Windstoss

The sales action rolls on to Baden-Baden this Friday for Germany's major yearling auction, the BBAG September Sale. If the talk in the build-up is to be believed then there will be more overseas visitors than ever landing at Karlsruhe airport to make the short journey to the sales grounds and its neighbouring racecourse during a lively week of action in both spheres. They surely can't all be going solely for the excellent eve-of-sale barbecue, featuring the traditional jumbo bratwurst and Elvis impersonator. Far more important than that fun night...

The list of German stallions has been boosted to 38 this year with the addition of three new recruits: one from Ireland, one returning from France, and one who has never left the stud where he was born other than to go to the races.  In the case of Alson (Ger), who is now the sole stallion at the Jacobs family's historic Gestut Fahrhof, his repatriation following a racing career partly based in Chantilly with Andre Fabre is a welcome move. Alson is the only son in Germany of the...

There can be no better breeding home run than for a mare to produce a Derby winner as her first foal. In the case of Gestüt Röttgen's homebred Wellenspiel (Ger) (Sternkoenig {Ger}), this auspicious entree to her stud career happened not once but twice, with her first two foals both becoming winners of the G1 Deutsches Derby. Windstoss (Ger) (Shirocco {Ger}) and his half-brother Weltstar (Ger) (Soldier Hollow {GB}) are the product of nine generations of Röttgen breeding, stretching back to the purchase of one of the stud's first mares,...