The English-Page: No joy in Japan

Sadly the optimistic predictions that the European challengers, and in particular German hope Tünnes could come out on top in last weekend´s Japan Cup proved well wide of the mark. The French-trained runners finished fifth, sixth and thirteenth, while Tünnes was a disappointiung ninth in the field of 18. The 3yo from the Cologne stable of Peter Schiergen appeared rather agitated at the start, playing up for quite a while and then started very slowly. He was almost last as the field swung into the straight, where he was brought to the wide outside. There he had a clear run while those towards the inside were busy getting in each others´ way, but it hardly helped. He showed very little of the expected acceleration, but stayed on past beaten horses, finishing  about 6 ½ lengths behind the winner. This was certainly no disgrace, and his owner Holger Renz collected some 92,000 euros for ninth place, almost as much as he collected for winning the Group One Grosser Preis von Bayern last time, but still a disappointment. Tünnes (Guiliani) is to stay in training at four, and if he is to continue to progress in the same way that his half-brother Torquator Tasso (Adlerflug) did, then he could well be in for an excellent season in 2023.

There was also racing in Germany last Sunday, but the card at Mülheim was basically low-level, and the main event was a BBAG sales race for 3yo´s over 2000 metres. Cologne trainer Henk Grewe saddled three of the 12 runners and took the lion´s share of the prize-money when two of them finished first and second. The Görlsdorf-bred Wonderful Eagle (Adlerflug) finished best of all to get up on the line and defeat his better-fancied stable companion, the Karlshof homebred filly Palatina (Isfahan) by a head. Wonderful Eagle was a 61,000 euros BBAG yearling and is a half-brother to multiple group race winner Wonderful Moon (Sea The Moon). He was bought by Eckhard Sauren, president of the race club at Cologne.

There is strangely enough no racing in Germany this Sunday, but there is an interesting card on Saturday at Baden-Baden. This is the first time ever that Germany´s leading racecourse has staged racing in December, and it will be combined with a Christmas market which goes on all weekend. There will also be music and plenty of other events. The racing itself is, with all due respect, only of minor interest but there is nevertheless huge interest from the punting point of view. For the new German bet “7gewinnt!” will be on offer here for the fifth time. To win this, one has tip the winners of 7 races, almost impossible but still an intriguing puzzle. The bet has not been won so far, and as a result there is a massive jackpot: 255,662 euros. It is expected that at least 400,000 euros will be in the pot on Saturday, and if only one lucky punter succeeds in tipping all seven winners, he or she will win the lot.

There are in fact exactly seven races on Saturday´s card, two maiden races followed by five handicaps and every one of them looks extremely tricky. So one has to go through the card, not exactly impossible, but very, very difficult. But remember Frankie Dettori`s Magnificent Seven at Ascot in 1996, or the Munich syndicate which scooped the Scoop 6 in January 2000; disclosure: your correspondent was a member of that syndicate. There were only 6 races, but it was still tough enough. We collected 890,000 GBP and to be honest we were very lucky. Luck is always a factor, but we can see that it can be done! I shall resist the temptation of giving you my tips (probably useless anyway), but urge you all to have a go!

David Conolly-Smith