Breeding & Racing in Germany

Last Saturday saw the curtain fall in Cologne, bringing to an end their 2024 Season. A nine race programme which included two amateur races had the 'Silbernes Pferd a Group 3 contest over 3000m (1m 7f) as the main attraction. Run on very soft ground, Padre Palou (Mastercraftsman) from the Henk Grewe stables, set out to make every post a winning one under Eduardo Pedroza and he nearly did so. Turning for home though it was his better fancied stable companion Flatten the Curve (Zarak) in the colours of racecourse President Eckhard Sauren and ridden by his retained jockey Thore Hammer Hansen who came around the field travelling best and streched out to win by a cozy 1 and 3/4 lenghts, Padre Palou outbattled Nastaria (Outstrip) for the second spot, a neck separating them at the line, with Lions Head running a sound race back in fourth.

Even though we still have a few good weekends of racing left here In our German calendar, somehow when Baden Baden's Autumn Sales and Racing meet comes to an end you start to get that winter feeling and our Turf season is coming to an end with it. Yes we still have a Group 1 meeting in Munich in November to come but we are most definitely on the way to the finish line. 

Dortmund on Saturday Mulheim and Leipzig on Sunday flew the flag for German racing last weekend but it was always going to be overshadowed by the top class racing on offer in Paris, even by our own staunch followers. The Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe weekend with the phenomenal prize money on offer attracts the best and really this year only City of Troy, Economics or Goliath were missing. The German runners, more or less as expected, found it tough going in their races but we will come back to the French weekend in a bit. 

Yes, we were building up last weekends Mehl-Muhlens-Stiftung - 62. Preis von Europa as the best assembly of racehorses in one race on German soil, till at the last minute on Thursday morning the news filtered through that the world's number 2 rated racehorse Goliath would not be taking part and somehow immediately the race lost the gloss factor. What could have been a rematch between the winner and the third from Ascots King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes on German turf was off. But Germar racing needs to look on the positive side and at least we were still going to see the Globetrotter and World number 4 in Cologne The Godolphin Dubawi son Rebels Romance, a six year old gelding that had 13 wins to his name and over 7,800,000 Euro in prize money collected in lands like Qatar, Dubai, Hong Kong and the United States and already over 5 million in the year 2024. 

Last weekend we had plenty of racing in Germany but most of it was average run of the mill handicaps for lower grade horses,  the type of racing that keeps the bookmaker shops open and in business. We had racing in Cologne on Friday evening, Magdeburg took over on Saturday while Sunday saw two tracks open there doors, Dusseldorf and Leipzig. Now in my opinion, its all ok having racing but Germany is not England or France and we just dont have their number of horses in training, so we are getting ridiculously small fields of four and five runners and very uncompetitive racing. Again it's ok helping PMU and from thar the German Race Clubs costs get covered but we are killing our product.