Farewell Waldgeist's great-grandam: champion and blue hen Wurftaube dies at 26

Wurftaube, a champion German racemare turned influential broodmare, died on Sunday only hours after her great-grandson Waldkonig – the two-year-old half-brother to this year's Arc hero Waldgeist – dotted up by nine lengths on debut in a Wolverhampton novice stakes. The daughter of Acatenango was 26.

Harro Remmert, who trained the mare for owner and breeder Gestüt Ravensberg, told Galopp Online: “My wife Gisela and I are mourning for Wurftaube, who gave us so many beautiful and unforgettable memories.”

Remmert sent out Wurftaube to win a hat-trick of Pattern races at three, taking in the Herold-Preis, Furstenberg-Rennen and German St Leger, the last-named achieved unchallenged by 11 lengths from Night Petticoat – later an important broodmare herself, as dam of German Classic winners Next Desert and Next Gina.

Wurftaube came back in the following season to take the Group 2 Gerling-Preis and to finish second to the Clive Brittain-trained Luso in the Deutschlandpreis at the highest level. She was both the champion three-year-old filly in Germany in 1996 and champion older filly or mare in the country in 1997.

However, even those lofty achievements on the track were eclipsed by her feats in the paddocks.

Wurftaube produced seven winners, most notably giving Ravensberg a homebred winner of the Deutsches Derby in Waldpark, a son of Dubawi who landed the Hamburg Classic in 2011.

Several of her daughters have proved to be fine broodmares themselves.

Her first foal, the unraced Mark Of Esteem mare Waldbeere, is dam of three stakes winners – Wiesenpfad, a multiple Group 3 scorer and sire; Waldtraut, who took third in the German Oaks; and Waldpfad, winner of the Hackwood Stakes and third in the Haydock Sprint Cup this year.

Her second produce Waldmark, another daughter of Mark Of Esteem, finished second in the Falmouth Stakes and produced three stakes winners of her own – St Leger hero Masked Marvel, Prix Penelope scorer Waldlerche and Listed winner Waldnah.

Waldlerche is turning into a broodmare of serious consequence, as her first four foals are the four-time Group 1 winner and new Ballylinch Stud sire Waldgeist, the lightly raced Group 2 winner Waldlied, the useful three-year-old Waldstern and the exciting two-year-old Waldkonig, who stormed to that wide-margin success on debut for John Gosden at the weekend.

Bright Beacon, another of Waldmark's daughters and thus a half-sister to Waldlerche, is the dam of Al Dabaran, winner of the Pat Eddery Stakes and second in the Prix de Conde this year, while Waldjagd, a Group 2-placed daughter of Wurftaube herself, was represented as broodmare in 2019 by Longchamp Listed scorer Urwald.

Wurftaube's empire looks set to expand further in the years to come, not only with male descendants Waldgeist, Masked Marvel and Waldpark at stud and with so many daughters, granddaughters and great-granddaughters in production, but with her last two live foals – the six-year-old Nayef mare Waldtaube and four-year-old Campanologist mare Waldblute – also early on in their paddocks careers.

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