“Our great vision is to run York Stutteri as a place that can be regarded as a focal point for thoroughbred breeding, where know-how and service combined with state-of-the-art facilities and the central location come together as a greater whole”.
York Stutteri offers a professional platform for breeders, where every task is handled by the stud’s own staff. That includes preparing broodmares for covering, a stallion station with quality stallions, raising foals, preparing yearlings for the sales and pre-training, foaling and of course the daily boarding and care.
– Karina and Alexander Elsass
Karina and Alexander Elsass are well on the way to realising their vision at York Stutteri.
Karina and Alexander are busy. Running one of Denmark’s largest thoroughbred studs is hard work, and the business has to add up. There is plenty to see to. And York Stutteri is not only a stud in the ordinary sense. It is a stud business. A full service horse hotel. The whole palette is on offer.
Karina and Alexander Elsass receive us in the middle of their work with the many thoroughbreds. They are dressed practically and warmly. That makes sense when you work with horses, and especially when we are visiting them on one of the coldest days of the year. We are all looking forward to it getting warmer. And we are looking forward to going racing again. But a bit of horse talk does a lot of good to pass the waiting time.
Karina and Alexander run the stud themselves, but they have two women to help them in the stables, Eva and Rikke, as well as Henning, who looks after the fields in particular. In addition they have Ulla part-time, who acts as the stud’s secretary and bookkeeper.
York Stutteri has 100 tønder land of ground. Some of it grass, and they make their own hay. There is also good help to be had from Alexander’s mother and father, Kiddy and Nick Elsass. Both of them turn up shortly after we arrive. They help out in many ways.
One of Nick’s regular jobs is the evening and night feed, but he also helps in the office, and he acts as a sounding board for Alexander on an ongoing basis. Kiddy is the only one with a green thumb in the family, which also includes Emma and Oliver, Karina and Alexander’s children.
The Elsass family lives in two large separate yellow houses at the idyllic Stumpedyssegård. The land was bought and the houses and stables built in 1999. Everything blends beautifully into the surrounding landscape. Already at the entrance you sense a particular atmosphere. It continues when you reach the main buildings, the stables and the large indoor school. It is smart. It is clean. It is well run. That impression is repeated when you visit the well-kept stables.
A FOCAL POINT FOR THOROUGHBRED BREEDING
Karina and Alexander took over the running of York Stutteri on 1 October 2010 after a difficult period for Kiddy and Nick Elsass in the wake of the financial crisis.
It ended with Kiddy and Nick selling Sjælsølund, where they lived, and moving to Stumpedyssegård. The warmbloods and most of the thoroughbreds were sold, but they steered the ship through the storm.
The drive was there, and the love of racing remained. Karina and Alexander backed them up, and Alexander was given the chance to realise his dream of creating a professional focal point for thoroughbred breeding. A dream that is realised, among other ways, when the Scandinavian Open Yearling Sale is held at York Stutteri every year.
THE PRINCE ON THE WHITE HORSE
Karina and Alexander were both working for Brian Wilson when they fell in love. One day Karina came riding into the yard. Alexander saw her, and he was lost immediately.
Karina is not a prince but a princess, and the horse was not white – but all the same. That is how Alexander tells the story of how they met, while sending a loving glance in Karina’s direction. It led to a wedding in 2007.
Alexander worked at the Irish National Stud, Karina for John Oxx, and later there was a spell at a stud in Australia. So they know what it is all about, and Alexander is in addition a trained marketing consultant.
THE FAMILY BOND IS STRONG
Kiddy and Nick Elsass own Stumpedyssegård, which is named after a 5,000-year-old Viking grave, a stumpedysse, that is to say a short dolmen. York Stutteri, which is named after the legendary stallion Richard Of York, is run by Karina and Alexander Elsass, and besides the two of them Kiddy and Nick sit on the board.
FOUNDED IN 1992 AT BREGNERØDGÅRD
York Stutteri was founded in 1992 at Bregnerødgård by Kiddy and Nick Elsass. The stud has been the leading Danish thoroughbred breeder ten times.
York has bred more than 200 horses, who have won more than 250 races. Among the better known are the Derby winners Just Pile It and Tigress Eleven (bred by The Handsome Foursome), Lady Clementine, who was a feature race winner herself and in the paddocks is the dam of, among others, the Derby winner Sir Henry, as well as the stud’s first millionaire Blue Mary.
Among the stallions, Academy Award, who was owned together with Stutteri Hjortebo, deserves a particular mention.
The family bond is strong – you notice it immediately, and it has undoubtedly been strengthened by the trials they have been through.
SMALL CHILDREN HAVE TO BE PICKED UP AND DROPPED OFF
Teasing remarks fly through the air between father and son. That is a healthy sign. Two families live at Stumpedyssegård, but they function as one family. Three generations together. That has many advantages, not least when there are small children who have to be picked up and dropped off.
THREE STALLIONS
There is plenty going on in the stables. This is a transitional period. The three stallions standing at York Stutteri, Binary File, Juniper Tree and Wilshire Boulevard, have not started covering yet, but it is coming soon – and the appetite is there.
Several horses in training have spent their winter holiday at York Stutteri. Most of them have just left the stud to return to their trainers.
Finally, several broodmares have foaled or are about to. While we drink our coffee Karina seems a little restless. The television is switched off, and she cannot follow what is happening in the stables.
Around The Corner, who was second in the Danish Oaks, is expecting her first foal and is due shortly. Alexander turns on the television, and the conversation can continue. Karina is content.
