stable, from which he landed the GI Breeders' Cup Turf in 2005 and the G1 Coronation Cup in 2006.

Anna Monda (Ger) (Monsun {Ger}) followed up her 2005 German 1,000 Guineas victory by taking the G1 Premio Vittorio di Capua in Italy, while Gentlewave (Ire) (Monsun {Ger}) won the following year's G1 Italian Derby. Manduro (Ger) then proved himself to be Monsun's next superstar. Andre Fabre saddled him to land a succession of top-class victories in 2007 at distances from 1600 metres to 2400 metres, and thus show himself to be clearly the best horse in Europe. The same year saw Le Miracle (Ger) (Monsun {Ger}) take the G1 Prix de Cadran in France and Royal Highness (Ger) (Monsun {Ger}) land the Beverly D. S. in the U.S.

Since then, Group 1 winners around the world for Monsun have included Novellist (Ire), Stacelita (Fr), Estimate (Ire), Silasol (Ire), Maxios (GB) and the Melbourne Cup heroes Fiorente (Ire) and Protectionist (Ger). Their success has put the spotlight on German horses (and it is worth bearing in mind that all those Monsun winners were German-conceived sons and daughters of a horse who was as German as Wagner, even if many of the more recent ones were foaled elsewhere) as never before, and success has been breeding success.

It is fair to assume that any stud in the world would have given its eye-teeth to recruit Monsun once he had proved his merit, but the great horse never left Schlenderhahn. Darley took the next best option by recruiting two excellent German-raced stallions, Tiger Hill (Ire) (Danehill) and Lomitas (GB) (Niniski), to Dalham Hall after they had started out promisingly at German studs. German breeders continued to use them, and one of the many good results was Lomitas's Gestut Brummerhof-bred daughter Danedream (Ger), who excelled from Peter Schiergen's stable, winning not only two editions of the Grosser Preis von Baden but also the 2011 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe and the 2012 King George VI And Queen Elizabeth S. Her victory in the latter race was the first of two consecutive German triumphs in Britain's premier weight-for-age contest, because the Andreas Wohler-trained Novellist won it the next year.

German horses are now highly sought after around the world, with their reputation for toughness complementing their aura of high-class stamina. The successive Melbourne Cup victories of Monsun's sons Fiorente and Protectionist have consolidated the appeal which German stock holds for Australian horsemen. The Freedman brothers have been among these horses' strongest antipodean advocates, their German imports having included Lucas Cranach (Ger) (Mamool {Ire}) and Mawingo (Ger) Tertullian). The former was a Group 2 winner in Germany in June 2011 before scoring at the same level in Melbourne eight months later; while the latter, a Group 3 winner in Germany in 2011, landed the G1 Doomben Cup in Queensland the following year.

The Freedman stable has now landed a second Doomben Cup courtesy of the success on Saturday of (Our) Ivanhowe (Ger) (Soldier Hollow {GB}), who now ranks as a Group 1 weight-for-age victor in both hemispheres, having previously beaten Sea The Moon in the Grosser Preis von Baden two years ago. This triumph was the second international Group 1 victory for a German horse this month: seven days previously the Gestut Fahrhof-bred Wake Forest (Ger) (Sir Percy {GB}) had taken the Man O'War S. at Belmont Park in New York. German racing might have its problems domestically, but the current sky-high international reputation of the German Thoroughbred seems likely to remain intact for years to come.