Euro racing with Westminster Race Horses

I have no idea what Marian Ziburske sounds like when he is talking about his key business, Westminster Property, but, when it comes to Westminster Race Horses, he speaks with such passion and speed it is difficult to keep track. 

Ziburske has been a racehorse owner for 15 years, and a sponsor of races for longer. His Westminster Race Horses has had a lot of success, winning Derbys and Group races in Poland, the Czech Republic and Germany. 

Over recent seasons he has changed his focus and is now looking to expand his racing operations into west Europe. 

He has two of the best three-year-old fillies in Germany – the Group winners Lady Ilze and Lady Charlotte, more than 20 horses in training in France with Henri-Alex Pantall and his mares are based at the Haras de Beaufay in Normandy. 

“My two current ambitions in racing are,” he states, “to win a Group 1 race and to sell a horse for a million euros!” 

Ziburske had a first attempt at winning his Group 1 race – his filly Lady Ilze ran in last month’s Falmouth Stakes in Newmarket. 

The Andreas Wohler-trained daughter of Territories never looked completely happy on the track’s undulations but ran with great credit to finish fifth, only a neck behind the 1,000 Guineas winner Elmaka and less than 5l from the winner Cinderella’s Dream. 

“The form of her win in the German 1,000 Guineas has worked out with the second finishing fifth in the Prix de Diane in Chantilly,” analyses Ziburske.

De Vries is Westminster Race Horses’ retained jockey and the veteran Dutchman has been on board most of their good winners this year in Germany and in Poland. 

“I am,” Zibruske laughs, “trying to persuade Adrie to continue for another season. He is a top jockey and he is a gentleman, a pleasure to work with, and an excellent speaker at our events, too. I am not sure I am going to succeed in his plans!”

Lady Ilze and Lady Charlotte, the winner of the Group 3 Diana Trial in Berlin and current favourite for the Preis der Diana in Dusseldorf at the beginning of August, were both bought by Ziburske’s agent Tomas Janda at the Tattersalls October Book 3 Sale – the first for just 11,000gns and the second for 20,000gns. 

“We aim,” he says “to buy horses who are going to race between 2,000m and 2,400m, and 70,000gns is the most I have spent on a yearling – we are looking for horses whose pedigree is not too commercial. Ziburske bought Lady Ilze’s half-sister by Lope Y Fernandez, named Lady Liva, for only 4,000gns the following year and he has high hopes for her, too –
she was second on her debut in what was by Warsaw standards a super maiden with €11,500 on offer. 

Ziburske was brought up in Dusseldorf and then in Berlin. His parents had no interest in racing but his grandmother, who lived in Neuss, loved the sport, and when he went to stay with her, they would always go to the racetrack together. 

“Sadly, Neuss racecourse no longer exists,” he says, “but I remember clearly my first visit there when I was very young, and my first winning bet.” 

Ziburske started Westminster Property in Berlin in 2010, the company and its off-shoots have become successful and has expanded into Poland, where he lived for nearly five years, the Czech Republic, and more recently into Italy, where he is now based, and to the Baltic States. 

“I have," he adds, “always loved racing and it is also something I share with my wife and children. 

Westminster has about 70 horses in training, with 25 now with Pantall in France. 

The yearlings start in Poland and those who show enough ability as juveniles are transferred to Wöhler in Germany for their three-year-old careers. 

“But I can make that up by selling the better ones, usually in France,” Ziburske reasons, “and I do not burn money in Poland either and I tell my trainers there that they have to be efficient.” 

He adds: “In the long run, Pantall will have more as I now have about 18 mares based at the Haras de Beaufay and the French-bred foals will go to him. 

“France is the only country where you can make money racing with average horses. I met Pantall at the races as he often has runners in Germany and I sent him horses such as Good Gift and Sir Siljan, who had done well in Poland and suggested he ran them in claiming races. 

“He soon told me they were better than that and both are now competing successfully in Listed and Group races. 

