Meet the BBAG auctioneer who owns an award-winning gin and a very special foal

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Here he talks to BBAG auctioneer Alexander Franke about his last-born foal by Adlerflug - subscribers can get more great insight from Martin every Monday to Friday.

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The industry figure who is the subject of today’s Good Morning Bloodstock email inhabits the intersection of the venn diagram of what I suspect will be many readers’ main passions in life: racing, bloodstock and booze.

Alexander Franke wears a remarkably wide range of hats. He is a well-known broadcaster in Germany, a racecourse presenter who will be busy during Baden-Baden’s ‘Grosse Woche’ meeting this week, a BBAG auctioneer preparing for the company’s yearling sale tomorrow, and an award-winning gin distiller. Oh, and he also owns the last-born foal by Adlerflug.

So Nick Luck really needs to pull his socks up if he is going to maintain his reputation as the busiest man in racing, and start brewing some real ale or fermenting wine after recording his podcast each day.

I first met Alexander on my recent grand tour of Germany. His GINSTR brand (pronounced ‘gin star’, the STR suffix being the airport code for his beloved home city of Stuttgart) was represented by a pop-up bar at the gala celebration of 200 years of German racing at the Hotel Adlon in Berlin and also at Hoppegarten racecourse.

It would have been a dereliction of journalistic duty not to sample the gin and tonic, and not to repeat the test several times to make sure my first impression was correct, and I’m pleased to report it was very good – pleasantly citrusy and smooth. Those readers who have seen me in the bar after the ITBA awards and know that I’m not exactly discriminating in my choice of tipple needn’t take my word for it, as it’s officially the best gin in the world for a G&T.

“It started out as a hobby with my business partner and best buddy Markus Escher, and in the beginning we made 700 bottles a year – about two bottles a day – and that was fine with us, we had some success doing that,” says Alexander.

“Then in 2018 we were invited to the International Wine and Spirit Competition at the Guildhall in London, where we were competing against 600 different brands from 90 countries, and we came out number one of all the gins for gin and tonic – it was like Torquator Tasso winning the Arc, we were outsiders against all the big names.

“I thought it would be great if we came away from the event with a bronze or silver medal, for which you need to receive 80 or 90 points out of 100 from 400 judges, but we got a gold medal, which is for 95 points or more, and came out best of all with 98.5 points.

“Everything changed after that. We received lots of coverage in all the major German newspapers and TV shows, and even featured in the international press such as the South China Morning Post. We’ve gone from a little company run by just two people producing 700 bottles a year to a staff of 73 people producing 180,000 bottles a year.”

Alexander and his business partner have resisted several offers to sell the GINSTR brand to some of the behemoths of the alcoholic beverage industry.

“We’re still an independent company and it would be very hard for us to sell, as it was born out of a hobby and the gin is still produced on Markus’s parents’ winery, so it’s a real family affair,” he says.

“We’re just two best friends making gin, who happen to have made a success of it. I always think that if you have an exceptionally good racehorse, you shouldn’t sell it unless you really need to. Besides which, the gin business allows me to maintain my little breeding hobby, as that obviously costs a lot of money.”

The “little breeding hobby” is no dilettantish dabbling, as the two broodmares he owns and boards at Gestüt Ohlerweiherhof have serious credentials. Annie De Vega is a winning daughter of Lope De Vega and Oh So Sharp Stakes third Annie’s Fortune, and is in foal to Waldgeist, while Morethanbeautiful is an unraced daughter of Tai Chi closely related to dual French Classic hero Brametot and the mighty Monsun, and is in foal to Isfahan.

It’s Morethanbeautiful who is the dam of the final foal by Adlerflug, a son of In The Wings who supplied the likes of Torquator Tasso, Alenquer and In Swoop and had just reached wider renown when he died suddenly in April 2021. The youngster in question – who is very much not for sale – is a chestnut filly born in March and already named Mona Liza.

“It was actually a hard decision to go to Adlerflug with the mare, as she’s well bred but unraced due to some difficulties she had when she was two, and we bought her for a very small price,” says Alexander. “The covering fee that year was €16,000, which is a lot of money as I’m not a big stud or a rich man – gin business aside!

Alexander Franke's foal is the last born by AdlerflugCredit: Marc Ruehl (marcruehl.com)

“Then when we decided to take the plunge it wasn’t easy to get her into Adlerflug, as they ummed and ahhed saying his book was full, she was unraced and there wasn’t enough black type close up in her pedigree, but luckily I’m a good seller and in the end I pushed the right buttons and they said okay, let’s do it.

“Mona Liza is so special to us. She’s our little diamond, perfect in every way, in terms of looks and pedigree, especially as Adlerflug has been so successful when crossed with Monsun in the past.”

Morethanbeautiful has produced one earlier foal, a yearling colt by Isfahan, and the name chosen for him by Alexander will likely make one half of the readership swoon at the romance of it and the other half snarl at the ridiculously high standards being set.

“He was a present to my girlfriend when I proposed to her,” says Alexander, who met fiancée Victoria when she was working as a hostess presenting prizes to winning connections at Baden-Baden racecourse. “I showed her the little foal, and she said ‘wow, he’s so cute, what’s he called?’ so I told her to look at the sign on the stable door and she saw his name was Marry Me.”

If you’re thinking to yourself Alexander has led a rather unusual life, you haven’t heard the half of it yet, as he was also a contestant on the German version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? eight years ago, and funded the purchase of his first racehorse, the Soldier Hollow colt Amazing Soldier, from his €64,000 winnings.

Who better to ask, then, whether tomorrow’s BBAG yearling sale might see the million-euro barrier broken for the first time in its history, with €820,000 the current record price for Sea The Stars fillies sold in 2019 and 2020? Other German industry members and commentators have expressed a fervent belief – even a little confidence – that it could happen this year.

“We hope so,” says Alexander, who will be wielding the gavel in the BBAG auction complex near the racecourse. “It’s such an excellent catalogue this year, with a lot of our best breeders choosing to sell all their yearlings here instead of abroad, and it contains more lots by the most internationally in-demand stallions than usual.

“I’ll be nervous as the yearling sale is so important and there’s so much money at stake. I’m always very proud when one of the horses I sold wins for the first time or becomes famous. I always make sure to text the buyers and say ‘congratulations, it was me auctioneering’. They probably don’t care at all, but it pleases me – they feel a little like my own horses!”

It’s hard not to warm to Alexander, and not just because he was dispensing free G&Ts in Berlin the other week. I just can’t help being a bit jealous, though, that at the age of 38 he’s achieved all he has in one year less than I’ve been on this planet.

Still, he probably doesn’t have an outlet to say whatever he wants to thousands of people in the racing world like I do, does he? Oh no wait, of course he does, and he had Frankie Dettori as a guest on his VollHorsed podcast last week. I give up. Pass me the gin.

What do you think?

Share your thoughts with other Good Morning Bloodstock readers by emailing gmb@racingpost.com

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Good Morning Bloodstock is our latest email newsletter. Martin Stevens, a doyen among bloodstock journalists, provides his take and insight on the biggest stories every morning from Monday to Friday

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