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.
Last weekend was undoubtedly the busiest so far in the new German season, and also the wettest. We had five racing days; and it seemed to rain almost the the whole time. They included group races, two often important classic trials and three more listed races. The two classic trials were the Dr. Busch Memorial at over the extended mile at Krefeld, and the Bavarian Classic over ten furlongs at Munich. It can certainly be assumed that the heavy going suited the two winners. At Krefeld it was Brave Emperor (Sioux Nation), trained in Lambourne by Archie Watson, who made all the running under Luke Morris and scored with plenty in hand. He had run several good races during the winter on all-weather tracks in England and France and clearly had no problem with the conditions. The gelding is likely to run next at Royal Ascot and could well follow up there.
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The 2023 season is now getting into top gear. Last Sunday we had the Carl Jaspers-Preis at Cologne, often known as the Gerling-Preis, the best race of the season so far. We usually get the top middle distance performances of the previous year lining up here and Sunday was no exception. The two best German 4yo´s were in the field of seven, including Assistent (Sea the Moon) and Tünnes (Guiliani), both trained locally by Henk Grewe and Peter Schiergen respectively, and they duly took the first two places.
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Easter has been and gone and we are now approaching the second and main part of the season. The Cheltenham Festival, the highlight in the U.K., is over but the Irish equivalent at Punchestown is due next week. Germany, sadly has virtually no N.H. at all these days, but racing on the flat is now getting into top gear. We have already had listed races and last Sunday we had the first German group race of 2023, the Kalkmann Frühjahrs-Preis over a mile at Düsseldorf.
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The winter is coming to an end and for the most of the past four months the weather in Germany has been horrible – cold, wet and windy – with resulting small crowds and betting turnover well below normal. However there has been been a rapid for the last two weekends and in particular last weekend (Easter) was quite pleasant and it was a pleasure to go racing on Easter Sunday at Hoppegarten and Easter Monday at Cologne, with both these big city racetracks opening their gates for 2023 and putting on much better racing than so far seen this season. Hoppegarten was able to welcome some 10,000 racegoers while Cologne had 15,000. Not only that the betting turnover at the two tracks was easily the best of the year. We also had three listed races at the weekend, two on Sunday and one on Monday, all with strong fields and exciting finishes.
We hope that our readers followed our predictions in last week´s English page, as they were spot on in the two most important races of the weekend. The top events worldwide were run on Saturday evening local time at Meydan during the Dubai World Cup meeting. At the time in 1996, the race was intended to be the richest race in the world; this is no longer the case – the Saudi Cup now has that honour. The winner in 1996 was Cigar, trained by Bill Mott and ridden by Jerry Bailey. An all American success and the early editions by horses trained in the U.S. or U.K. They were run at the racecourse at Nad al Sheba and the present course was at Meydan was opened in 2010. The next year, I.e. 2011, it was won by the Japanese-trained Victoire Pisa, which was regarded as a sensation.
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We have to start this page with an apology, for missing last week´s page, which was due to technical problems. As a result our regular readers will have missed our comments on last Sunday´s racing at Dortmund, the ninth and final day of the German winter season. To be honest, we have not missed a great deal. The racing was for the main part of a very low level. Hardly any races were worth more than 3,000 euros to the winner and very few winners reached a German GAG rating above 70 (i.e.60 international). As always the meeting was dominated by course specialists. One horse, the 6yo gelding Alargedram (Lope de Vega) ran at all 9 meetings; his 16 starts here so far, 15 of them on the sand track have brought him so far two victories, three places and just over 7,000 euros, barely enough for a small one.
This column suggested last week that the winter was almost over and spring was just around the corner. However it seems that we were a little premature, it has snowed heavily in most parts of Germany. The winter season continues, and for the next two weeks the only racing – as was in any case scheduled- will be on the sand track at Dortmund. There has been racing at Dortmund since 1893 and the current track was built in 1913, with the sand track added in 1981. It was intended to be a winter track and was floodlit for evening racing as well. At the time it was the first all-weather track in Europe.
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As we now move into March, there are clear signs that spring is on the way, although it still seems very cold in most parts of Germany. There is still very little happening in Germany, but last week we had the Saudi World Cup with 20 million US $ the most valuable race ruin in the world. The race was run on the dirt track at the King Abdulaziz racecourse in Riyadh, which is regarded on one of the world´s best dirt tracks and there was a strong entry from Japan and the United States; not surprisingly they dominated the event, with Japanese-trained Panthalassa (Lord Konaloa) making all the running to win comfortably from U.S.-trained Country Grammer (Tonalist), runner-up for the second time, while it was also the second successive victory in this event for a Japanese horse: In recent years the Japanese have been extremely successful in such races.
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Ante-post betting on British and Irish racing is very popular, and in particular at the moment when there is a lively betting market on all 28 races to be run at next month´s N.H. Festival at Cheltenham. This is not the case in Germany, where there is only one race which sttracts serious ante-post betting, the Group One Deutsches Derby at Hamburg on July 2nd – incidentally the same day as the Irish Derby at The Curragh is run. That could well have quite an impact. There is also an ante-post market on the German Oaks (Preis der Diana at Düsseldorf on August 6th), but to nowhere near the same extent.
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There is very little racing on at present, and hardly any in Germany, but this is the time of year when breeders and the owners of stud farms are making their plans for the upcoming breeding season. We have already this month had the Irish stallions trail, with no fewer than 140 stallions paraded, and the equivalent event in Normandy, the most important area in France. Germany´s bloodstock industry is tiny in comparison, with only about 40 active sires based in this country, but it is still impressive that 16 of them (nearly half) will be paraded at the “Züchtertreff” (“breeders´ get-together”) at Gestüt Röttgen this coming Saturday (January 28th).
There is very little happening in German racing at the moment. There are six more fixtures on Dortmund´s sand track until late March, when racing on turf begins again. In the meantime there will be plenty of German-trained runners at the Cagnes-sur-Mer meeting, which started this week, and also a few at the St. Moritz meeting on the frozen lake in February (assuming the weather allows this to take place). There have also been entries for German runners at the extremely valuable meetings in Saudi Arabia next month, as well as the Dubai Racing Carnival.
There is very little happening in German racing at the moment. There are six more fixtures on Dortmund´s sand track until late March, when racing on turf begins again. In the meantime there will be plenty of German-trained runners at the Cagnes-sur-Mer meeting, which started this week, and also a few at the St. Moritz meeting on the frozen lake in February (assuming the weather allows this to take place.) There have also been entries for German runners at the extremely valuable meetings in Saudi Arabia next month, as well as the Dubai Racing Carnival.
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