The English page - 2015 season round-up

The 2015 racing season in Germany

After a series of successes in the world´s iconic races by horses bred and trained in Germany – Danedream´s  Arc in 2011 and King George in 2012, Novellist in the latter race in 2013 and Protectionist on the Melbourne Cup last year – this season saw much less success on the international stage.  In fact the only Group One races won by German horses abroad were in Italy- Lovelyn (Gran Premio del Jockey Club) and Red Dubawi (Premio Vittorio di Capua) as well as, very surprisingly, Kazzio over jumps in the Grand Premio Merano, and with all due respect these do not compare with the races listed in the previous sentence. At the same time, Germany´s arguably two most prestigious events, the Grosser Preis von Berlin and the Grosser Preis von Baden, went to foreign raiders Second Step and Prince Gibraltar respectively, neither of whom were able to win a Group One in their own country. Last year, all seven German Group Ones had been kept at home.

There are two main reasons for this. One is sheer bad luck – many of the expected top performers of 2015, and especially the three-year-old colts, dropped out because of injury or other reasons. The other is the knock-on effect of the above listed international successes: the world of international racing has become aware of the strength of German bloodstock and agents from Australia, Hong Kong and Japan are queueing up to buy the stars for racing and breeding purposes.  Because the prize-money in those countries is far higher than it is in Germany, they can offer sums which are far higher than the perceived value on the domestic market. A very high proportion of the leading German-breds of recent generations has been sold abroad; in some cases the foreign owners have kept them in training in Germany and of this year´s big winners, Shimrano (Union-Rennen) is Australian–owned as is Turfdonna (Preis der Diana), while Full Rose (1,000 Guineas) and Shining Emerald (Goldene Peitsche) are both owned by Dubaian businessman Jaber Abdullah, and Karpino (2,000 Guineas) is Qatari-owned.

The last four of these were all trained by Andreas Wöhler, who started the season in fantastic form. Karpino looked a real star in the making, but many punters thought that stable companion Quasillo, a Fährhof-homebred and easy winner of the Bavarian Classic, was even better and this pair dominated early betting on the Deutsches Derby. The only danger appeared to be Shimrano, especially after his Union-Rennen victory. However it all started to go pear-shaped from then on. Both Karpino and Quasillo were injured in the run-up to the Derby and missed the race, while Shimrano ran totally below form, starting as hot favourite but never showing with a chance and finishing only eleventh. None of this trio ran again in 2015, although it is hoped that they will all be back in 2016.

The Derby went therefore almost by default to Nutan, trained by Peter Schiergen (his fifth success in the Hamburg classic) and ridden by his stable jockey Andrasch Starke (his seventh). Nutan was bred in Ireland by Freiburg banker Jürgen Imm, who races under the name Stall Nizza; he keeps his best mares in Ireland, where they are usually covered by Coolmore stallions – as in this case, as Nutan is by Duke of Marmalade – and brought back to Germany to be reared at Gestüt Römerhof. Nutan himself was also later injured and after only one more race, when third in the Grosser Preis von Berlin, was retired.

Nutan was a good winner of the Derby, scoring by five lengths, but it has to be said that it was a substandard race and the form has not worked out at all; very few of the 18 runners have troubled the judge in any race since. This is of course not Nutan´s fault, and his early retirement is a pity as he looked to have plenty of improvement in him. His Derby victory was the highlight of a remarkable season for his owner-breeder; Imm has only fourteen horses in training, almost all of them homebred in Ireland, but they include another Group One winner in the closely-related Nightflower, a daughter of Dylan Thomas, who won the Preis von Europa, was runner-up in the Preis der Diana and just about the best of a good bunch of three-year-old fillies this year. Stall Nizza also had two more black type winners, while Nightflower´s two-year-old half-brother Nimrod (by High Chaparral) is an obvious hope for next year´s Deutsches Derby. As a result Jürgen Imm is the leading German breeder in 2015 and his Stall Nizza by a huge margin the leading owner.

The two top trainers, Peter Schiergen and Andreas Wöhler, dominated the German season, as has often been the case in the past 15 years. The German trainers´ championship is decided on the number of races won, and they are both currently on 68, well clear of the next best, 2014 champion Markus Klug on 56 and Waldemar Hickst (52). As is now known, Schiergen and Wöhler agreed this week to have no more domestic runners this year, meaning that they will be joint champions. In terms of prize-money they are also well clear, with Wöhler just ahead. They both deserve the title, with Schiergen taking the most valuable race of the season, the Derby, and Wöhler the second most valuable event, the Preis der Diana with Turfdonna (another one who missed the rest of the season through injury). Markus Klug obviously could not cap his marvellous 2014 with the outstanding Sea The Moon, but he had a good autumn and his two-year-olds were in particularly good form, giving him plenty of ammunition for next season. Another trainer who can be satisfied with the 2015 season is Jean-Pierre Carvalho;  the French-born ex-jockey saddled two Group One winners Guiliani and Ito, both for his principal patron, the Ullmann family, although neither really confirmed the form when tried in top international company. 

The one championship that has not been decided at the time of writing is the jockeys´ title. Alexander Pietsch currently leads Andrasch Starke by one winner, 80-79. This one could right down to the wire – the final day of the season is the Neuss all-weather fixture on December 29^th. Filip Minarik, Carvalho´s main jockey, also did well with 70 winners, while Jozef Bojko, Wöhler´s second jockey, has 69 so far; the stable´s main jockey Eduardo Pedroza is only on 52, but has done much better than Bojko in terms of prize-money. However Andrasch Starke has done by far the best in that respect; Starke has been champion jockey seven times already, while it would be a first time for Pietsch, if he can hang on to his narrow lead.

Champion sire, for the third time, is Areion, who stands at Gestüt Evershorst with a fee raised from 8,000 euros to 9,500 euros for the coming season, still cheap by international standards. He has had an excellent year with his offspring winning just over a million euros in Germany – the first stallion standing in Germany to reach this figure since the great Monsun in 2006. He has never had a Group One winner, but numerous black type winners at slightly lower levels and his two-year-olds this year have really been firing. He is followed at a respectable distance by last year´s champion sire Tertullian (Gestüt Erftmühle, another bargain at 5,000 euros) while Doyen, now covering N.H. mares, and the also Irish-based Duke of Marmalade take the next two places, thanks largely to the classic winners Turfdonna and Nutan. Adlerflug, sire of Ito, is a very promising young sire in fifth with the reliably high class Soldier Hollow in sixth place.

Next season we can expect Karpino and Quasillo, both potential Group One performers, back in training, while this autumn we have seen several promising two-year-olds, particularly from the yards of Peter Schiergen, Andreas Wöhler and Markus Klug, so prospects for 2016 are not at all gloomy. However there are still some clouds on the horizon. Most racecourses are struggling to break even, and sponsors are difficult to find when so littler racing is shown on national TV. Many racecourses are owned by the local authorities, who in some cases are considering other uses for their land, e.g. at Bremen (where the council would like to build a housing estate) and Frankfurt (site of the proposed new football academy. However there is considerable local opposition to these plans, so all is certainly not yet lost. German racing and breeding has been punching above its weight for many years and could well continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

David Conolly-Smith