A pinhookers’ paradise

For many years if you mentioned BBAG to members of the British and Irish bloodstock industry they’d immediately think of superior slowermaturing and stamina-packed yearlings by blue-chip sires such as Adlerflug and Soldier Hollow.

The Baden-Baden auction company is exceedingly proud of that, but its reputation has gained another dimension in recent years with many traders having found reasonably priced raw material for selling back home in Britain and Ireland.

This year’s round of breeze-ups proved to be a bonanza of BBAG bargains for vendors. At Arqana, Church Farm and Horse Park Stud sold a Cracksman filly out of a threeparts sister to the German Oaks winner Feodora for €420,000 and a well-bred Sea The Moon filly for €110,000, the pair having cost just €49,000 and €30,000.

Powerstown Stud sold a Sea The Moon brother to the Listed winner Enjoy The Moon at Arqana for €350,000 and a Soldier Hollow colt out of a half-sister to Deutsches Derby winner Lucky Speed at Tattersalls for 130,000gns, the pair having been sourced for €92,000 and €28,000.

Another consignor in clover was Brown Island Stables, which bought an Oasis Dream colt closely related to Querari for €58,000 at BadenBaden and resold him at the Tattersalls Craven Breeze-Up Sale for 310,000gns.

Flat traders will no doubt be making a beeline for the yearling sales in Germany this year, then, but so too will the NH fraternity after Chris and Claire Bonner sold an Adlerflug three-yearold gelding to Henrietta Knight for £200,000 at the Goffs UK Spring Store Sale in May.

The longer-term project cost a mere €19,000 as a yearling at the BBAG October Yearling Sale in 2020.

“It’s a pinhookers’ paradise!” exclaims the company’s director Klaus Eulenberger. “It started when Con Marnane started coming over to sell around 20 years ago, and then he came to the yearling sales and found some nice horses to pinhook. He struck lucky early with a yearling from one of the early crops of Montjeu, which was sold at the Craven Sale for good money and turned out to be a very classy horse.”

The horse in question was Noble Prince, a colt out of Gran Criterium (G1) winner Noble Pearl, who was bought from his breeder Gestüt Etzean for €90,000 at BBAG’s premier yearling sale of 2005. He was resold by Marnane’s Bansha House Stables for 230,000gns and entered training with André Fabre for Michael Tabor, for whom he won a Listed race and ran second in the Prix de Chaudenay.

Noble Prince found a new lease of life over jumps with Paul Nolan, winning ten races in that sphere including the Jewson Novices’ Chase at the Cheltenham Festival. All in all, he was a fine advert for the soundness and versatility of German thoroughbreds.

“He was so sound,” emphasises Marnane, recalling that early BBAG purchase. “He just kept going and going. He gave us a good start with our German yearlings. We wouldn’t buy many from there, only one or two a year, but we also had Elegant Supermodel who ran third in the Albany Stakes at Royal Ascot. They’re cheap as well. She was a Lope De Vega and she only cost €13,000.

“We always do a bit of a tour around to buy horses. We bought Amadeus Wolf in Italy and First Selection in Spain. We’d go anywhere to see if we can buy a racehorse for a bit of value.”

THE EXAMPLE of Noble Prince encouraged more pinhookers to head to Baden-Baden in search of a steal, with some notable results along the way. One of the most memorable was the Exceed And Excel filly Likely, who was bought for €49,000 and resold by Grove Stud to David Redvers for £340,000 to top the Goffs UK Breeze-Up Sale of 2014. She slammed the useful Mattmu by 5l on her debut for David Barron.

“In the following years more and more buyers came over and realised there were lots of nice horses here,” says Eulenberger. “In the early days they concentrated on the faster horses, the typical breeze-up types, but we don’t really have that many of those, so they then started taking a closer look at the Solder Hollows, as they’re such nice sales horses. The focus came to be more on quality and value for money.”

