The starkly successful new syndicate shaking up the ownership ranks in Germany

Good Morning Bloodstock is Martin Stevens' daily morning email and presented online as a sample.

Here he speaks to prominent German racing figure Lars-Wilhelm Baumgarten about the creation of Liberty Racing and their hugely exciting Classic winner Fantastic Moon - subscribers can get more great insight from Martin every Monday to Friday.

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Cast your eye down the roll of honour for the Deutsches Derby and you will find that the Hamburg Classic is more often than not won by horses who carry the colours of seasoned owner-breeders or long-established studs.

Fantastic Moon, the impressive winner of this year’s contest, is however campaigned by a syndicate of small shareholders – the sort of set-up that has long existed in Britain and Ireland, and is wildly successful in Australia, but is still a rare beast in Germany.

Liberty Racing, whose rallying cry is ‘live your dreams in freedom’, is the brainchild of prominent German racing figure Lars-Wilhelm Baumgarten and his wife Nadine Siepmann and was founded only three years ago to get new blood into German racing.

It has got off to a flying start, with its first intake of horses including Listed winner and Deutsches Derby fourth Assistent and the similarly useful Niagaro and Weston, and the second group of horses containing Fantastic Moon and Italian Derby runner-up Winning Spirit, who was fourth at Hamburg this month.  

“Fantastic Moon’s victory was amazing – I’d dreamt of it ever since I was 14 and I attended the Derby at Hamburg with my parents for the first time,” says Baumgarten, a former sports agent whose clients included tennis star Angelique Kerber and now an entrepreneur investing in start-ups and real estate. “I’d come second with Django Freeman, fourth with Assistent and fifth with Wonderful Moon, so finally having the winner was very special.” 

Baumgarten has already achieved an awful lot in the industry in his own right. As well as co-owning Django Freeman and Wonderful Moon, he also owns 25 per cent of leading German trainer Henk Grewe’s stable and bought champion sire Adlerflug as a stallion prospect and managed his second career at stud. He didn’t therefore need to launch a syndicate, but he did so out of concern for the health of the sport at home. 

“I’m on the board of German Racing and the one thing we discuss in our meetings week in, week out is the desperate need for new owners,” he explains. “The industry here is not in a good situation; we have a lot of wealthy but ageing breeders and our population of horses in training and mares is on the way down. 

“So finally I said I’d do my bit to try to bring in owners with a new syndicate. They’re quite unusual in Germany, especially when done at a professional level. We have racing clubs, but the members don’t tend to have equity in the horses and they often have no clear concept – they might go to a big stud to ask for a four-year-old to run in handicaps, which isn’t what I wanted to do. 

“What I wanted to do instead was to buy horses from the great old German staying families – Allegretta, Wurftaube and so on – and by proven sires like Adlerflug, Australia, Camelot, Sea The Moon and Soldier Hollow to aim at the big races, so that we could dream of winning the Derby. We aren’t worried about two-year-olds or sprinters. That was our vision when we started. I didn’t know whether it would succeed, but at least I could say I’d tried.” 

Liberty Racing attracted 12 shareholders in its first year, 22 in its second and 30 in its third, for this year’s juveniles. So popular has it become that the team will head to this season’s yearling sales shopping for 80 to 100 members of four syndicates. 

Two of the three new syndicates will be Liberty Racing 2023 Kings and Liberty Racing 2023 Aces, both of which will comprise 22 shares that cost €27,500 each. Three or four colts will be bought for Kings, while colts and fillies will be combined in Aces. 

Fantastic Moon pictured as a yearlingCredit: BBAG

The other new offering is Liberty Racing 2023 Australia, with 12 to 15 shares costing €40,000 each to be sold. One half of the syndicate members will be from Australia and the other half will hail from Germany or elsewhere in Europe. 

The horses in that syndicate will not be sold as three-year-olds, but instead be transferred to Australia after the Deutsches Derby, provided they have the requisite ability, and will run there for Liberty Racing 2023 Australia until the end of their four-year-old season, with the Melbourne Cup firmly in the cross-hairs. 

“Liberty Racing is growing, and that’s the idea: to bring people to horses, enjoy the races together and live the dream,” says Baumgarten. “Generally speaking each syndicate has four or five horses, which I think is the right approach because if one becomes sick you have other chances to win races." 

