Plenty of talking points in pedigree of Deutsches Derby hero Laccario

Last month's impressive Union-Rennen scorer Laccario ran out a fluent one and a quarter-length winner of the Deutsches Derby at Hamburg on Sunday, with principal market rival Django Freeman (by Campanologist) in second and Accon (by Camelot) another length and a quarter back in third.

Laccario, trained by Andreas Wohler for owner-breeder Manfred Ostermann of Gestut Hof Ittlingen, has a pedigree chock-full of talking points.

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First and foremost, he is a rare good horse for his sire Scalo, another Hof Ittlingen homebred who struck at Group 1 level in the Preis von Europa in 2010. Scalo originally stood at Haras du Logis Saint-Germain in Normandy but has spent the past two seasons covering at Haras de Gelos near Pau in south-west France.

In fact, from four crops of racing age, Scalo has sired 14 winners from 28 runners on the Flat in Europe and Laccario is his only black-type horse.

Scalo is by the great Lando, a homebred for Ittlingen who defeated Monsun and Sternkonig to win one of the best ever Deutsches Derbys in 1993 and went on to add six further Group/Grade 1 successes to his CV, including in the Japan Cup.

One year after Lando landed the Classic at Hamburg, his half-brother Laroche repeated the feat and the pair crossed swords on several occasions, most memorably when finishing first and second – the older horse taking the laurels – in the Group 1 Preis der Privatbankiers Merck Finck & Co at Dusseldorf in 1995.

With Lando and Laroche's dam Laurea, a placed daughter of the Sharpen Up stallion Sharpman, having served the stud so well, it is understandable that Ostermann would seek to double up her influence in the pedigrees of some of the Hof Ittlingen stock, and indeed Laccario is inbred 3x3 to the mare.

He is out of the winning Lomitas mare Laccata, who is out of La Donna, a daughter of Shirley Heights and Laurea who finished third in the Preis der Diana.

La Donna's unraced Acatenango daughter Lavorna is the dam of German Listed winners Laviva and Lucarelli, while another of her daughters, the Sadler's Wells mare Leonia, has been bred from by Aidan and Annemarie O'Brien's Whisperview Trading and has produced the multiple Irish winners Beach Of Falesa and Ineffable.

Laurea is also ancestress of Italian champion three-year-old filly Lovelyn and Canadian Grade 2 winner and US Grade 1 runner-up Lauro, a son of Monsun who has been in strong demand as a jumps stallion at Hayes Stud in County Meath in the past two seasons thanks to his son Dlauro.

An easy winner between the flags at Bellharbour, Dlauro was sold to Joseph O'Brien for £410,000 at last year's Tattersalls Cheltenham Festival Sale and won a Punchestown bumper by 11 lengths on his rules debut in May.

Laccario makes it five Deutsches Derby winners to trace back to the 1956 German 1,000 Guineas and Oaks heroine Liebeslied, who is also the ancestress of the 1971 scorer Lauscher and 1987 victor Lebos.

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