The English page - Classics are coming

Easter has been and gone and we are now approaching the second and main part of the season. The Cheltenham Festival, the highlight in the U.K., is over but the Irish equivalent at Punchestown is due next week. Germany, sadly has virtually no N.H. at all these days, but racing on the flat is now getting into top gear. We have already had listed races and last Sunday we had the first German group race of 2023, the Kalkmann Frühjahrs-Preis over a mile at Düsseldorf. There was a good turnout for this Group Three event with 14 runners, including one from France and it ended with a most exciting finish with See Hector (Counterattack) finishing like a train to just hold the late charge on the line to get up on the line and score bý a short head from Gestüt Park Wiedingen´s homebred Western Soldier (Soldier Hollow) with Calif (Areion) closer third. 

The big races now follow in rapid succession. This week we had the Craven meeting at Newmarket with the first British classic trials with equivalent races in Ireland. The Craven Stakes itself, the main trial for Newmarket´s 2,000 Guineas is run today (Thursday). We have two vary similar races at the weekend –Cologne´s Carl-Jaspers Preis (usually known as the Gerling-Preis), and the John Porter Stakes at Newbury, both Group Two races over one and a half miles, so that several horses were entered in both. Peter Schiergen can take the German race with with Tünnes (Guiliani) when ended 2022 on a high with a very easy success over this trip in a Munich Group One. A possible opponent could be the filly Wagnis (Adlerflug) in receipt of a lot of weight.

Next weekend promises to be even more exciting. Next Friday has the Busch-Memorial at Krefeld, usually the best trial for the German 2,000 Guineas; The Sunday features the Prix Ganay az Longchamp, rhe frirst Group One of the season in France. Monday is May Day and all German eyes will be fixed on Munich and the Bavarian Classic, one of the best trials for The German Derby. And the following weekend sees the German 1,000 Guineas as well as the equivalent races in France and at Newmarket

Many celebrated horse races have traditional dates which have been kept for two centuries or more. The Grand has been going strong since 1840 on the second Saturday in April, last in fact; the “race the stops a nation” (Melbourne Cup) on the second Tuesday in November. The German Derby is run the second Sunday in July while we certainly expect any American readers we might have to identify the world famous event to be staged on the first Saturday in May – the Kentucky Derby no less – to coincide this year with both the Italian Guineas and the Bavarian Classic, what used to be called the Grosser Hertie Preis International. Those were the days!

David Conolly-Smith