On a debut mission to Deauville

Dietrich and Annabel von Boetticher’s Gestüt Ammerland is offering a daft of eight yearlings at the Arqana August sale. The eight – five colts and three fillies – represent the families which have made Ammerland famous throughout the racing and breeding world.

This is in itself an event as throughout all the years Ammerland’s red and green colours have become famous, being carried to victory in all of the French Classic races, in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe twice, several Deutsches Derbies, the Irish Derby, the Coronation Cup, the Hong Kong Vase and many other top races, Ammerland has always been an owner-breeder that has retained the horses it bred on the stud found on the banks of the Starnberger, south of Munich in southern Germany.

‘This year there are a total of 17 yearlings on the farm,” says Crispin de Moubray the family’s long-term advisor. “There will be 16, all those with good enough x-rays, to be offered for sale as yearlings.

“As well as the eight going to Deauville in August, Ammerland will be selling the two final colts it owns in partnership with Newsells Park Stud at Tattersalls in October, a full-brother to the Arc winner Waldgeist and a Siyouni out of Waldgeist’s Group 2-winning half sister Waldlied.”

The champion filly Borgia was the first filly to win the Deutsches Derby for more than 40 years in 1997. She was the first Ammerland homebred to prove herself on the international stage finishing third in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe and then second in the Breeders’ Cup Turf as a three-year-old, before winning the Hong Kong Vase at five when trained by André Fabre.

Von Boetticher and Ammerland are now in their fifth decade as an owner and breeder at the highest level as the first Group 1 win came in 1988 when Luigi won the Deutsches Derby in the red and green colours of what was then called Stall Marcassargues.

If Borgia and Hurricane Run, the Irish Derby and Arc de Triomphe winner of 2005, both came from families von Boetticher developed in Germany, the sales in Deauville have played a large part in the stud’s wider success in the 21st century.

Three key purchases in Deauville led to wins in the Poule d’Essai des Pouliches, the Poulains, the Prix du Jockey-Club, Prix de Diane and the Arc de Triomphe.

In 2002, the Deauville August Sale got off to a terrible start – it was the first sale to be held in euros and its first after 9/11.

By the end of the first evening session the average was running at around 50 per cent down on what had been a boom year in 2001.

“The filly I had picked out was a grey Danehill presented by the Haras du Mezeray,” remembers de Moubray. “I was on the phone to von Boetticher when she was in the ring but it was obvious she was not going to be sold so we decided to wait and see. Dietrich asked Fabre to have a look at her and, once his trainer had given the go ahead, he told me to go and negotiate with Mezeray and we agreed to buy her for €150,000.”

Named Grey Lilas, she made her debut in Deauville for Fabre the following August and succeeded in finishing last of five in a 6f maiden.

As a three-year-old she was a different proposition and won the Group 1 Prix du Moulin under Eric Legrix, the Prix de la Grotte and the Prix de la Nonette and was placed in the Poule d’Essai des Pouiches, the Prix de Diane and the Prix de l’Opera.

At stud, Grey Lilas was even better and her second foal, the Galileo filly Golden Lilac, won her first five career starts, including the Pouliches and the Prix de Diane and added the Prix d’Ispahan to her haul as a four-yearold.

Grey Lilas has produced seven winners so far. Her three-year-old Churchill gelding Gaidar has won his only start to date and her last foal Grey Lux is an unraced two-year-old Lope De Vega colt in training with Fabre for Ammerland.

The Deauville draft includes a daughter of Golden Lilac by Blue Point (Lot 290), and a Lope De Vega filly out of Golden Gazelle, a full-sister to Golden Lilac (Lot 289).

The year 2005 was a good one for Ammerland as the stud’s homebred Montjeu colt Hurricane Run finished the season with five wins in six starts to his name, including the Irish Derby in the stud’s colours.

He finished second to Shamardal, beaten only a neck in the first Jockey-Club run over 2100m.

After being sold to the Coolmore partnership, he won the Arc de Triomphe in the colours of Michael Tabor. Hurricane Run was clearly the best middle-distance colt in Europe.

At the Arqana December Sale 2005, von Boetticher was interested in Lady Vettori, then an eight-year-old mare offered in-foal for the fourth time to Montjeu.

