Breeding & Racing in Germany

The German winter season, centred on the sand tracks at Neuss and Dortmund, continues for three more weeks. To be frank, these races, generally run on Sunday at early lunch time, are not inspiring and the vast majority of races run are low grade handicaps or poor conditions races, so that most racegoers are now eagerly anticipating the start of the turf season.

Several items of news this week, most of them bad:

Brexit: Theresa May is once again trying to renegotiate the deal with the EU, even though the EU has repeatedly stated that this is not on the table. The chance of a “no deal Brexit” has become more likely, which would have catastrophic effects, many of which are still impossible to predict. This could certainly cause problems for racing and breeding, although not as much for Germany as for France and Ireland; if the “tripartite agreement” still holds up, and the U.K. is granted “third country status” regarding the movement of live animals, this would be of huge benefit and most of the problems could be avoided..

The International Classifications were published this week and from the German point of view they do not make very positive reading, as very few German-trained horses made it into the listings. A quick perusal of the lists however make clear that British and Irish runners now totally dominate European racing, and it was a very poor season indeed for French-trained horses, while the Italians seem to have dropped off the radar altogether. It is also quite striking how strongly horses trained in the USA, Australia, Hong Kong and Japan figure.

Our article before Christmas on the success of Monsun´s sons in British and Irish N.H. racing has received several updates. The Boxing Day (St. Stephen´s Day for our Irish readers) meetings at Kempton, Leopardstown and Limerick and the following days saw several more Grade One victories, and the chances of a win at the big Cheltenham meeting in March have become much more likely.

Delta Work and Le Richebourg, both sons of Network, won Grade One races at the Leopardstown meeting and are now prominent in Cheltenham betting. Network is now well establish as a leading N.H. stallion in France, but also has had plenty of success in the U.K. and Ireland, notably with Champion Chase winner Sprinter Sacré, officially rated the best chaser since Arkle.

With racing at a very low ebb in Germany for the next few weeks, it seems a good time to look at what´s going on around the world. This Sunday we have the International Races  at Sha Tin racecourse in Hong Kong, with four valuable Group One events – over six, eight, ten and twelve furlongs- all with high class international fields. Unfortunately there is no German-trained runner, our hopes that Night Music (Sea The Stars) would be invited were dashed; Stall Salzburg´s mare  is going to be sold at Arqana next week instead. However the Hong Kong Vase is still of great interest, with Waldgeist (Galileo) likely to start favourite and the enigmatic Pakistan Star (Shamardal) also in the line-up.