Derby speech by Lars-Wilhelm Baumgarten on Fantastic Moon's victory in the IDEE 154th German Derby for Liberty Racing 2021

It is a tradition in German horse racing for the owner of the Derby winner to deliver a speech on the eve of the Derby in the following year. Below you will find the speech given by LIBERTY RACING founder Lars-Wilhelm Baumgarten on July 6, 2024 on the occasion of Fantastic Moon's Derby victory in 2023.

Ladies and gentlemen,

honorable Hamburg society,


"Where there is love, the impossible becomes possible."

This wise quote from Buddha informs the spirit of this speech on the eve of the IDEE 155th German Derby here at the Hotel Vierjahreszeiten in Hamburg.

For those who don't know me, my name is Lars-Wilhelm Baumgarten ...

....and, yes, I can already see the beads of sweat on the board of the Hamburger Rennclub around its President Hans-Ludolf Matthiessen and the President of Deutscher Galopp Dr. Michael Vesper.... and most likely some others in the room, because they think they know me....

... as a merciless, harsh critic who will speak clear words with the power of the sword on controversial topics such as the Derby in Hamburg and horse racing in Germany....

I'm sorry to disapppoint you. Tonight, we'll be doing some breathing exercises.
So, lean back, relax and take a deep breath into your HEART, the Buddha experience before the Derby starts NOW.

And so I would like to refer to Buddha in my speech and focus on love and the impossible...

Historical achievements and real turning points always have something to do with believing in something and working on something. So it seemed impossible to make an airplane fly and to land on the moon...

And when I think of the moon, I think of July 2, 2023 when our 3-year-old colt Fantastic Moon won the German Derby and stepped into the footsteps of his sire Sea the Moon after a world-class ride by his jockey Rene Piechulek to thunderous cheers. This brilliant triumph made many dreams come true and was a real historical first. After the full moon the night before the Derby, the moon rose over Horn for the second time!

And Sarah Steinberg was the first woman to win as a trainer in 154 years of Derby history. As race announcer Marvin Schridde put it 100 meters before the post, it hit the nail on the famous head. "Is this Sarah Steinberg's finest hour?"

Yes - it was! And she, her partner Rene Piechulek and the entire Munich stable deserve great praise for their work. Because everything - I emphasize everything - has to be right for a Derby win. In addition to breeding at the stud, in this case with Count and Countess von Stauffenberg and their team, every day at the racing stable is an important day for the horse.

After all, the physical and mental health of a thoroughbred horse requires the attention of all helping hands from 5 a.m. until the evening. And anyone who knows Sarah Steinberg knows how much love she has for her horses and how much of a perfectionist she is in her Munich boutique racing stable, working with the 27 horses she looks after. And this is the only way such a victory is possible. "Because once you overdo it on a racehorse, you can't win races like this again."

It is the sensitivity and attentiveness to the thoroughbred horse as a creature that makes it so special. Moving around 500 kilos on four small pillars over the track at top speeds of up to 67 kilometers, breathing perfectly and at the same time having the will to win - that is the fascination of the gallop racehorse! Sarah's love of horses has made something very difficult possible here: of the few 3-year-old horses that she and her team prepare, one has won the Derby.

And it is only the belief in this love that keeps horse racing going.

The economic figures are alarming, not only in Germany, but above all there: 80 percent less betting turnover than in 2000, 100 fewer racehorses per year in the racing stables every year for 24 years now, an over-aged breeding population and a gigantic investment backlog of millions at the racing clubs, and not only at the facility in Horn, which is in need of renovation.

Since the costs for a racehorse in training have also risen well above inflation in recent years and the race prices have only risen minimally - but at least - we now have a situation where an owner in Germany has to write off 90% of the money he invests as expenses on average.

And to get a horse to the German Derby, today's maintenance costs are at least €70,000, not including the costs of purchase or purchase at the auction. All of this is one reason why the number of horses in training has also fallen significantly in 2023.

In addition to the costs, I see several other key reasons for the steadily declining number of horses in training. The cultural and historical significance of the horse itself has diminished considerably. Whereas at the beginning of the 19th century the horse dominated large parts of the military and agriculture, the horse was present in all areas of society afterwards. And so the horse played a much greater role in the history of mankind than it does today.

In addition to the costs and historical significance, the social advancement of humans is of course often a major driving force in their lives, which has long been possible in horse racing as the sport of mates and kings worldwide. I want to be where the important ones are - this motivation for people to invest in racehorses no longer applies today. In Germany, soccer arenas of the big cities tend to attract more members of the high society than a racecourse.