WHAT MAKES THE STUD SOMETHING SPECIAL
York Stutteri itself owns only a handful of the broodmares boarded there. And that makes the stud something special. Something innovative. They look after other people’s horses.
Many owners carry a dream of becoming breeders themselves, but lack the knowledge, the experience, the space and the time to do it. York solves that task for them.
Here they have the facilities and the necessary know-how. They also raise foals for owners who have invested in foals and ask Karina and Alexander to raise them until they are ready for sale or for going into training. Now and then they are also asked to pick out a good foal.
THERE IS PLENTY GOING ON IN THE STABLES
That arrangement almost certainly rules out our seeing York Stutteri as champion breeder of the year in the future. In return they can take pleasure in all the racehorses that have been born and raised at York Stutteri, or that have been bought abroad as foals and raised at York Stutteri.
The first category includes one of this year’s Derby favourites, Sømkongen Carlras, who is bred by Stutteri Ras, but whose dam Dirtybird is boarded at York Stutteri and where Sømkongen Carlras was raised at the stud.
And in the second category we find, among others, the dual Oaks winner Elektra Art and the winter favourite Daurehøj Carlras. Both were bought as foals abroad, but raised at York Stutteri.
THE STALLIONS COMPLEMENT EACH OTHER WELL
As already mentioned, three stallions stand at York Stutteri, and they complement each other well, Alexander believes.
Binary File by Nureyev out of Binary by Rainbow Quest is owned by the Elsass family, and he is the only one of the three with runners already. Binary File won feature races himself on dirt, Pramms Memorial (L) at Jägersro, as well as on turf, Marit Sveaas Minneslöp (Gr.3) at Øvrevoll.
At stud he is the sire of, among others, the Klampenborg favourite The Kicker, the Derby runner-up and Oaks winner Summertime, who is now in the paddocks, as well as one of the favourites for this year’s Danish Derby, Sømkongen Carlras.
Juniper Tree started at stud at York in 2015, and the yearling barn at York is full of promising stock by Juniper Tree. He is by the world’s leading sire, Galileo, and out of the five-time Group 1 winner Alexander Goldrun by Gold Away.
Juniper Tree was third on his racecourse debut behind the subsequent English and Irish Derby winner Australia, but an injury put an end to the prospects of a big racing career.
“WE DO NOT SELL YEARLINGS, WE SELL DREAMS”
Juniper Tree is owned by a triumvirate consisting of the Rasmussen, Nørgaard and Elsass families. Both Alexander and Karina stress several times during our conversation the close cooperation with Carsten Nørgaard (Stald Seeland) and Cai Rasmussen (Stald Ras) and their significance not only for Karina and Alexander and the Elsass family, but for Danish racing as a whole.
The latest addition is the very well made Wilshire Boulevard, owned by the Flemming Velin family. He is a three-parts brother to the Group 1 winner Zoffany. “Champion First Season Sire” and one of the hottest stallions in Europe.
Wilshire Boulevard is by the Grand Criterium (Gr.1) winner Holy Roman Emperor and out of Tyranny by Machiavellian. Wilshire Boulevard was a group race winner himself at The Curragh and later fourth in the Gran Criterium (Gr.1) at Longchamp. The first foals by Wilshire Boulevard will be seen this year.
SCANDINAVIAN OPEN YEARLING SALE HAS MADE A GOOD START AT YORK
Three years ago the Scandinavian Open Yearling Sale was relaunched and moved back to York Stutteri. It was a success with record turnover, and the success has continued in the years since and has given the yearling sale a lift in quality.
Investing in a racehorse is a big decision, and that is why it has always been important to Alexander that a bloodstock sale takes place in surroundings that make you want to spend money.
Or as Nick Elsass puts it: “We do not sell yearlings, we sell dreams.”
York Stutteri has everything going for it with its location in beautiful natural surroundings and, on top of that, within a reasonable distance of Copenhagen.
Besides providing the indoor school and stabling, the stud is now also responsible for sponsors and hospitality. Dansk Galop runs the sale, and as its managing director Peter Knudsen said after the last sale, York’s staging of it is deeply professional.
WHAT ABOUT THE FUTURE?
Immediately before Karina and Alexander took over the running of York Stutteri, a private syndicate bought Mingun, a half-brother to Kingmambo, and stood him at York.
Expectations of Mingun were sky-high, but they were not met, and Mingun has since been sold to Tunisia. It was something of a punch to the stomach that almost knocked the wind out of us, Alexander says. He was a disappointment as a stallion in Denmark and a financial setback. Not the best of beginnings.
Today there is optimism at York. They have good stallions standing there, and the family is very optimistic about the 16 yearlings that currently have their home at York.
There are also several new and promising broodmares expecting their first foals. Alexander mentions, among others, the Duke Of Marmalade daughter Annaboda, who won Mowerinaløb and Norsk Oaks and who has just had a colt foal by Born To Sea.
There is also the outstanding mare Tatoosh, who also won Mowerinaløb as well as the Fawzia Stakes three times. Tatoosh is in foal to Juniper Tree.
Generally both father and son are pleased that tote betting is now being liberalised. It brings fresh oxygen, but when that has run its course it is important that a sustainable, long-term solution for survival has been found, Alexander says.
The work gloves have to go on. Racing has to be able to stand on its own feet, and it is absolutely necessary that betting picks up, Nick adds. We live off the betting.
Both of them are following the debate currently running on GalopSport about breeders’ conditions, among other things. They are in favour of new thinking in that area, including giving imports access to all the classic races at Klampenborg Galopbane.
But it is important that it is done in a considered and gradual way, so that the conditions for Danish breeding are not wrecked, Alexander concludes.
