The English page - Better weather brings better sport

The winter is coming to an end and for the most of the past four months the weather in Germany has been horrible – cold, wet and windy – with resulting small crowds and betting turnover well below normal. However there has been been a rapid for the last two weekends and in particular last weekend (Easter) was quite pleasant and it was a pleasure to go racing on Easter Sunday at Hoppegarten and Easter Monday at Cologne, with both these big city racetracks opening their gates for 2023 and putting on much better racing than so far seen this season. Hoppegarten was able to welcome some 10,000 racegoers while Cologne had 15,000. Not only that the betting turnover at the two tracks was easily the best of the year. We also had three listed races at the weekend, two on Sunday and one on Monday, all with strong fields and exciting finishes.

At Hoppegarten, we had the first French significant victory of 2023 with Godolphin´ s Nano Nagle (Frankel), trained by Henri-Alex Pantall, proving too strong for Newswells Park´s homebred Yummylicious (Dubawi), trained by Andreas Wöhler. The latter had led at a decent pace for the first six furlongs of the listed mile race for fillies, but when Nano Nagle, who had started clear favourite, started her attack she quickly asserted and in the end she scored quite comfortably. It well be remembered that Pantall has an excellent record with Godolphin raiders in listed races. Andreas Wöhler had very few runners during the winter but has started this season in fine style and only an hour later went one better when Gestüt Fährhof´s homebred Panjari (Camelot) finished very strongly to defeat hot favourite Best of Lips This was Panjari´s first race since last September, but he also had a listed win in Italy in 2022 to his credit, while Best of Lips (The Gurkha) was twice runner-up in Group Two events in that country. Wöhler also saddled View Zabeel (Saxon Warrior) to win a maiden race for unraced 3yo fillies in good style at Hoppegarten for owner breeder Jaber Abdullah to kick off a successful weekend the stable. Views Zabeel´s dam had won the Italian Oaks and her daughter is entered in this season´s German version; they was she scored here suggests that she is no forlorn hope, even though the race is still four months away.

More potentially smart 3yo´s were seen the next day at Cologne, notably Gestüt Ittlingen´s homebred Skylo (Postponed), trained by Marcel Weiss, who, having only the second start of this career having finished runner-up in a very strong maiden at Baden-Baden in December, ran out a very impressive winner of the maiden race over 1850 metres and was immediately promoted to joint-favouritism to the 2023 German Derby. He is from an excellent family, and is not only entered in the Derby but also in the main trials, Munich´s Bavarian Classic and Cologne´s Union-Rennen.

Main event on Easter Monday at Cologne was the listed Sauren Dachsfonds-Rennen over 1300 metres, a special distance.which turned out to be ideal for the Sascha Smrczek´s U.K.-bred filly Clever Candy (Intello). She had plenty of smart handicap form both in Germany and France, but usually found 1200 metres short and 1400 too far. This time the distance and the strong early pace was were just perfect. She was held up in last pace until being produced with a very strong late run. There were still half a dozen horses with a good winning chance inside the final furlong but she came flying to get up in the final 100 metres to score by half a length and a short head. This was certainly the most exciting finish of the weekend, and of course the most satisfying from the point of view of the Turf Times team.

The season is now really hotting up now. On Sunday we have two group races at both the Curragh and Longchampn; next week there is the Craven meeting at Newmarket with the first classic trials. while this Sunday we have the first group race of 2023 in Germany, the Frühjahrs-Meile, obviously enough over a mile at Düsseldorf.

David Conolly-Smith