But what can help to achieve the impossible and set a tipping point:

Here, too, "Where there is love, the impossible becomes possible."

The idea of Liberty Racing was from the very first second to stop the downward spiral and find new owners for racing. And when Nadine Siepmann and I founded the first Liberty Racing syndicate in 2020, we were driven by two big desires: The dream of winning derbies, which we have both carried within us in different ways since our childhood days, and the will to infect others with it and to experience racehorses together with old and new horse racing fans. As a virus carrier of this sport and a fan of the Derby, you keep going through the course of a Derby in your dreams, reliving in images and sounds the idea that YOUR horse ignites the turbo down the home straight in Hamburg and draws past all the other rivals.

The impossible has come true!

The fact that this has already happened in the second year of our syndicates can only be attributed to love and the belief in miracles. After all, many of this country's great stud farms have been trying to win the race of races on the first Sunday in July in Hamburg for many decades, waiting year after year with their much larger crops for the big day. This made the moment when we were allowed to collect our Fantastic Moon from the racecourse as an owners' syndicate with 22 shareholders to the gigantic applause of the Hamburg crowd all the more grateful and historic. Truly historic moments for the trainer and us, given to us by the sport of horse racing and above all the 2023 Horse of the Year. Thank you Fantastic Moon!

And as we have already heard in the Derby speeches by the previous speakers, Dr. Stefan Oschmann and Georg Baron von Ullman, the child-self plays an essential role for the racehorse and the passion. The positive contacts you are exposed to as a child shapes the rest of your life and the emotional experiences you will have in this life. This is the success story of Walt Disney and one of the current problems of horse racing. Fewer racecourses in Germany, whole regions without stud farms and racecourses naturally means that, in addition to the cultural-historical reasons just mentioned, the rising costs and the fact that social advancement through the horse is no longer possible, fewer children are infected by the virus of horse racing.

For me as a Bad Harzburg child, the horse was part of my world of experience from childhood - race meetings  and stud farm shaped my existence. My first small betting successes, reports for the local newspaper about the race week, but also working at the totalizer to supplement my pocket money, all contributed to my childhood self and its goals and dreams for life. This is why it is so important for the sport of horse racing today to bring children to the racecourse with their parents, to bring them to the stables and to open the studs more than just once a year. Opening oneself up creates love and dreams of the impossible!

And if the sport of horse racing really wants to move towards a sustainable future despite the economically demotivating figures and the major challenges in terms of animal welfare and animal protection, it needs a new spirit: The spirit of love for the thoroughbred in all its facets. It is about much more than animal welfare.

How can the impossible become possible? You guessed it, right: with love! And that's why we all feel our hearts once again, breathe deeply into this force field, but not in such a way that your dress or shirt bursts please....

Even today and throughout the history of horse racing, everyone involved has taken great care of their thoroughbreds.

But the demands placed on the treatment of living beings, especially in sport, are now much more important in the new zeitgeist for the social acceptance of sport, but also for my inner conviction.

For everyone born in today's zeitgeist, the treatment of nature and living beings is understood in a new context. At the beginning of the 19th century, caning in school was a welcome educational measure, but other living beings were also exposed to this approach. But the era of corporal punishment and violence no longer has any place in a society with dignity and respect for living beings. So anyone who wants to make horse racing socially acceptable in the long term and wants to save the future of racing will not be able to avoid answering the question: what is real - I emphasize - "real" love for the racehorse?

Natural husbandry, light in the stalls, exercise, care, loving, non-violent treatment of the creature from birth to death and opening up the fascination to larger sections of the population must be looked at closely. Individual new owners, who invest large parts of their earned or inherited money in the purchase of racehorses, but also owner communities made up of many individual people who want to celebrate the dream of winning on the racetrack, of experiencing the racehorse in the stud and racing stable as their hobby, will pay much more attention to these attributes in the future. Which of course also applies to the sponsors and spectators.

For this reason, I say today - and this is not in agreement with my colleagues on the board of Deutscher Galopp and the owners' association for thoroughbred breeding and racing - on whose committees I have been working for five years now on the Herculean task of "saving the future of horse racing", everything we do and decide must focus completely and unconditionally on the thoroughbred horse.

Things that have always been done with horses as sporting equipment throughout history must all be questioned. The days of the whip and horse in war and agriculture are over. Any form of physical violence, including the whip to motivate the horse in the finish, will not contribute to a sustainable future. In order to survive and achieve the seemingly impossible, to overcome the current demotivating numbers that would lead to the end of racing, the horse can only achieve a new power in society with the full love of people.

