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The English page: Victory of Darius Racing's Parvaneh in Group Three Schwarzgold-Rennen at Cologne

Autor: 

David Conolly-Smith

TurfTimes: 

Ausgabe 414 vom Donnerstag, 21.04.2016

„Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee“: Muhammad Ali's famous description of his boxing technique seems also appropriate for the victory of Darius Racing's Parvaneh (Persian for butterfly) in last Sunday´s Group Three Schwarzgold-Rennen at Cologne.  Marc Lerner kept the daughter of Holy Roman Emperor at the back of the field, floating along as Whole Lotta Rosie (Tiger Hill) set a furious pace up front. She ran out of steam two furlongs out, at which stage Parvaneh was still plumb last. The favourite Double Dream (Lawman) then took it up, but only flattered briefly, as La Merced, in Fährhof´s first colours and another daughter of Tiger Hill, came through to lead at the distance and looked the likely winner, with Dhaba (Areion), last year´s Winterkönigin, making good headway, but by now Lerner had switched Parvaneh to the outside and she was really buzzing. Showing excellent speed, she overtook La Merced inside the final half furlong to score by half a length, with Dhaba the same distance away third.

This looked a strong race on paper and it was undeniably a smart performance by the winner. The handicapper has raised her to GAG 93 (i.e. 106) which makes her currently the top-rated  German three-year-old filly. It is not yet quite clear where she will run next. She is entered in the French fillies´ classics, but trainer Waldemar Hickst indicated that he would prefer to go for the domestic equivalents. Holger Faust, racing manager for Darius Racing, pointed out that she is also in both the German 2,000 Guineas (Mehl-Mülhens-Rennen, Cologne, May 16th – she is in fact the only filly entered in that race) and the German 1,000 Guineas at Düsseldorf on June 5th and that she could in theory go for both.

Parvaneh was bred in Ireland by Douglas Taylor. She is an own sister to the smart Mehdi, who was third in the UAE 2,000 Guineas and also earned a lot of money by being placed in two of the big Tattersalls Millions sales races. Her dam College Fund Girl (Kahyasi) is a half-sister to Lennox Strakes winner Nayyir, while the next dam Pearl Kite (Silver Hawk) also threw Dubai City of Gold winner Sky Hunter and Coronation Cup runner-up Highest. Parvaneh was sent to the Newmarket sales as a yearling but bought back for 55,000 guineas; half a year later she fetched a much better sum, 175,000 euros, at the Arqana breeze-up, when she was knocked down to the HFTB agency (i.e. Holger Faust).

He was bidding for his client Darius Racing, the nom de course of Dr. Stefan Oschmann and his wife Sharpar. Dr. Oschmann is the CEO of the pharmaceutical giant Merck, while his wife is Iranian, and they choose Persian names for their runners. They are certainly the most interesting newcomers to German racing, having only really been involved for the past five years, but they now own 26 horses in training, spread between seven trainers.

Parvaneh was not the only three-year-old to improve their classic prospects at Cologne on Sunday. Gestüt Röttgen´s Degas (Exceed and Excel) won a maiden in good style, and looks a real Mehl-Mülhens-Rennen candidate; he was placed in all his four starts last year, including when runner-up in the Preis des Winterfavoriten, and showed that he had trained on with this convincing success. On pedigree he is most unlikely to stay beyond a mile, but he has definite prospects of making the grade over a mile. He is trained at Röttgen by Markus Klug, whose three-year-olds have been flying this month, and he also saddled Gestüt Wittekindshof´s homebred filly La Dynamite (Dylan Thomas) to win on her debut over eleven furlongs, and she looked another one to be followed. Obviously stamina is no issue here; her dam La Blue (Bluebird) won the German 1,000 Guineas and was a miler pure and simple, but this is the family of such top mile and a half performers as Lomitas and Lagunas. She is expected to run next in the Diana-Trial at Hoppegarten.

The series of classic trials continues this weekend with Krefeld´s Dr. Busch-Memorial on Sunday the main feature. This race is invariably won by one of the top colts of his generation in Germany, and numerous winners have gone on to classic success. Darius Racing has another iron in the fire with the Andreas Löwe-trained Jarahi (Lope de Vega), an easy winner this year on the all-weather track at Dortmund and then over the course and distance of Sunday´s race. He is taking quite a leap in class here, and as a gelding is in any case not eligible for the classics. He cannot be totally ignored, but is meeting some very tough opposition here.

Notable among them are Andreas Wöhler´s pair Noor Al Hawa (Makfi) and Volcancito (Myboycharlie); the former is the choice of stable jockey Eduardo Pedroza and can probably be preferred for a trainer who won the race last year with Karpino (Cape Cross), who went on to take the Mehl-Mülhens-Rennen in impressive style before a setback took him off the track for the rest of the season. Markus Klug also has two possible runners, El Loco (Lope de Vega), the choice of the stable´s main jockey Adrie de Vries, and Millowitsch (Sehrezad), the winningmost German two-year-old in 2015. A threat to all is locally-trained Parthenius (Soldier Hollow), an own brother to 2012 Deutsches Derby winner Pastorius. Parthenius won last autumn´s Herzog von Ratibor-Rennen at this track by a nose from El Loco, with Parvaneh four lengths away in third, and that is arguably the best form on offer here.

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