Breeding & Racing in Germany

In the opinion of this writer, there is no such thing as a “moral winner” in horse racing. The winner is the horse that crosses the line in first place, full stop. Of course there are plenty of unlucky losers, and one was certainly Maljoom (Gleneagles) in Tuesday´ s Group One St. James´s Palace Stakes, one of many highlights at this week´s Royal Ascot meeting. Maljoom was of special interest to German racegoers, as he had previously won the Mehl Mülhens-Rennen (German 2,000 Guineas) in good style. The round track at Ascot frequently causes problems for horses that need to be held up, such as Maljoom, who had come from a long way back when winning at Cologne. But as so often is the case, the field was very closely bunched as they came into the straight with all the jockeys wanting to grab the rail, and Maljoom was clearly one of the chief sufferers in the scrimmaging.

We have just had an eventful weekend and this coming weekend promises to be even more eventful. We can now look back on Baden-Baden's Spring Meeting and it must be said that the whole meeting can be regarded as a success. They were lucky with the weather, which except for a brief period of light rain on the Sunday morning, was perfect throughout, an essential ingredient for outdoor events. Crowds were good, some 30,000 over the three days, and the mood very positive. Betting turnover at 1.9 million euros was excellent by German standards – though still peanuts compared to many other racing countries, and well above expectations.

It has been another good week for the Schlenderhan-bred Adlerflug (In The Wings), but sadly a posthumous one, as the 2007 German Derby winner died suddenly of a heart attack at Easter last year after covering a mare. He was already on the way to becoming a sire of major international importance – he had had the first two in the 2020 German Derby, which had created quite a ripple - and he has since gone on to further glory. The winner of that race, In Swoop, went on to finish runner-up in the Arc, while the Derby second from 2020 Torquator Tasso won that Longchamp race last year, and is likely to make his 2022 debut next week at Baden-Baden. Adlerflug was champion sire in Germany for the past two seasons; this is all the more remarkable as his foreign winnings (e.g. 2.9 million euros for the Arc winner!) do not count in the German statistics.

The season is now getting into top gear, and there were some very interesting races last weekend in Germany. There is no doubt either about who was last weekend´s big winner: Manfred Ostermann, who breeds under the name Gestüt Hof Ittlingen and races under the name Gestüt Ittlingen, won the top four races, all with homebreds. The sequence began with Danelo (Exceed and Excel), an easy winner of a good 1400 metres handicap at Mülheim on Saturday under top weight. Trainer Andreas Wöhler indicated later that handicaps are now out for the 4yo, who was making his seasonal debut, and he will now be racing in black type events. Judging by the way he won here, he looks well up to listed class at least.

We shall ignore the turbulence behind the scenes and concentrate entire on the action on the turf during the long Easter weekend. In all there were six meeetings and it is estimated that some 50,000 racegoers were on the course to enjoy some excellent racing, helped by wonderful late spring weather. The weather has been mainly dry for the past few weeks, ads it hads been over most of Western Europe and the ground was mainly riding fast, which was no doubt the reason for the fact that many of the top races were won by front-runners.

The three main meetings were at Hoppegarten on Sunday, with three listed races, Cologne on Monday with the Group Two Carl Jaspers Preis (previously known as the Gerling-Preis), and also on Monday Hanover, with another listed race. For all three tracks it was the first fixture of 2022.