He describes the make-up of the Liberty Racing syndicates as 60 per cent newcomers and 40 per cent existing owners. Investors come from various backgrounds, but are predominantly businesspeople and lawyers, as well as retired people with disposable income who might have thought about getting into racehorse ownership but weren’t sure how to go about it. 

“They like that someone else is buying the horses, liaising with the trainers and generally managing everything,” he says. “They would rather just be at the track and enjoy the race-day experience of being an owner, and that’s the service we provide.” 

Strong demand for places in the Liberty Racing syndicates has been fuelled by the venture being not just enjoyable, but also profitable in its first year – not that making money is guaranteed, or arguably should be expected, when paying to enjoy a hobby. 

“Everybody has 4.8 or five per cent of each horse,” he says. “Last year we sold Assistent for €400,000, Niagaro for €240,000, Weston for €240,000 and Meergott for €20,000 and there was around €200,000 in prize-money to share, so when everything was added up at the end of the season it worked out that those who had paid €25,000 got back near to €40,000. 

“We’ll see what happens with the second syndicate. Every horse is sold at the end of their three-year-old season unless a majority of shareholders want to stay in a horse for the four-year-old campaign, then each person can decide whether they want to stay on for one more year. 

“Just last week we received a big offer for Fantastic Moon, so we phoned the shareholders and told them there was the possibility of selling, but the decision was to keep him, so I returned to the agent and turned them down. It’s all done completely openly. We discuss everything, and decisions are made democratically unless there is a split, in which case I have the casting vote.” 

Liberty Racing might have been extremely successful in terms of entertaining and enriching its shareholders, but has it funnelled any new owners into other stables in Germany? 

“Some syndicate members have bought their own horses but it will be a long journey,” says Baumgarten. “The issue is that while the syndicate is so successful, many will want to stay in it. They might need a little more motivation to buy their own horses. 

“We have done it, though; we created two smaller syndicates for three shareholders who wanted to buy another horse together, and I think in future more newcomers will want to do the same, with one or two partners or even alone. We’ll see what happens. We can only try our best to get those new people into the sport.” 

Baden-Baden: "I’ve been speaking to them about being given a room like Highclere would have for its members at Ascot"Credit: Sabine Brose/galoppfoto.de

Naturally, most investors in Liberty Racing have been German to date, but Baumgarten is open to including members from all over Europe. Anyone thinking of dipping a toe into the country’s racing scene might be interested to know that the operation is considering creating another syndicate exclusively for newcomers, with shares in two horses costing €10,000 each, depending on how quickly the other four syndicates fill. 

Liberty Racing has had to professionalise quickly on the back of its rapid rise, and a company was recently formed to manage the syndicates, with administration and communication being expanded to cater to the greater number of investors. 

Now German racecourses have to catch up to cater for the upsurge in owners attending the track to cheer on their horses, but progress has already been made, Baumgarten insists. 

“It’s not easy for some of the older tracks to accommodate 50 people – 22 shareholders and their spouses and children – in the parade ring or in a space where they can socialise,” he says. "Baden-Baden has the facilities, and I’ve been speaking to them about being given a room like Highclere would have for its members at Ascot. 

"It’s okay, though, we are finding solutions. The tracks know they have to find new fans and owners and they like our idea, and have their doors open for us. If we have to pay a little extra for a space of our own, we are happy to do that too.” 

As for the colt who has put Liberty Racing’s name in lights in only its second year of syndication, he could embark on an ambitious overseas mission in the second half of the season. 

“Fantastic Moon will run in the Grosser Dallmayr-Preis at Munich at the end of the month,” says Baumgarten. “It’ll be a big challenge taking on older horses, and if he wins we’re thinking about going to the Irish Champion Stakes with him. 

"It’d be a huge step, no German horse has run in it since Sumitas 23 years ago and we know we’d be taking on great horses like Paddington, but we want to reach for the stars. 

“We’ll see. I think Fantastic Moon has improved even since the Derby, though. His trainer Sarah Steinberg’s horses usually get better with age and are at their best at four. Mendocino won the Grosser Preis von Baden and Quest The Moon was at his best at that age. She doesn’t hurry her horses and that could prove to be a big advantage for us.” 

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