Breeding & Racing in Germany
David Conolly-Smith: www.galoppfoto.de - Frank SorgeIn order to be of assistance to our growing number of readers from abroad, we are with immediate effect publishing in every issue of Turf Times an English page, giving in compact form all the latest racing and breeding news from Germany in English. It will be written by the well-known racing journalist David Conolly-Smith, who has lived in Germany for many years. He is the German representative of the International Racing Bureau and writes regularly on German racing and breeding for the Racing Post, Irish Field, EBN, TRC and many other publications.
In the past seven years, German-bred and –trained horses have won the Arc, the King George (twice), the Ganay, the Melbourne Cup and other major events all over the world. Going back a bit further we have winners of the Eclipse, the Coronation Cup, the Prix de l´Opera, the Cadran, the Japan Cup and more. This year was by comparison very meagre indeed. The two biggest wins abroad were in Turkey, where Wonnemond (Areion), trained by Düsseldorf by Sascha Smrczek, won the Topkapi Trophy, and in New York, where the Belmont Gold Cup was won by Red Cardinal (Montjeu), trained by Andreas Wöhler but Irish-bred and Australian-owned.
weiterlesen »The big race last weekend in Germany was the WEMPE 907th German 1,000 Guineas at Düsseldorf, which featured two strong contestants from Newmarkert: William Haggas´ Cristal Fizz (Power) and Hugo Palmer´s Unforgetable Filly (Sepoy). Both trainers knew what was required, as Haggas had sent Lockheed (Exceed and Excel) to Cologne four weeks earlier to finish a neck second in the German 2,000 Guineas with the same jockey, Pat Cosgrave, aboad and the colt was sold last Monday for an amazing 900,000 GBP at the Goffs London Sale, while Palmer had won the 1,000 Guineas last year with Hawksmoor (Azamour) – a good winner at the recent big Belmont Park meeting – and had booked the same jockey, James Doyle.
weiterlesen »This is the time of year for classic trials, and although the German classics are much later than the equivalent races in England and France, the trials are now in full swing. We had some very interesting races for three-year-olds last weekend with more to come in the next few days.
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Despite the return of wintry weather, there was some very interesting racing over the Easter weekend, with some clear pointers tot he upcoming classics. Bremen started the roll rolling with its traditional Good Friday meeting, featuring the Acatenango Derby Trial, which is actually a race for maidens, but has produced two winners of the German Derby in the past decade. Ironically the race was won by a colt who has not been entered in the classic, Stall Lucky Owner´s Walsingham (Campanologist), a 12,000 euros BBAG purchase. Walsingham clearly stays well and is probably quite useful, but he certainly got the run of the race here, with most of the candidates very green and running all over the place.
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At last, sanity prevails – or so it seems. At a lengthy hearing at Cologne on Monday, the appeals panel threw out the objections of the connections of Dschinghis Secret (Soldier Hollow) third-placed in last July´s Deutsches Derby, to the first two in that Hamburg classic: Isfahan (Lord of England) and Savoir Vivre (Adlerflug). In a very close finish Isfahan had scored by a head with Dschinghis Secret only a neck away in third. The jockeys on the first two were subsequently suspended and ordered by the Hamburg stewards to forfeit most of their percentage of the prize-money because they had contravened the German whip rules. This is the normal procedure in such cases, as well as international usage, but Dschinghis Secret´s connections were not satisfied and have attempted to have the first two horses disqualified, which would have set an alarming precedent.
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The German turf season got off to a good start last Sunday at Düsseldorf, when 14,360 racegoers turned up to enjoy some nice weather and a good card. The main event, the listed Grand Prix Aufgalopp over 2100 metres went to Mighty Mouse (King´s Best), who finished strongly from the rear to score by half a length and the same from Salve Venezia (Areion) and San Salvador (Lord of England). This was a popular win for a small stable.
weiterlesen »Turf racing resumes this weekend in Germany with meetings at Düsseldorf and Mannheim, both on Sunday. We have had to suffer four months of winter with only a handful of dreary race meetings on the two sand tracks at Neuss and Dortmund, consisting mainly of very low grade handicaps.
weiterlesen »We list below in alphabetical order the five new stallions in Germany for 2017, all Group One winners:
GUILIANI, 2011, Tertullian- Guadalupe (Monsun)
Guliiani was a smart miler, but his best performance came when winning the Group One Dallmayr-Preis over ten furlongs at Munich in 2015. In all he won 5 of his 13 starts. There were high hopes for him last year, but after winning a Group Three over a mile on his debut at Düsseldorf he was injured and had to be retired. He raced throughout in the colours of his breeder Stall Ullmann and was trained by Jean-Pierre Carvalho.
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There was plenty of good news for the German racing and breeding industries in 2016 – but plenty of bad news as well. On the credit side – literally! - came the news earlier this month that German bookmaker RaceBets, the official betting partner of German Racing, has been sold to the Swedish online gaming giant Betsson for 34 million euros (with a further 6 million possibly to follow). The German racing industry, desperately short of cash, owns 39.52% of RaceBets, so is going to collect an unexpected windfall of some 13 million euros once the deal is completed.
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The last few days have seen the final black type races of 2016 in Germany – a listed race over seven furlongs at Dortmund on Sunday and a listed race over eleven furlongs at Dresden on Wednesday (a public holiday in parts of Germany). The latter event went to Iraklion (Areion), trained in Hanover by Christian Sprengel, who came from a long way back to win comfortably enough from the Czech raider Dally Hit (Ad Valorem), a bargain buy who cost just 1,500 euros at Tattersalls Ireland. With all due respect, this was not a great race and none of the runners had an international rating of 100.
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The last significant German two-year-old race of the season was run at Krefeld last Sunday, and Stall Reckendorf's Colomano (Cacique) ran out a ready winner of the Herzog von Ratibor-Rennen after racing towards the rear for most of the way. He ran on strongly in the final stages to defeat the front-running favourite Kastano (Nathaniel) by one and three-quarters lengths, with another Nathaniel colt Enjoy Vijay a close third.
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This has been a good week for the German bloodstock industry, with many of the world´s top races won by horses with German connections. Pride of place goes to Almandin (Monsun), bred by Gestüt Schlenderhan and winner of the Melbourne Cup in the early hours of Tuesday morning (European time); he became the third son of Monsun to win this race in the past four years, an impressive record. The Australian scouts have been active in Germany for several years – since Lucas Cranach (Mamool) finished third in the “race that stops a nation” in 2011, looking for similar types to do well in their big staying races, and have on the whole been very successful.
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