Breeding & Racing in Germany

This week we received the sad news that Manduro (Monsun), certainly one of the best ever German-bred racehorses and stallions, has died following a heart attack at the age of 18. He was bred by Rolf Brunner and was sold as a BBAG yearling for 130,000 euros to Baron Georg von Ullmann, in whose colours he raced throughout his extremely successful career. Originally trained by Peter Schiergen, he was the top-rated German juvenile of 2004, when he won both his starts, including the prestigious Preis des Winterfavoriten by five lengths. In a shortened career as a three-year-old he won two of three starts, including the Group Three Preis der Deutschen Einheit at Hoppegarten. Transferred to Andre Fabre, he only won once at four, but was placed in all other seven starts, all in top company.

The IDEE 151st running of the Group One Deutsches Derby will be run on July 12^th, one week later than originally planned because of the delays in the racing programme caused by the coronavirus crisis. The normally week long Derby meeting at Hamburg will now be concentrated into three days, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, all with about twelve races and starting before noon. The good news is that the prize money for the Derby remains unchanged at 650,000 euros, making it not only by far the richest race in Germany but also one of the most valuable in Europe, as most leading countries such as France, the U.K. and Ireland have all sharply reduced their prize money. Only Italy is otherwise keeping race values at the old level, as the money is paid there out of ministry funds – but often with a very long delay.

We had another successful long weekend in Germany with two Group Two races – the Diana Trial at Hoppegarten and the Mehl-Mülhens-Rennen (German 2,000 Guineas) at Cologne – as the main features. The mild winter and dry spring meant that most leading trainers already have their strings in good form despite the enforced break, with the usual suspects such as Andreas Wöhler and Peter Schiergen well to the fore. However the trainers who have so far dominated the top races are two relative youngsters, Cologne-based Henk Grewe (37) and Munich´s Sarah Steinberg (32).

After the successful resumption of German racing a fortnight ago, we had an equally successful second week of racing – all behind closed doors, of course - with Munich staging racing last Friday with Düsseldorf on Saturday and Cologne on Sunday. All these fixtures also proceeded well with no problems, and it is clear that we are going to have to get used to this kind of racing with no spectators, strict distancing and jockeys wearing face masks for quite a long time to come. Germany appears to be coping much better with the coronavirus crisis than most other countries and restrictions are very slowly being relaxed. The German racing authorities have now published a provisional list of fixtures up to the end of August, and it is expected that all these meetings will still be held behind closed doors, although it is possible that slightly more people will at some stage be allowed on to the racecourse, e.g. owners, although always under strict conditions.

„Equal goes it loose“ was the phrase which German president Heinrich Lübcke – according to legend- uttered to Queen Elizabeth II on the occasion of her state visit to Germany in 1965. What he meant to say was: “It is about to start now”. And that is the situation in which we now find ourselves. As your correspondent pens these lines, it is only a few minutes before racing starts at Hanover, the first race meeting on German soil since the coronavirus lockdown came into effect in March. In fact the first racing in any major European country, as France is due to resume on Monday and there are still no definite dates for the U.K. and Ireland. Indeed the Irish government has suggested that racing will only be allowed again at the end of June, which would be a disaster for the Irish racing industry, although it seems possible that June 8^th could also see a resumption of racing there, while the U.K.