Pinhookers’ newfound interest in somewhat more stoutly bred stock is also a function in the evolution of the breeze-up business, with more money being spent on potential Classic performers, at Tattersalls and Arqana fixtures in particular.

Forever Rose (Cracksman-Forever Beauty) was bought at the BBAG September Sale by Church Farm and Horse Park Stud for €49,000 and was sold at the Arqana Breeze Up for €420,000

“German breeders breed for stamina, everyone knows that, so we don’t necessarily have the fancy Dark Angels and Kodiacs that vendors would want for Doncaster here,” says Eulenberger. “But we have many by the likes of Adlerflug, Areion and Soldier Hollow, and they suit sales like Tattersalls Guineas and Arqana, where the market is different now – they’re not just focused on speed.”

If you’re reading this and thinking of making an investment in a German pinhook, by all means start planning your trip to Baden Baden for this year’s yearling sale, which takes place on Friday, September 2.

The catalogue features 15 lots by Areion, 11 by Soldier Hollow, ten by Sea The Moon and four by Adlerflug, and others by top sires such as Dubawi, Frankel, Kingman, Lope De Vega, Night Of Thunder, Sea The Stars, Wootton Bassett and Zarak.

But if you really want to be ahead of the game, and unearth some true value for money, Eulenberger has a pro tip.

“The pinhooking results from the main yearling sale have been good for a while and were outstanding this year, but we hold a mixed sale in October to coincide with racing at Baden-Baden and I think it’s incredibly underrated,” he says.

“We’ve sold lots of very good horses out of the sale – not least the Arc winner Torquator Tasso – but there has been an especially high number of good pinhooks, too. It was here that the Bonners found their Adlerflug colt, and many other NH buyers such as Yorton Farm have been coming for some years.

“The only problem with BBAG October is that it usually clashes with Tattersalls October Book 3, so most of the international agents and pinhookers aren’t here, but we’re unable to change the date as we have the race meeting taking place at the same time. Our agent Richard Venn has been very helpful in assisting in facilitating pinhooks, though.”

FOR HIS PART, Venn thinks the increase in British and Irish traders shopping at BBAG is down to a lack of horses being bred closer to home to suit the growing breeze-up market for class horses who can be guaranteed to stay 1m2f and up.

“Every year there’s new people coming to Baden-Baden,” he says. “All the serious pinhookers started to make their way to the sales here because they could see there was value there, it’s as simple as that. The likes of Johnny Collins, Brendan Holland, Roger Marley, Tom Whitehead, Norman Williamson, every year they’re here and every year they get a result.

“I think it helps that the German industry has a certain niche in that it’s breeding stoutly bred horses, not just sprinters, and that’s what a section of the market wants.

“Look at Tom Whitehead’s results with his pinhooks through Powerstown Stud – he had great touches with a Sea The Moon and a Soldier Hollow. They certainly don’t fit into the traditional archetype of a breeze-up horse.

“I just feel in a way, rightly or wrongly, that they’re breeding fewer staying types in the UK and Ireland than used to be the case, and the German-breds at BBAG are filling that gap and so the vendors are getting all these good results from trading them.”

Venn is just the right man to be representing BBAG on the global stage as he is a passionate defender of stamina breeding, which has sadly become a dirty word in some of the more commercial corners of the British and Irish bloodstock market.

He says: “We do need in our industry, for the sake of the racing programme and the health of the breed, a selection of sprinting, miling, middle-distance and staying horses, so we’ve got to continue breeding those that can stay.

“That’s where the Germans are. They’re breeding mostly staying types, with the ultimate aim of a mating being the production of a foal who could one day compete in the Deutsches Derby, their blue riband race. That’s why BBAG is so popular with jumps operations, and also Australians looking for horses for their cup races.”

If all that isn’t enough to convince pinhookers, or any connoisseurs of middledistance and staying horses, to head to Baden Baden this year, Venn surely clinches the deal by adding: “I can promise anyone they’ll have a good time, especially in September when there’s good racing; we have a big barbecue and there might even be a return of the German Elvis impersonator!