“Tomas does an excellent job selecting the yearlings we buy and Andreas gets the selection of the selection.”

He continues: “I have six horses with him today and, aside from the two excellent fillies, they are all good horses. 

“I may send Wöhler more in the future, but proven horses rather than yearlings which suits him, too, and my Polish trainers get a bonus if one of theirs goes on to win a Group race in France or Germany.” 

Italy may be the next country Westminster Race Horses expands into as Ziburske is now based in Varese in Lombardy, and has a couple of horses in training with Bruno Grizetti and Endo Botti. 

“I had my first Italian runner recently,” he says, adding with a laugh, “Unfortunately the race was late in the evening, and I was at the opera in Milan with my wife. 

“I had to watch my phone hidden in my programme, and we finished last!” 

Westminster also has a two-year-old called Duke Of Cumberland, and he is in training in Ireland with Joseph O’Brien. 

“I have," he says, “been a sponsor at Hoppegarten for longer than I have been an owner and Westminster is the main sponsor of the Grosser Preis von Berlin, which O’Brien won with Al Riffa. 

“Gerhard Schöningh, the owner of the racecourse, and I enjoyed meeting Joseph and decided it would be fun to have a horse with him together. 

“We bought Duke Of Cumberland, a son of New Bay, and the colt has had one run.” 

Sponsorship is another aspect of racing Ziburske enthuses about – his racehorses and his businesses are closely linked. 

“One third of the horses are called Westminster something after the company, one third are named after members of staff, Charlotte is a secretary in our Warsaw office for instance, and then one third are named after business partners – Ilze is a formidable businesswoman and one of our main partners in Riga,” he explains. 

“When I sponsor races in Hoppegarten, at Sluzewiec racecourse in Warsaw or, as most recently at Cagnes Sur Mer, I invite 70 to 90 business partners and others associated with our business. 

“We have them for the whole afternoon, we entertain them, take them to visit the racecourse and stables and then they can watch and follow horses named after them. 

“The weather is not great in the Baltic States or Poland in February and so many were only too happy to come for an outing to Cagnes Sur Mer where the weather is pretty good at that time of year! 

Another aspect of Westminster Race Horses is charity events. It has a big charity day at Sluzewiec in Warsaw, attended by more than 12,000 people at its most recent edition, and in Dresden. 

“I am,” he explains, “attached to the city of Dresden, I met my wife at the opera there, and every year we hold a day at the races for a school for children with learning difficulties. 

“We invite 300 kids to Dresden racecourse, get them involved forming different teams of supporters, Adrie goes to speak at the school and any money we make goes back to the school. 

Having raced through the many aspects of Westminster Race Horses and the different countries it participates in, Ziburske returns to his current priority, winning a Group 1 race and specifically winning the Group 1 Preis der Diana with his Golden Horn filly Lady Charlotte. 

“Lady Charlotte has,” he says, “always been a big, strong, good-looking filly.She is by Golden Horn from a staying family, but was winning over 1,300 and 1,400 as a two-year-old in Poland.

“When she moved to Wohler, she won a Listed and then her Group 3 and so decided to try running her in the Derby. 

“Unfortunately, she had stall 18 and when the gates opened our plans fell apart. She flew out and ran through the first part of the race far too fast. Adrie was taken by surprise, and it took him a long time to get her settled. 

“There was not a fast pace, and when it came to the end of the race she was unable to accelerate and finished only eighth. She is still favourite for the Diana and so I am not the only one who believes she is capable of better.”

Ziburske and Westminster Race Horses have already proved to be innovators, the model it is following is an original one and is working very well indeed. 

Its sponsorships and charity events have brought new people into the sport and helped to renew it in places such as Warsaw, Berlin and Dresden. 

It is hard to know where Westminster Race Horses will be in five years’ time, but it will surely still being trying new things and Ziburske himself will still be happy to talk through every aspect.