The English page - The Pantall factor

The weather was horrible in Germany last week, and the two Sunday meetings - at Dortmund and Munich- were staged in desperate conditions. Despite that, there was some good racing and in all probability the right winners of the main events. However at both tracks, the crowd and the betting turnover was much lower than had been expected.

The only black type race was the listed Griffo Racing- Bayerischer Sprint Cup at Munich, one of the very few German races run over the minimum distance of 1000 metres (five furlongs). Two of Germany´s top performers over this trip lined up, last year´s winner Daring Match (Call me Big) and French-bred Princess Asta (Canford Cliffs) and they were the two favourites in the betting. However they were run out of it by Wild Bud (Dubawi), one of two Godolphin-owned three-year-old fillies trained in S.W. France by Henri-Alex Pantall, who has in recent years enjoyed great success with his raids on German listed races.  Her certainly chooses his races with great skill and this year has sent six runners to Germany, all in listed or group races; three of them have won and two been placed, the only one to run badly in fact was his supposed first string in Munich, Bouquet de Flores (Street Cry).

But Wild Bud did the job in style, racing up the stands-side rail to score by three parts of a length. This was a huge improvement over anything she had shown before, but that is a hallmark of Pantall´s runners in these events. It will be interesting to see if she can confirm this form in France, but in any case she will now be a valuable addition to the Darley broodmare herd, especially in view of her excellent pedigree – she is by Dubawi and out of a Danehill Dancer mare, who was not only a listed race winner and Group One-placed but also a great-granddaughter of the great Miesque (Nureyev).

The main event at Dortmund was the BBAG sales race for two-year-old fillies. Markus Klug, looking more and more likely to be champion trainer here for the third time in four years, has a good record in such races and saddled four runners. One flopped, but the others took the first three places, with Suada (Maxios) making almost the running to win very easily by nine lengths winner from the favourite Moon Relation (slowly away) and Leevye, both daughters of Reliable Man. This was the biggest success so far for first season sire Maxios.

Clearly the result- or at least the distances –must be taken with a pinch of salt because of the extreme conditions, but Suada was certainly the best horse on the day and could run next in the Preis der Winterkönigin at next week´s Baden-Baden October meeting, although her trainer has several more options for that event. If the ground comes up heavy again she would certainly have to be taken seriously.

Because of the bad ground, this race was started by flag, and so was the other two-year-old race on the card, a relatively minor event but won by a horse who could well be going places. This was the filly Shabaneh (Kitten´s Joy), who finished very strongly from mid-field to catch the long-time leader Innenminister (Masterstroke) inside the final furlong and win going away by two and a half lengths. It is hard to know what the form is worth, most of the runners were making their debuts, but she was certainly convincing and she is also entered in the Preis der Winterkönigin as well as the 2018 Preis der Diana. She runs in the colours of Darius Racing and was bought for them by their racing manager Holger Faust at the 2016 Goffs Orby Sale for 125,000 euros.

As far as we can see, she is the first winner in Germany for the Ramseys´ top stallion Kitten´s Joy (El Prado). Holger Faust is certainly adventurous in his yearling purchases and Darius Racing´s other top two-year-old is currently Alounak, by first season sire Camelot (Montjeu), bought for a six-figure sum at Arqana last year.

This weekend two-year-olds will again be in the spotlight as the main event is the Preis des Winterfavoriten at Cologne. This is the German equivalent of the Racing Post Trophy and as the name implies, the winner is automatically the early favourite for the German Derby of the following season. This does not always work out, in fact only one horse has done the double this century, Darius Racing´s Isfahan (Lord of England) in 2014/5. He was trained by Andreas Wöhler, who won the race again last year with Langtang (Campanologist) and now goes for the hat-trick with two likely runners, Australian-owned Wild Max (Maxios) and Darius Racing´s Zargun (Rock of Gibraltar). Markus Klug also two runners entered, as does Jean-Pierre Carvalho, with the stable jockeys on Erasmus (Reliable Man) and Ancient Spirit (Invincible Spirit) respectively. This should be a very informative race, although it is one to be watched rather than to be bet on.

David Conolly-Smith