Bill and Bri's Excellent Adventure

-- Bill Oppenheim

If you’ve heard of Galileo, Sea The Stars, and Animal Kingdom you know something about the influence of German pedigrees at the very top tier of the thoroughbred business. They punch so far above their weight given the numbers of foals they breed (at least six states in the U.S. will produce more foals than Germany’s estimated 1,000 in 2011) that Germany should rightfully be considered one of a ‘big four’ countries of European breeding, even though their foal crops are a fraction of the size of the crops produced in Ireland, Britain, and France.

Among the places German-breds have done well is North America; three German-breds have already won Graded Stakes in North America this year, plus the dam of this year’s GI Kentucky Derby winner is German-bred. So when the Breeders’ Cup designed the new International Stallion Nomination program (the stallion owner pays 50% of a stud fee, all foals from that crop automatically nominated) in an effort to have more non-North American-bred foals nominated to the Breeders’ Cup, it was important to try and make sure the message got through to any group of breeders who might be supplying top-class horses for the Breeders’ Cup’s championship races.

The Breeders’ Cup has appointed field representatives throughout the world to explain the new program to stallion managers and breeders, including our own Brianne Stanley in Ireland. As someone who had worked on the program, and hopefully understood it well enough to explain it, we hoped that between us we could explain the background and the program, and answer questions about it, to a sector of the breeding industry we would certainly want to include in the program if we could.

Bill and Fahrhof’s Daniel Krueger.
The view behind is the ‘Hollywood’ sign of the village of
Iffezheim, where the racecourse is located,
with the Black Forest in the background.

So, last weekend, Brianne came from Ireland, and I came from Scotland, and we met up in Baden-Baden, in the southwest of Germany, literally just a few miles from the French border and the French city of Strasbourg, in Alsace. There is a sort of Spring Festival of racing, which began with two days of racing last weekend and continues through next weekend, with an auction of 2-year-olds and Horses of Racing Age on the sales grounds of the auction company, BBAG, adjacent to the racetrack, this coming Friday, June 3. We came for the racing last Saturday and Sunday, were guests at the industry’s Awards dinner at the racecourse on Saturday night, and made a presentation to stallion owners and breeders before the races on Sunday.

In a nutshell, the place is beautiful – the words ‘clean’ and ‘efficient’ come to mind; the people are fantastic – the words ‘friendly’, ‘polite’, and ‘helpful’ come to mind; and the area has a great atmosphere. Having arrived in Germany for the first time in my entire 61 ¾ years, I was told by several people that I had landed up in the right place, and it’s true. Brianne and I both remarked how much the atmosphere felt like Deauville – a resort, though not a seaside resort like Deauville. One big advantage they have over Deauville is the purpose-built sales grounds, done just 12 years ago, with plenty of space and functionality.

I hope the German stallion owners and breeders felt they had a good explanation of the new Breeders’ Cup program, and I hope many of them will sign up to the program. For our part, I think Bri and I both felt we could not have been shown better hospitality; could not have had better weather (though, like France and southern England, they have had a drought the last two months and desperately need rain); and, really, could not have been more impressed.

The BBAG yearling sale is scheduled for September 2-3, during a summer racing and sales festival which runs from August 27 – September 4. If you like to go to places like Saratoga (also a resort not on the seaside) for the sales and racing; if you like Del Mar for the racing; if you like Deauville for the sales and racing, I’ll bet you’ll like Baden-Baden for the sales and racing, too. It may have taken me an awfully long time to discover Baden-Baden and Germany for myself, but, having discovered it now, you can bet it won’t be long before my team tries very hard to get back there.

Bill, TDN’s Christa Riebel, and BBAG’s Kalus Eulenberger,
in front of the BBAG Sales Pavilion

We have many, many people to thank – far more than I would be able to list here. First and foremost we wish to thank Dr. Andreas Jacobs, best known as the Master of Gestut Fahrhof, his family’s third-generation stud, which received the award as Germany’s leading breeder in 2010. Andreas is also involved in his family’s Newsells Park Stud in England, founded by his late father, Klaus Jacobs, and now one of the leading commercial nurseries in Europe; and Maine Chance Farm in South Africa, where he stands the 2001 G1 Arlington Million winner and now very successful sire, Silvano. Dr. Jacobs has a number of other business interests, including as president of the company which leased the Baden-Baden racetrack when it went into bankruptcy in late 2009. He was a very busy guy all weekend, and we’re very grateful to him for facilitating our trip and spending more time with us than he probably had to spend.

Long day over: Bri and Klaus Eulenberger sample
the local brew, Hatz. We’re not sure what
Bill was drinking there.