It is also about EXPERIENCING the living being of the thoroughbred. People today, who have little connection with nature in big cities, concrete buildings and open-plan offices - preferably only via video conferencing - can experience wonders with a horse. Anyone who looks into the eyes of this thoroughbred horse, feels the breathing, perceives the curious sniffing of the horse - in other words, feels the horse - as compensation for an office day, will quickly feel sympathy for these magnificent, sensitive thoroughbreds - we must open all doors to make this EXPERIENCE and FEELING accessible to new people in racing stables and stud farms.

Just like the practice of zero doping that has been the norm in Germany for decades, we need courageous decisions based on love for the creature that question everything outdated and look at what the future of horse racing looks like. How can horses get more light in the stables, how can the horses' exercise in the paddock become part of everyday life?

And: How can the basic attitude that the horse is not just a piece of sports equipment, but has a wonderful soul, arrive in every racing stable, with every owner, trainer, jockey and employee in the racing stable and be implemented more strongly in the future!

Nadine and I were in Australia at the beginning of the year and visited Sam Freedman to see how the best horses in Australia spend their time in their paddock every day after their morning work. And I can tell you that Fantastic Moon has also spent happy hours in his paddock in Munich several times a week throughout his career.

All this should be part of the planning in all training quarters in Germany and will ultimately lead to the love of the thoroughbred creature creating new fans.

Because only with new fans, new owners, new breeders can the sport of horse racing in Germany carry its great successes in thoroughbred breeding into the next generation. To achieve this, owner communities like the one we experience at Liberty Racing are just as important as a new basic attitude in the minds of all - I emphasize - all those involved in racing.

And that will continue at Liberty Racing in 2024: we are setting up new syndicates again this year and believe in further great experiences with the wonderful racehorses. Join us if you are not yet an owner here in the hall. Love is what makes the impossible possible. There are more Derbies to be won in the coming years and those who enter now will experience joy, dreams and the hope of experiencing the 2026 Derby as an owner here in Hamburg.

However, I am thinking of a "NEW HAMBURG" 2026, because here too, love makes the impossible possible. Thousands of flowers greet visitors in their blaze of color, the entire site presents itself in a new guise full of beauty and radiance. A perfectly mowed lawn, great, contemporary, comfortable seating and the best culinary delights ensure great culinary delights for all those present. All Hamburgers want to be there again and run dirt-free in their best shoes and clothes on the new Hamburg racecourse. The photos and broadcasts of this go around the world.

In the end, it's all about the love of creation, aesthetics, sensitivity and strength of will that defines the thoroughbred. And in this context, the thoroughbred horse can also redefine social aspects in these politically and economically difficult times and set accents that have also played a major role in the naming of LIBERTY RACING: The will to win in freedom, the desire to compete with others, the joy of success, attention to detail, respect for creation - all of this can give people new impetus.

Especially as an owner, you have 95% failure and 5% magical moments in horse racing and when you have understood both - you gain 100% joy, love, gratitude and humility.

With this in mind, I wish all owners, breeders, jockeys and trainers and of course all 20 Derby horses all the best for tomorrow's 155th German Derby. I would like to thank the Hamburger Rennclub for organizing the race and tonight's event, which is essentially a volunteer effort that makes this evening and the race days possible for all of us.

It will be a great moment tomorrow afternoon when the gates open and the successor to Fantastic Moon is chosen. The whole of Germany is looking forward to a race of superlatives and a worthy Derby winner in 2024 - because you know: a thoroughbred horse can only win this race once in a lifetime, as a 3-year-old on the first Sunday in July in Hamburg Horn. May the best horse win and receive the prize of honor from sponsor Albert Darboven and his company IDEE.

And dream of the impossible tonight, so that tomorrow Marvin Schridde celebrates YOUR horse loudly as the winner on the final furlong of the Horn straight.

And of course Liberty Racing dreams of defending the title tomorrow with a long shot: Our 3-year-old colt PALLADIUM has been flying to victory in our dreams for days now .... because you know what makes the impossible possible: LOVE.


On that note
Hals und Bein

Photo: Liberty Racing founders Lars-Wilhelm Baumgarten and Nadine Siepmann with Fantastic Moon's trainer Sarah Steinberg and winning jockey Rene Piechulek as well as Association President Dr. Michael Vesper at the 2023 Championships ceremony.