The English page - Mini heatwave at Baden-Baden

Last week´s Spring Meeting at Baden-Baden can be classed as a success, partly as a result of a sudden change in the weather. On the Tuesday it was still cold and wet, by Thursday it was sunny and very warm, and it got hotter every day. For horses that wanted soft ground conditions were not ideal, although strangely enough the two that dominated the Group Two Badener Meile on the opening day are both regarded as soft ground specialists, French-trained The Revenant (Dubawi) and Irish-trained Imaging (Oasis Dream). It was generally expected that the five German-trained runners would have little chance, and so it proved as they took the last five places. Palace Prince (Areion), a course specialist who also won this race two years ago, was the best of them, finishing fifth after making the running until the elbow. Imaging then went on and took a clear lead at the distance, but The Revenant, who had been much further back, came with a strong late run to cut him down in the final stages and win by half a length, with the other two French runners separated by a nose in third and fourth, and the rest never seen with a chance.

Some racegoers felt that Oisin Orr had gone too early on Imaging, but the likelihood is that the winner was the best horse in the race. The Revenant, who was gelded in the winter, is clearly much improved and has now won seven of his nine career starts. Trainer Francis Graffard thinks he has still more improvement to come: “the going today was as fast as he can handle, and we shall now give him the summer off and bring him back for the top mile races in the autumn, when the ground should be more suitable.” Imaging was also clearly unhappy on the going, which had dried out very rapidly.

Saturday´s main race at Baden-Baden was the Group Three Silberne Peitsche over six furlongs, and another French success was widely expected here, as The Right Man (Lope de Vega) started at 2-1 on for trainer Didier Guillemin after an excellent effort when fifth of 15 in the Group One Al Quoz Sprint. But he was another unsuited by the fast ground and after looking likely to win at the distance was run out of it by Namos (Medicean), one of two three-year-olds in the field and trained in Hanover by Dominik Moser, who has a good record with sprinters. Bred by Gestüt Brümmerhof, Namos was having only his third race and is a welcome addition to the small number of group class German runners over this distance. He is the first horse ever owned by civil servant Petra Stucke, who bought him privately for 30,000 euros after the open day at Brümmerhof, after he had failed to sell at the BBAG Yearling Sale. He now looks a bargain, and his dam Namera (Areion) was one of the best German sprinters of her crop as well, from a very solid German family.

Another potential bargain to win on Saturday was Gestüt Görlsdorf´s homebred Preciosa (Sea The Moon), an easy winner of the listed Kronimus Diana-Trial. Preciosa had won very easily on her debut at Hoppegarten a month ago, but had been entered in the BBAG Breeze-Up and Mixed Sale - held the day before the Baden-Baden race, and the owners Heike and Niko Bischoff-Lafrentz had made it clear that she was on the market. However bidding stalled at 58,000 euros; after this victory of course her value has soared, but the owners say that understandably she is no longer for sale. This was ostensibly a trial for the Preis der Diana (German Oaks), but she is not entered in that Group One event and is expected to go next for Prix Chloe.

On Sunday we had another classic trial, this time for the German Derby, and Accon (Camelot) was a convincing winner, despite starting at almost 20-1. He is trained by Markus Klug, who has won the last two runnings of the Deutsches Derby, and will obviously now go for that race, although he is unlikely to be the stable´s number one there. He was bred by Gestüt Hof Ittlingen and is from one of their best families. He cost owner Holger Renz 22,000 euros as a yearling at BBAG, which also now looks a bargain. On his previous start he had been a close fifth, beaten less than four lengths, in the Bavarian Classic, a race whose form has been well boosted since (but see below!). Mention must also be made of the runner-up here, Gestüt Bona´s homebred Skyful Sea (Sea The Stars), who ran on very strongly from the rear. “She´s a proper racehorse,” said trainer Peter Schiergen afterwards. It is quite possible that we did not see the Derby winner here, but instead the winner of the Preis der Diana- won twice in recent years by close relations of Skyful Sea.

Main feature on Sunday, and indeed of the whole meeting, was the Grosser Preis der Badischen Wirtschaft, a Group Two event for older horses over eleven furlongs. Veteran trainer Hans-Jürgen Gröschel had won this twice in the last three years with Iquitos (Adlerflug) and this time scored again with Itobo  (Areion), running in the colours of Stall Totti, i.e. Werner Gerhold, who is also one of the owners of Iquitos. This was a career-best effort by Itobo, a 7yo gelding, who scored by half a length and the same from the proven Group One performers Royal Youmzain (Youmzain) and Windstoss (Shirocco) and the handicapper has upped his rating to GAG 96 (=international 112). The first three are likely to meet again in a similar event in Hamburg at the end of the month; there is very little between them and there could be a different result next time.

The coming Whit weekend sees several more black type events, the most important of which are the classic trials at Hoppegarten on Sunday and Cologne on Monday. The former is the Diana-Trial for fillies, but as the Preis der Diana is still two months off, it does not have the same urgency as Cologne´s Union-Rennen, with the Derby less than a month away. The Union-Rennen has been run since 1834 and is the oldest race in the German calendar. It has always been regarded as the most important Derby trial, even though in truth very few horses have done the double: Weltstar (Soldier Hollow) last year and Sea The Moon (Sea The Stars) in 2014, but then only three in the thirty preceding years.

However this year´s edition looks very strong on paper. The winner of the Bavarian Classic (see above), Django Freeman (Campanologist) is expected to start favourite, as the form of that race has been well advertised since. He has not run since, nor has Dschingis First (Soldier Hollow), a fast-finishing third then, who could well reverse the form this time. Also of interest is Winterfuchs (Campanologist), winner of the Dr. Busch-Memorial, a race which has not worked out so well, but that is no fault of the winner. He is from the famous Ravensberg “W” family that has produced several Derby and other Group One winners, but from the point of view of public interest, the fact that he is trained by a lady, Carmen Bocskai, and ridden by a lady, Sybille Vogt, will certainly monopolise the headlines should he win. No lady – trainer or jockey-  has ever won this race before, nor the Derby itself for that matter.

The most interesting feature of Hoppegarten´s Diana-Trial is that the two highest-rated German fillies of last year are both making their season debuts after winning both their juvenile starts in excellent style: Donjah (Teofilo), trained by Henk Grewe (also trainer of Django Freeman), and Whispering Angel (Soldier Hollow), trainer by Markus Klug, who has four fillies in the field, not to mention Dschingis First on Monday. It could be a big race double for either of these trainers, but these races are certainly not cut and dried, and colleagues Jean-Pierre Carvalho, Roland Dzubasz, Peter Schiergen and Andreas Wöhler, who also have entries in both races, will no doubt do their best to prevent it.

David Conolly-Smith