Eleven foals were put up for auction on Ascension Thursday at the Hamburg Derby venue: a son of Ermitage Kalone named Espartaco emerged as the top seller; the colt, catalogue number 2, was sold to Austria for 20,500 euros.
What is particularly interesting about this foal is his dam line: none other than the former Derby winner Carassina by Concerto II (Thomas Kleis/GER) is the granddam of this colt from the 1916 line. Espartaco was bred by Boie Behrens from Volsemenhusen. Buyers from Austria were willing to pay 20,000 euros for catalogue number 1: Sugar in the Morning by the Holstein Association stallion Zuccero out of a Casall dam (Jens Ritters, Krumstedt), line 730B, is closely related to Zuckersüß d’Argilla by Casall (Holger Wulschner/GER) and Olympic champion Marius by Condrieu xx (Hinrich Romeike/GER). Catalogue number 9, Caillou by Casall-Million Dollar (Volker Redderberg, Ahrensbök), line 1907, was sold for 16,000 euros to buyers from Lower Saxony. Horses successful internationally up to 1.60 metres, such as Rosalia la Silla by Cassini I (Bassem Mohammed/QAT) and Casalia R by Casall (Robin Naeve/GER), come from his family. A daughter of Keaton (by Cassiano), catalogue number 10 and aptly named Special Edition, was sold to a buyer in Bavaria for 14,000 euros. The strikingly marked chestnut mare was bred by Jan-Kuhrt Stegemann (Eesch) and represents the highly significant line 104A: her second dam is, amongst others, a half-sister to Contendro I and II by Contender, as well as Caretano by Caretino. “The three offspring of Zuccero were in high demand; he has consistently delivered outstanding performances at the very highest level in competition with Rolf-Göran Bengtsson and is now increasingly coming to the fore as a sire,” says auction director Felix Flinzer. “Customers paid an average of 14,500 euros for these three foals.” The auction faced challenging conditions due to technical difficulties with the online bidding system. However, this did not prevent an overall positive result, with a 100 per cent sell-out rate and an average price of around 13,050 euros. “We would like to apologise for these circumstances and are investigating the causes immediately,” Flinzer continues.
Photo: Janne Bugtrup (catalogue number 2, Espartaco by Ermitage Kalone)
