The English page - Black type races

It was clear that in the week following  the German Derby meeting at Hamburg there would be a bit of a lull, and last weekend the only black type races run were the listed Grosser bwin Sommerpreis over 1900 metres at Leipzig and the listed BBAG Diana Trial at Mülheim over 2000 metres.

The Leipzig race went to the seven-year-old gelding Sun at Work (Areion), bred by Fährhof, owned by Elisabeth Kindrat, trained in Bremen by Werner Haustein and who made all the running under Maxim Pecheur. The 28-year-old jockey, who in April married Lena-Maria Mattes, herself previously a successful amateur jockey, is having a fantastic season and rode a six-timer on the day. He is attached to the leading Markus Klug stable and has not looked back since winning the Deutsches Derby on Windstoss in 2017.

There seems almost certain to be a new champion jockey this year, as currently Pecheur is neck and neck with 26-year-old Bauyrzhan Murzabeyev, from Alma Ata in Kazakhstan, who is attached to the powerful Andreas Wöhler stable. The two of them are well clear of the other German-based jockeys, and although the season still has a long way to go, one of this pair is most likely to be champion for the first time. This is good news, as in this century only the retired Andreas Suborics and the currently still riding Andrasch Starke, Filip Minarik, Eduardo Pedroza, Alexander Pietsch and Adrie de Vries have been champion jockeys here and all of them are well into their 40s. German racing certainly needs fresh blood in every sphere, both equine and human.

Pecheur and Murzabeyev are followed in the statistics at a respectable distance by Josef Bojko, Lukas Delozier, Michael Cadeddu, Marco Casamento, de Vries, Minarik, Vladimir Panov and Pedroza. Nlone of whome was born in Germany. Pecheur despite his French name is actually German  and his parents run a hotel in Saarbrücken.

Sun at Work, a smart handicapper, was winning his first black type event here.  He is now to be aimed at the Group Two Oettingen-Rennen at Baden-Baden. He was originally sold as a BBAG yearling to Eckhard Sauren for 38,000 euros but has changed hands since. For his win here he has had his rating bumped up by nine pounds to GAG 87.5 (=international 95) but he will have to show more than that to figure at Baden-Baden. However, as we have seen several times this season, if a strong front-runner gets an easy lead, he can often outrun his rating

The Mülheim race was arguably of more interest as far as the future is concerned, as it was a late trial for the Henkel 161^st Preis der Diana (German Oaks) at Düsseldorf in three weeks ´ time. The race was run at a good pace, with locally-trained Naida (Reliable Man) making the running, closely followed by Ismene (Tertullian). These two drew clear in the straight and soon the race to themselves, with Ismene finally asserting in the final stages to score by half a length. The winner is a Schlenderhan homebred, although officially bred by Stall Ullmann; however almost all the Ullmann horses were transferred during the winter to the same family´s traditional racing and breeding name Schlenderhan. The favourite Diamanta (Maxios) was very disappointing and never seen with a chance, finally ending in seventh place.  Ismene, from a well-established Schlenderhan family, is now rated  GAG90 (=international 110); her dam Imagery (Monsun) was an own sister to group race winner Imonso and a half-sister to another group winner. Both Ismene and Naida are now expected to run in the Preis der Diana, but they will meet much stronger opposition there.

Top race this weekend is the Group Two RaceBets.de Meilen-Trophy at Düsseldorf. At the beginning of the week it seemed that there would be a very weak field, with only six left in, including two trained in the U.K., neither of which was certain to run. However with three supplementary entries and both Brits coming, it now looks much better. To be frank, it is by no means a strong Group Two,  with no runner rated higher than 108. The top-rated runner is local hope and course specialist Wonnemond (Areion), who was runner-up in the race last year, when it was run at Cologne. Palace Prince (Areion) and Degas (Exceed and Excel), fourth and fifth then, now reoppose. The two English-trained runners are obvious dangers; Ed Walker´s Indian Blessing (Sepoy) has already won two German group races over a mile, while Harry Dunlop´s Robin of Navan (American Post) has been racing in much better company, admittedly without much success.

However the one they all have to beat is surely Shalona (Soldier Hollow), not only the only three-year-old in the field, but also the only filly. As such she is getting lumps of weight from all the other runners. Trained by Henk Grewe, who is currently leading trainer by number of winners in Germany, she was a close third in the German 1,000 Guineas over this course and distance in May and since then a good runner-up to the smart Axana (Soldier Hollow) at Hamburg; these are probably the two best pieces of recent form in the race, and man of the moment Maxim Pecheur is in the saddle.

Also this weekend we see the start of the week long Bad Harzburg meeting, one of the most popular fixtures in Germany, which always attracts large crowds to the pretty racecourse in the Harz mountains. There is more quantity than quality here, but racegoers love it, and Bad Harzburg is possibly the only track in Germany which breaks even.  Some low grade handicaps with big purses always have maximum fields, while it is one of the few German racecourses left with jump racing. One of Saturday´s races is indeed called the German Grand National; it has little in common with the Aintree version, being a three mile chase worth 6,400 euros to the winner.  9yo Serienlohn, who has an excellent flat pedigree as a son of Lomitas from a top Wittekindshof family, has won four of his last five races, including the Swedish Grand National, and despite top weight can score here.

David Conolly-Smith