Second on our all-star German hit parade is Fahrhof’s marketing manager, Daniel Krueger, who also works for the German Owners and Breeders Association. Daniel did absolutely double-time in the legwork department, and made sure everything ran like clockwork. He goes right to the top of our upcoming list of European “under-40’s” movers and shakers in the horse business. Daniel, we cannot thank you enough, we wouldn’t have known whether to turn right or left without your help. You are a star. Thanks also to the Baden-Baden racetrack team, including new racetrack GM, Dr. Benedict (Ben) Forndran, who came over from France’s PMU and is one of the most knowledgeable people I’ve ever spoken with about Tote systems in today’s era; Andre Litt, who organizes all the cars and drivers for the racetrack; and young Sebastian Merkel (no relation to the German Chancellor), who made sure we got where we needed to be when we needed to be there. Thanks also to TDN’s own Christa Riebel, who did the translating for us at our meeting on Sunday; and to BBAG’s MD, Carola Ortlieb, and Assistant Manager, Klaus Eulenberger, another who makes our Europe 'Forty Under Forty' list. To all y'all, many thanks for all your help, and we hope to see you again soon.

KANSAS CITY

--Bill Oppenheim

Dubai it’s not. In fact, Midwesterners may be entitled to have a little chip on our shoulders, because everybody makes fun of us; but hey, when you want somebody to read the news or host a chat show, you turn to us: Walter Cronkite (born in St. Joseph, Missouri, lived in Kansas City until he was ten, then Texas), Johnny Carson (born in Iowa, grew up in Nebraska), Dick Cavett (Nebraska – thank you, Wikipedia), for example. Me, I have a voice for radio – no pun intended.

I was born in Kansas City, but grew up in Wichita, Kansas, so I am a bona fide Midwesterner – meaning I come from west of the Mississippi River, not east. A lot of people from Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, even Kentucky, refer to themselves as Midwesterners, but on my map they come from the Mideast. Of course, nobody is called a Mideasterner, so I guess we inherit them, like the old New Yorker cartoon that shows everything west of the Appalachians as ‘the hinterlands’. My mother was from Kansas City, so I spent a fair amount of time here off and on up until the time I went to university (but that was in 1966). But I had been an infrequent visitor in the ensuing 40 years until my parents, after 40 years themselves in Florida, moved back to Kansas City in 2006. Since then I’ve been a frequent visitor.


Flyover city? Not according to Bill...

The Kansas City metropolitan area, straddling both Missouri and Kansas, numbers about two million people, the biggest between Minneapolis-St. Paul (three million) to the north and Dallas-Fort Worth (six million, would you believe?) to the south; of course, Chicago (10 million), the third-biggest metropolitan area in population in the United States, is the Midwest’s biggest metropolitan area, but it is a good day’s drive to the northeast, on the eastern border of the Central Time Zone. So Kansas City is a big enough deal in its own right, big enough to support smaller-market major league sports teams. Like every place west of the Mississippi River, really, one of its greatest attributes is space. If you grew up west of the Mississippi, you’re unlucky if you don’t have almost an innate sense of space. It comes with the territory.

Urban planner J.C. Nichols    Life.com

Kansas City metro stretches for 40 miles or so north to south and probably 10 to 15 east to west, the majority of that on the more developed south side actually in Kansas. But it really does straddle the two states. The downtown area is in Missouri, just south of the Missouri river. Back in the early years of the Twentieth century, the first moves out of downtown areas were to what came to be called ‘uptown’ areas; the suburbs came later, the next step out. Kansas City’s ‘uptown’ area, about four miles south of the city center, is called the Country Club Plaza, and a very unique uptown area it is. In 1907 the developer J.C. Nichols began buying land in the area and proposed a shopping area which would cater to the newest big thing, the automobile. They called it “Nichols’s Folly”. But after a trip to Seville, Spain, Nichols and his architect, Edward Buehler Delk, used Seville as the template for the Plaza, which opened in 1923 (Wikipedia again). It’s about a mile square, I suppose (did you know a mile squared equals a square mile, by the way?), and retains even today a great open, spacious, Spanish feel – fountains, statues, mosaics – lots of mosaics on buildings. Plus Nichols established beautiful residential communities – good-sized, two-story houses on big lots – south of the Plaza. One of the amazing things about the south side of Kansas City has been the expansion of these kinds of neighborhoods probably another ten miles to the south and southwest. It’s a city with a surprising number of really pretty residential neighborhoods. Lots of space, but – not something generally known about eastern Kansas and western Missouri – plenty of hills and trees, too; above all, though: space.

Another little-known fact is that the very area on which the Plaza was built was the scene of the Civil War battle of Westport (October 23, 1864), sometimes called “the Gettysburg of the West”, because the Confederate defeat there was the beginning of the end for the Confederate forces on the western front; after the Battle of Westport, Confederate forces were basically in constant retreat. Just south of the Plaza, in Loose Park, is a replica cannon from the battle and some plaques showing where the various actions during the battle took place. Sure enough, if you look north from the bluff at the top of the park, you can see for a long ways, across what is now the Plaza and Westport, to the Missouri River.

So Chicago it’s not (wow, has that become a happening city center, under the last Mayor Daley), Dubai it’s not, New York it’s not. But workable cities (well, metropolitan areas) of two million, with a good feel, plenty of space, and where the traffic usually does flow, like Kansas City – they have plenty to recommend them.