LADY VETTORI had been an excellent two-year-old, winning her first five starts, including the Prix du Calvados in Deauville before finishing third in the Prix Marcel Boussac at the Arc weekend.

Nobody else showed any sustained interest in the mare, but still von Boetticher and de Moubray had to go to €500,000 to buy her on one bid more than reserve.

The Montjeu colt she was carrying turned out to be an ordinary individual and managed to win only one small conditions race for Ammerland, however, the second foal after her purchase was the Shamardal colt Lope De Vega. He was not only the winner of the Poule d’Essai des Poulains and Prix du Jockey-Club, but today is one of the world’s leading stallions standing at Ballylinch Stud in Ireland for €125,000.

After Lope De Vega, Lady Vettori continued to produce high-class horses for Ammerland and her last two foals were the Frankel fillies – Lady Frankel, a Group winner who was only narrowly beaten into third in the Prix de l’Opera, and her unraced full-sister Lady Livonia.

At the Arqana December Sale 2005, von Boetticher was interested in Lady Vettori, then an eight-year-old mare offered in-foal for the fourth time to Montjeu

Lady Frankel’s first foal, a Kingman filly called Lightning Lady, is in training with Fabre for Ammerland, her second foal a Shamardal colt (Lot 21), goes to the August Sale.

Lady Livonia’s first foal, the Saxon Warrior colt Ser Sed, was sold in Deauville in October last year for only €15,000, but has now won two of his three starts to date for trainer Joel Boisnard. Lady Livonia’s second foal, a colt by Sea The Stars, is Lot 22.

The third significant Ammerland purchase in Deauville came at the 2010 August Sale.

The Newsells Park Stud’s Deauville draft that year included two Monsun fillies, the first out of Green Swallow, who was bought by Nicolas Clement for €160,000. Named Yellow And Green, she developed into a Group 2 winner.

The other one, a daughter of Waldmark, was bought back at only €100,000. Von Boetticher was very interested – she was a daughter of Monsun from a fine German family, but he was not really looking to buy that year.

After speaking to Andreas Jacobs at length the pair, who had been friends for some years, agreed to go into partnership and race her together on a valuation of €100,000.

Waldlerche was, of course, trained by Fabre and won her first two starts, including the Group 3 Prix Penelope, a prep race for the Prix de Diane.

Her racing career didn’t then work out as planned, but Waldlerche had shown more than enough to secure a mating with Galileo for her first cover. The colt was named Waldgeist, who also went into training with Fabre initially for a partnership which included Coolmore, and then later for Ammerland and Newsells Park.

Waldgeist went on to win four Group 1 races – the Criterium de Saint Cloud, the Prix du Ganay, the Grand Prix de Saint Cloud and then, on his final start, the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in which he beat Enable. He now stands at Ballylinch.

His first foals are yearlings of 2022 and the Ammerland draft includes two sons, one out of the Listed winner Sassella (Lot 124) and the other out of Annabel’s Choice (Lot 207).

The last two members of the draft are a Kingman filly out of Baltic Duchess (Lot 219), and a Camelot colt out of Sevenna (Lot 132).

Baltic Duchess is a half-sister to the Group 1 Prix Vermeille winner Baltic Baroness out of a Sadler’s Wells daughter of Borgia.

Baltic Duchess’s first foal a two-year-old Frankel colt called Baltic Voyage is in training with Ralph Beckett.

Sevenna is another Galileo filly – she was bought as a yearling in Baden Baden and won a Group race at Goodwood for trainer Sir Henry Cecil in the colours of Ammerland. She has produced four black-type winners.

When Newsells Park Stud was sold by the Jacobs family the partnership with Ammerland was dissolved with Newsells buying Waldlied, a Group 2-winning New Approach half-sister to Waldgeist, while Ammerland bought his full-sister Wildfeder for €2,050,000 at last year’s Deauville December Sale.

“Wildfeder is safely in-foal to Lope De Vega and together with the other 15 Ammerland mares covered this year back home at the stud,” de Moubray adds.

The stud has eight horses in training with Fabre, including four two-year-olds, and others with Peter Schiergen in Germany and John and Thady Gosden in England.

It may be the first time Ammerland is selling so many yearlings in Deauville, but it is fair to say that few if any anybody has done better than Ammerland when it comes to buying in Deauville.