The English page - Good crowds at Easter

Last weekend´s Easter racing saw action at several tracks and luckily there was much less rain in Germany than was the case in the U.K. and Ireland, although obviously the going was soft everywhere. Crowds were out in large numbers too, which is a positive sign for the big events to come. Nearly 8,000 showed up for Bremen´s Good Friday meeting, the largest crowd for many years here, but this was partly due to nostalgia as this was in all likelihood the last ever race meeting at this attractive north German track. The city of Bremen owns the property and wants to build much-needed housing on the land; there is a lot of opposition, including a petition aimed at making the city hold a referendum on the subject, but the chance of a reprieve seems slim.

This is a great shame as the track has hosted some top races over the years, and their Derby trial has been won by two subsequent winners of the Deutsches Derby in the last eleven years – Adlerflug and Wiener Walzer. This year´s edition, the main feature last Friday, was won by Gestüt Röttgen´s homebred Arcado  (Dalakhani), who made all the running to score in good style. He is entered in the Derby, however  is possibly not the main hope of his top stable – although their expected number one Erasmus (Reliable Man) now misses the whole of the 2018 after suffering a fracture of the sesamoid, which required an operation, successfully carried out at Newmarket.

Hanover´s Easter Monday meeting features two listed races, including a seven furlongs race transferred from Hoppegarten´s Sunday fixture, abandoned because of the frozen ground. This was won by Stall Biancolino´s Schäng (Contat), who finished best of all on the wide outside and gave four-times Czech champion jockey Jaromir Safar his first winner in Germany. Schäng is a very useful performer when the ground is soft at distances between six and seven furlongs and also won this race last year. He runs his best races when fresh and has now won first time out for the past three seasons. His next likely start is the Silberne Peitsche at Baden-Baden in two months´ time, which should be enough.

He started favourite, as did Dr. Christoph Berglar´s homebred Peace in Motion (Hat Trick) an hour later in the fillies and mares race over a mile. She also came with a strong late run to score by the same margin, one and a half lengths. She will probably go next for a Group Three at the end of the month at Düsseldorf; she was runner-up last year in the German 1,000 Guineas over that course and distance and must have a strong chance.

There were over 11,000 racegoers at Hanover and an amazing 16,000 at Cologne for their first fixture of the year, The listed race here  saw some of Germany´s better middle distance performers at the start. Veneto (New Approach) ran out a convincing winner under top weight for local trainer Andreas Suborics. He was enterprisingly ridden by Alexander Pietsch, who had also shown great tactical awareness when winning a Group Three on him last autumn. He could go up in distance and in class next for the Group Two Gerling-Preis at Cologne in early May; he will be meeting some of Germany´s crack performers there (see next paragraph), but receives weight from some of them and is no forlorn hope. One feature of the season so far Is the excellent form of the Cologne trainers; Suborics and Hickst are two examples, but Peter Schiergen, Karl Demme and Sarah Weis have sent out winners, and Henk Grewe is in amazing form, having already sent out 20 winners this year, more than half of them in France. The sand training track, completely renovated last year, seems to be paying dividends.

Also on the agenda at Cologne was the announcement of the German Horse of the Year for 2017, which marked the first official engagement of the newly elected Direktorium president Michael Vesper. The winner of the 60^th edition of this award, decided by public vote from a short list of three prepared by racing journalists, was Horst Pudwill´s Dschingis Secret (Soldier Hollow) by a surprising margin of 56% to 33% for Derby winner Windstoss (Shirocco) and 11% for dual Group One winner Guignol (Cape Cross). As the owner is in Hong Kong, the presentation was made to trainer Markus Kljug and breeder Helmut von Finck. Klug also trains Windstoss and stated that they could both start off their 2018 campaign in the Gerling-Preis, which is shaping up to be a very hot race.

Clearly there were some potentially smart three-year-olds seen out last weekend, although one feels that some of the top trainers, Peter Schiergen and Andreas Wöhler for example, are keeping their big guns under wraps for the time being. Grewe sent out both three-year-old winners at Hanover and certainly Gestüt Hachtsee´s homebred Taraja (High Chaparral), an own sister to the smart Tai Chi, now a promising young sire. looks one to follow. Wöhler did however have a nice winner on Tuesday at Mülheim, where Gestüt Ebbesloh´s homebred Wesenberg (Mastercraftsman) beat local hope Ninario (Areion) over a mile. That is likely to be his best distance, reported the trainer, who has entered him for the Mehl-Mülhens-Rennen (2,000 Guineas) – although he has several other possibles for that race.

Main event this weekend is Sunday´s Group Three Frühjahrs-Meile at Düsseldorf, the first German pattern race of 2018. There will be six runners, including the first four from last year: Wonnemond (Areion), Degas (Exceed and Excel), Diplomat (Teofilo) and Millowitsch (Sehrezad) finished in that order in 2017. The main difference this time is that Wonnemond is now penalized for winning a valuable race in Turkey; he meets Diplomat in four kilos (none pounds) worse terms, while Degas, who appeared a bit reluctant last year, has been gelded over the winter. However, much more significant, the two other runners are both trained by Wöhler and we expect his Qatari-owned Noor el Hawa (Makfi)  to win. He was an excellent runner-up, for the second year running, in the HH The Emirs Trophy in Doha, and this trip is much more suitable. His stablemate Cashman (Soldier of Fortune) is a strong frontrunner and could set it up nicely.

David Conolly-Smith