Explosive results
From just 37 living foals of racing age, Polish Vulcano has produced
this year’s Group 1 Deutsches Derby winner Hochkönig
and the two-time Group 3 winner Sir Polski.
He is by Lomitas, who produced such a high number of
top-class horses from his German crops.
We catch up with the Derby-winning breeders
Marc and Gabi Rühl, and hear what led them to use the
Gestüt Idee-based Polish Vulcano – Rühl’s day job
as a professional racing and bloodstockphotographer playing
a significant part in the selection process
THE FIRST TWO home in the Deutsches Derby produced a result perhaps unexpected by the wider European racing world but it was a race run true to form – the winner Hochkönig had previously finished second in the Group 2 Union Rennen, the major trial in Germany for the Derby, while the second-placed Karl Burke-trained Convergent had collected third place in the Group 3 Chester Vase, a race that is looking now as though it was the most important trial ahead of this year’s European Classic season – the winner of the race being Lambourn and the runner-up the two-time Derby-placed Lazy Griff.
Neither the first nor the second in the Deutsches Derby is by what would be termed a commercial Flat sire – Hochkönig is by the German sire Polish Vulcano whose book has been under ten mares for the last couple of seasons, while Convergent is a son of Fascinating Rock now standing as a jumps sire at Burgage Stud. It is a remarkable achievement by both sires.
Polish Vulcano, a son of the underrated sire Lomitas, was homebred by Gestüt Idee, where the 17-year-old now stands.
He was born in 2008, and was conceived the first year of Lomitas’ return to Gestüt Fährhof from a five-year stint at Dalham Hall Stud, Newmarket where he stood under the Darley banner.
By Niniski, Lomitas was a runner-up in the 1991 Deutsches Derby before going on to victory in the Grosser Preis der Berliner (G1), Grosser Preis von Baden (G1) and the Geno Europa Preis (G1).
In his first crop, three-year-olds of 1999, he produced Belenus, who won the Deutsches Derby for trainer Andreas Wöhler, finishing ahead of paternal sibling and fourth-placed Silvano, who had won the Union Rennen and was also with Wöhler.
Belenus went on to further German Group 1 success, while Silvano headed on his travels in 2001 to win the Arlington Million and the Queen Elizabeth II Cup at Sha Tin.
That same crop also produced Sumitas, a Group 3-winning two-year-old and victorious in the Mehl-Mülhens-Rennen (G2) as a three-year-old.
He was also three-times placed in Group 1 races later that year and again as a four-year-old with a best result coming when second to Dubai Millenium in the millennial-running of the Prince of Wales’s Stakes (G1).
Lomitas’ second crop born in 1997 saw the arrival of the
Group 1-placed filly Blue Moon, whose highlight came with a second in the Queen Elizabeth Challenge Cup (G1) at Keeneland also in 2000.
All this early international stakes success as a sire saw Darley strike and Lomitas transferred to Newmarket and his five-year stint
in Suffolk.
Sadly, it was a period which never quite realised the same heights of success and he was repatriated to his homeland for the 2007 covering season.
Something about the German air, or the domestic broodmare band, must have suited as he immediately stuck gold on his homecoming with the arrival of the brilliant Danedream, the winner of over £3 million in earnings and five Group 1 races, including the 2011 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.
Overshadowed by the Gestüt Brümmerhof-bred filly’s achievements
was Polish Vulcano, also born in 2008.
He won four of his five races as a three-year-old, and achieved a Listed win and a placed result in his four-year-old career, but did not run then until the July of his five-year-old season when he collected a further Listed placing before success in August at Group 3 level over 1m2f.
He went on to finish minor placed in Group races with a best result coming as a six-year-old in the 2014 Group 1 Grosser Dallmayr Preis when fifth.
Retired to breeder Albert Darboven’s Gestüt Idee, he has since had six crops of racing age, just 37 living foals of racing age, and has five two-year-olds,
six yearlings and five foals on the ground.
Amazingly, that tiny cohort has produced July’s Deutsches Derby winner, who was bred by the racecourse photographers Marc and Gabi Rühl
under the couple’s breeding banner of Stall MarcRuehl.com, as well as a dual winner of the Italian St Leger, Sir Polski.
Hochkönig is out of the winning Kallisto mare Halinara, bred by Rühl.
She is out of The Minstrel mare Habina, the dam of five multiple winners in Germany, and bought by the Rühls from Gestüt Schlenderhand with the hoped-for ambition, as for all of those breeding thoroughbreds in Germany, of producing a Deutsches Derby winner.
The couple explain their thinking behind using Polish Vulcano to try and achieve that Classic goal.
“There are not many stallions [in Germany] who have a better race record than Polish Vulcano,” says Marc Rühl
“He has a good pedigree, he has a good physique and is a nice stallion.
“We wanted the cross because Habina, the grandmother of Hochkönig, is by The Minstrel. We thought it would be a good cross. Halinara ran over 2,000m and we thought that maybe she could get a bit further, but still needed pace.”
It was not the first time that the couple have had connection with Polish Vulcano – his other black-type winner (remember from that incredibly small batch of 37!) is the Gestüt Idee-bred Sir Polski – he is out of the Lando mare Sweet Montana once owned by the Rühls.
“The stallion was on our radar because we had owned the dam of Sir Polski before and we were very happy that she got such a good home at Mr Darboven’s stud. We saw her at the farm and she had a nice foal and yearling so he was on our list,” they explain.
The 17-year-old Polish Vulcano is quite likely to see his patronage increase after this Classic victory – and obviously Halinara will be at the top of his list of mares to visit next spring.
She is to be joined by her first foal and Rühl-owned Halima, who is by Tertullian and won as a four-year-old.
The Rühls have bred “five or six black-type horses” from just a handful of mares, yet another incredible German bloodstock success story.
They credit this to the love and hands-on care they give to their horses, while stallion selection is made according to budget and to their own opinion, they do not follow the ebbs and flows of stallion fashion.
“We don’t use expensive stallions, we have to use the ones that are possible for us,” says Rühl. “And the most important thing is the mare, you need a good mare and then you have to look at what is good for her and what is possible.”
As his wife adds, “For us it is not important to go to a stallion who is in fashion. Our focus is on breeding a good racehorse.”
Rühl also attributes the influence from his job as a photographer which involves work on the racecourse, but also for Darley and other farms taking publicity shots of the stallions.
“When I am doing the stallion pictures, I know how the horse behaves so that helps us with stallion selection.”
So the wheel has turned full circle – Polish Vulcano, a son of the former Darley stallion Lomitas and who finished second in the Deutsches Derby, has produced his own Deutsches Derby winner bred by the man who now takes photos of Darley stallions.
Weatherbys Stallion Scene August Edition 2: Gaurav Rampal discusses the loss of Cable Bay just a month after the son of Invincible Spirit sired his first Group 1 winner. The agent also chats about his unique business training called The Horseman Way. Click on the photo to read
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