OK, enough touring – I’m headed back to work, in Kentucky, next week. Maybe see you there.

Coincidence

--Bill Oppenheim

Probably the most influential book I have read in my entire 61 years is the Richard Wilhelm translation of the Chinese I Ching (Book of Changes), which includes an Introduction ‘for the Western mind’ by the great Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung; did you know Paul Mellon underwent analysis with him, and later was responsible for the publication of Jung’s complete works in English by the Bollingen Foundation, which Mellon endowed (somewhat like the TRF, I guess – great blog on industry responsibility on that issue by Sue Finley today) of Princeton University? Anyway, one of the concepts Jung outlines is what he called ‘synchronicity’ – that what we sometimes consider ‘mere’ coincidence is really a bit more than that: events which actually co-incide in time.

Continental and United are now one   nj.com

So I was traveling yesterday on Continental (soon to be united as United) from Edinburgh, my home airport, through Newark (the usual 90-minute delay), to my home state to visit family, including my dad, Harold, now 92 and the editor of his building’s monthly newsletter, which he does on Photoshop or whatever on his computer, and which is 14 pages this month. When people ask me where I’m from (I do live in Scotland, and do not have a Scottish accent), I sometimes ask them to guess, and the clue is that the most famous person from my home state is imaginary. A lot of people guess Florida, because they think Mickey Mouse comes from Florida; but, of course, the original Disneyland is in California, and he’s not the most famous person from either state. No, it’s Dorothy, from the Wizard of Oz; we’re from Kansas.

Newark's Terminal A is due for a refurbishment

Here’s where the synchronicity comes in. When you’re traveling solo, especially on the commuter jets like from Newark (Terminal A, not nearly as hospitable as the international Terminal C) to Kansas City, if you’re sitting next to somebody it’s pretty hard not to talk to them. So yesterday I was sat next to a pretty strong guy with what I thought might be (Native American) Indian features who said he was from Kansas; turns out he is half-Samoan and grew up in Pasco, in the Tri-Cities area of Southeastern Washington, but has lived in Council Grove, Kansas, I think he said for the last fourteen years. He’s a railroad engineer (translation for Europeans: drives trains), in his case drives freight trains out of Herington, Kansas, west to Pratt and east to Kansas City. Had a Scottish father, but if you think somebody named Al McBee is going to be some Scottish-looking guy, no; the Samoan dominated. Anyway, you don’t want to know his whole life story, or mine, but, like so many people, his story is so interesting. Everybody’s is, somehow or other, and it’s striking to think that, if the computer put you in a different seat, you’d never had met that person or had that conversation; you’d have had a different one, or none at all (of course, you do have to ask, and be genuinely curious). I think that’s what Jung meant by synchronicity: the intersection of things, in time, at a place. Al, thanks for chatting, hope this doesn’t embarrass you, and good luck, man.

Thoughts on the Dubai World Cup

-- Bill Oppenheim

My maiden voyage in the blogosphere. Hello.

The Dubai World Cup is this Saturday, and the field for the $10-million G1 Dubai World Cup itself is interesting: three for Godolphin, three for Japan, two for Sheikh Mohammed’s cousin, Sheikh Mohammed bin Khalifa al Maktoum (trained by South African Mike de Kock), one more (Richard’s Kid) for Sheikh Mohammed’s son, Sheikh Rashid, plus Cape Blanco, Twice Over, Gitano Hernando, and Fly Over and Gio Ponti from the U.S.

Buena Vista - (c) Horsephotos

I think the Japanese horses have a big shot, particularly the four-year-old Victoire Pisa and the five-year-old mare Buena Vista, who were one-two by a nose in a Group 1 in Japan last month. Victoire Pisa is unbeaten at up to 10 furlongs, Buena Vista has never been out of the first three in 14 starts (including a second to Da Re Mi in the G1 Sheema Classic last year) and has earned $12-million (both are by sons of Sunday Silence).

Gio Ponti - (c) Horsephotos

But I actually fancy Gio Ponti to win. He was second to Zenyatta at Santa Anita in the Breeders’ Cup Classic in 2009, and second to Goldikova in the Breeders’ Cup Mile last year. He’s the forgotten horse. Last year, ridden by Brazilian jockey T.J.Pereira and trained by Pascal Bary, the Brazilian-bred Gloria de Campeao crawled on the lead and turned the world’s first $10-million race into a paceless farce; Gio Ponti was fourth, beaten by tactics and not beaten far. So that’s my three-horse Exacta and Trifecta box: Gio Ponti, Victoire Pisa, Buena Vista. Maybe throw in ultra-consistent Twice Over too.

Meydan Grandstand - (c) Horsephotos

Here’s my other great bet of the week … April 9, Aintree, on the Grand National undercard: Peddler’s Cross, who lost his unbeaten record when second to Hurricane Fly in the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham, steps up to 2 ½ miles for the G1 Aintree Hurdle. It will be a double-tough spot, but no Hurricane Fly, so I think he’ll win.