Breeding & Racing in Germany

The weather played an important role in last week´s “Grosse Woche” at Baden-Baden, as always the best meeting of the year in Germany. The first five days of the meeting were staged in a blistering heatwave, while it rained heavily on the final day which featured the Group One Grosser Preis von Baden. The track had been well watered during the week – too well, in the opinion of many trainers and jockeys- so that the going on Sunday was far from ideal. The insistence of the main German racecourses to run their top race of the meeting on the final day, Hamburg´s Derby is the other obvious example, means that the big race is always almost run on bad ground.

The BBAG Yearling Sale, which takes place next Friday at the sales complex next door to the racecourse at Iffezheim , is by far the most important thoroughbred sale in Germany and now attracts owners, trainers, agents and other buyers from all over the world. This year´s catalogue is arguably the strongest ever and the encouraging results from Deauville last week and from Goffs this week suggest that the sale will be a success. MD Carola Ortlieb reports that “the mood is very positive at present and we expect a strong sale; we have buyers coming from the USA, from Australia (including new people  who intend to have horses in training in Germany), Hong Kong and all the usual suspects from the U.K., Ireland, France  and Italy. The large number of promising younger stallions represented is a big advantage over previous years. ”

Last Sunday´s Grosser Dallmayr-Preis at Munich, Germany´s most important race over the distance of ten furlongs ended with the success of French-trained Elliptique (New Approach), supplemented by André Fabre and running in the colours of the Rothschild family with Frankie Dettori in the saddle. It was a shrewd move by the trainer, who had identified this race as a potential target for the five-year-old, who had never before run in a Group One. He also had the right jockey on board in Dettori, who know all about riding big-race winners and delighted the crowd with his jump on dismounting in the winners enclosure. “André called me and told me to ride a waiting race, so that is what I did,” he said afterwards.

The Hamburg German Derby meeting  is now in full swing and the weather has been the main topic of conversation. It seems that there are only two kinds of weather here in July, either a brutal heatwave (like last year) or non-stop rain, as has been the case this week. As a result the going is extremely testing, there have been a lot of non-runners and crowds are much smaller than normal. However we have seen some smart performances in the feature events, which have all so far been won very easily.

Shy Witch (Areion) set the ball rolling on the opening day with a convincing success in the fillies´ mile race, beating the consistent yardstick Nymeria (Soldier Hollow) by 2 ¼ lengths. This gives a boost to the form of the German 1,000 Guineas, in which she was runner-up to Hawksmoor. Shy Witch is trained at Hanover by 73-year-old Hans-Jürgen Gröschel, who is having his best ever season, and was ridden by 45-year-old Scotsman Ian Ferguson, who is also having a great run.

Boscaccio (Mount Nelson) strengthened his position as ante-post favourite for the Deutsches Derby, to be run at Hamburg on July 10th, with a convincing success last Sunday in the 181st Oppenheim- Union- Rennen at Cologne, the oldest race in the German calendar and usually the most reliable Derby trial. He is now unbeaten in four starts and seems to have all the attributes required for classic success.