The English page - "Pure adrenaline" in Munich

The German turf season for 2017 is certainly ending with a bang. Only a week after Baden-Baden´s October Meeting we had a good card at Hanover, with three black type races, followed three days later by the race of the year at Munich, with Krefeld to follow this weekend with two more group races. However after that the season ends with a whimper, with only one more turf meeting – at Dresden on November 22^nd- and otherwise we have nothing but low-level racing on the sand tracks at Neuss and Dortmund until next spring.

It is always positive when young trainers and small owners come up trumps, and Hanover´s main race was a Group Three for fillies and mares and won by Ostana (Contat) trained by Daniel Paulick and owned and bred by his father Ralf. Young Paulick, 23, is one of the youngest trainers in the country and has just twelve horses, all family-owned. Ostana is easily the best of them; she has now won her last five races and her handicap rating has gone up by no less than 28 kilos. Ridden by Wladimir Panov, she held on well from Godolphin´s French-trained Agathonia (Street Cry), who had been runner-up to her the previous start as well.

The two listed races at Hanover were both won by raiders from the U.K.  First the listed race for two-year-old fillies was won by Dark Liberty (Dark Angel), trained by Simon Crisford and well ridden by Maxim Pecheur; she had good handicap form at home and that proved sufficient. Later Franny Norton made all the running to win a listed race for older fillies and mares over a mile with Peach Melba (Dream Ahead), trained by Mark Johnston, who always has a good line to German form and had found the right race here. Both these winners came up the stands side rail, as did most of the other winners on that rainy day, and this is usually the case at Hanover (as at Baden-Baden) when the going is soft.

There is no such problem at Munich, where the track is generally regarded as the best and fairest in Germany. The Pastorius- Grosser Preis von Bayern, the final Group One race of the 2017 season in Europe, had attracted a strong field on paper and in the event it turned to be the by far the best race in Germany this year, in terms of class, of ratings and of excitement. The move to Munich´s traditional All Saints´ Day fixture has proved to be inspired and the race will clearly be the highest-rated of the season here. It has now been run four times on this date and, amazingly, trainer Jean-Pierre Carvalho has won all four editions with horses owned by the Ullmann/ Schlenderhan stable.

This time it was Guignol (Cape Cross), from one of the best Ullmann families ,who won for the second time, once again making all the running. It was a great piece of training by Carvalho and an excellent ride by Filip Minarik. It looked beforehand as if only four of the nine runners had a serious chance of winning – Guignol, Iquitos (Adlerflug), Dschingis Secret (Soldier Hollow) and the supplemented French raider Waldgeist (Galileo). Guignol had defeated Iquitos in the main events at both Baden-Baden´s Spring and Summer Meetings, while Dschingis Secret, the highest-rated horse in Germany, had left them both behind him at Hamburg´s Derby Meeting. Waldgeist had just been touched off in the Prix du Jockey Club and had run an excellent fourth in the Irish Derby, only a length and a half behind Capri, Cracksman and Wings of Eagles, form that reads very well now.

Guignol led into the straight, where his three obvious opponents – all of whom had been held up near the back of the field- all began to make rapid improvement. Two furlongs out and the wheat had been separated from the chaff, only the four principals were still in contention. Waldgeist was the first challenger, in the centre of the track, with Dschingis Secret and Iquitos both charging on the outside. However Guignol kept on gamely and was able to hold off Iquitos´ late surge to win by a neck, with Dschingis Secret another neck away in third and Waldgeist weakening in the final furlong into fourth. “Guignol is very courageous,” said the winning trainer after the race, “but I was afraid that Iquitos and Dschingis Sécret were going to swallow us up in the final furlong – the last 100 metres was pure adrenaline!”

It was a great race and a fitting climax to the German Racing Champions Series, with this win giving victory in the series to Guignol. Possibly Dschingis Secret would have preferred a right-handed track- he has never yet won going left-handed, while his two rivals prefer it this way, but there is clearly very little between the three. Guignol and Iquitos have now finished 1-2 in three of Germany´s top races this year and are due for a showdown at the end of the month in Tokyo, as they are both to run in the Japan Cup. “We are looking forward to Tokyo and meeting Iquitos again, said Carvalho, “they are old friends now.” The latter´s trainer Hans-Jürgen Gröschel was optimistic: “We´ll beat Guignol for sure in Japan!”

Looking forward to Krefeld this Sunday, the two main events have cut up and now have only six runners each. Markus Klug, who despite Dschnigis Secret´s third place in Munich, is still in great form, can win them both. He has three of the six runners in the Herzog-von-Ratibor Rennen, the last big race of the season here for two-year-olds: Destino (Soldier Hollow), a full brother to Dschingis Secret), Weltstar (Soldier Hollow), a half-brother to German Derby winner Windstoss (Shirocco) and Star Max (Maxios), all three very easy winners last time out and now stepping up in class. He can also take the Niederrhein-Trophy over ten furlongs with Colomano (Cacique), who is certainly overdue for a big win after a couple of unlucky runs.