Torquator Tasso set to be introduced for €20,000 at Gestut Auenquelle

Torquator Tasso, who was retired after finishing an honourable third when attempting to defend his crown in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe on Sunday, will stand at Gestut Auenquelle at a fee of €20,000 next year, a representative of the stud has told the Racing Post.

Plans call for the five-year-old to leave the Mulheim stables of his trainer Marcel Weiss the weekend after next and to travel directly to Baden-Baden, where he will take part in a stallion show during the sales and racing festival at BBAG.

He will then leave Baden-Baden for his new permanent home of Gestut Auenquelle, where he will commence covering duties in 2023 alongside former German champion sire Soldier Hollow.

Torquator Tasso will stand on an October 1 live foal basis, with breeding rights available to him. Karl-Dieter Ellerbracke, co-owner of Gestut Auenquelle and chairman of BBAG, will handle applications alongside English-speaking assistants.

The chestnut will be leaving his trainer Marcel Weiss later this monthCredit: Racing Post/Scott Burton

Connections reported that there had already been “significant interest” in the horse from “many different European countries”.

Torquator Tasso is hot property as a stallion in Germany and beyond, and not just because he is a highly prized Arc winner who also took the prestigious Grosser Preis von Baden and Grosser Preis von Berlin, and regularly performed with distinction in elite company.

He is also by the much-missed champion sire Adlerflug, additionally the source of Group 1 stars Alenquer, In Swoop, Iquitos, Ito, Lacazar and Mendocino, and he hails from a productive branch of a maternal line that goes back to Urban Sea’s dam Allegretta.

Furthermore, his three-year-old half-brother Tunnes rates as one of the most exciting horses in Germany, having won a BBAG sales race and the German St Leger by huge margins in recent weeks.

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