German Thoroughbred & Racing: The last group-winners!

The last significant German two-year-old race of the season was run at Krefeld last Sunday, and Stall Reckendorf's Colomano (Cacique) ran out a ready winner of the Herzog von Ratibor-Rennen after racing towards the rear for most of the way. He ran on strongly in the final stages to defeat the front-running favourite Kastano (Nathaniel) by one and three-quarters lengths, with another Nathaniel colt Enjoy Vijay a close third. It was a good result for Gestüt Fährhof, who bred both the first and third, while the runner-up is part-owned by Newsells Park, which like Fährhof  is owned by the Jacobs family.

On his previous start, Colomano had finished only fifth in the Preis des Winterfavoriten at Cologne, but had been badly hampered.  That race had been won by Langtang (Campanologist), also bred by Fährhof and owned by them in partnership with football star Klaus Allofs. This has been an extremely successful partnership in recent years and enjoyed another major success last Sunday in Italy, when Potemkin (New Approach) was an easy winner of the Premio Roma, the final Group One race of the European season. This was an excellent performance by Potemkin, who was moving up in grade after winning the Group Two Prix Dollar on his previous start. However plans to run Potemkin in Hong Kong have now been shelved:  “that was a hard race on very bad ground,” explains trainer Andreas Wöhler, “he deserves a rest now but we expect to have a lot of fun with him next year.”

Senior German handicapper Harald Siemen writes a blog every week on the German Racing website and this week he explains how he came to rate this season´s leading German two-year-olds. He points out that handicappers can only go on the actual results and cannot take into account what might have happened, had a horse not been hampered or otherwise run below expectations.  It was obvious that Colomano was much better than the bare form of the Cologne race indicated, so there is some justice in his later victory. Siemen now rates Langtang, Colomano and Italian Gran Criterium winner Skarino Gold (Wiener Walzer) all equally on a GAG of 94.5 (equals an international rating of 109) and this is unlikely to change much, if at all, before the publication of the official handicaps in January.

The other big race at Krefeld last Sunday was the Niederrhein-Pokal over the extended ten furlongs, which saw the easiest winner of the day when the four-year-old Ullmann filly Amazona (Dubawi) made all the running and was always in complete control. The two favourites Palace Prince and Devastar (both by Areion), first and second in the Preis der Deutschen Einheit three weeks earlier, trried hard to get on terms in the straight, but had no chance as Amazona  skipped through the very soft ground to win as she pleased with the rest of the field well strung out. This completed a good week for the Ullmann stable after the Group One victory of Guignol (Cape Cross) at Munich earlier in the week. Like that one, Amazona is out of a Monsun mare; in fact her dam Amarette retired unbeaten after only three races, including the Preis der Diana (Oaks). With that pedigree, and now with a Group Three victory in her record, Amazona  is clearly of huge interest as a broodmare and has been retired.

Main event this weekend is the listed German Owners' and Breeders' Sprint Trophy at Dortmund over seven furlongs. At this time of year there are usually large fields for such races with many fillies hoping to gain some valuable black type, and that is the case here, where nine of the fourteen runners are fillies. Another Dubawi filly is the likely favourite, Joailliere, trained in Ireland by Dermot Weld and to be ridden by his stable jockey Pat Smullen. Weld and owner Eva-Maria Haefner of Moyglare Stud are expected to be present in person. This will be only the third runner for the stable in Germany in the last ten years; both of Joailliere´s predecessors finished second, but she has a good chance of going one better.

This is an international field with Holy Spring (Dylan Thomas), Sense of Fun (Distorted Humor) and You're Back (Street Cry) all trained in France- the last two both three-year-old Godolphin fillies trained by Henri-Alex Pantall, who is always dangerous in such races. Peter Schiergen's Ross (Acclamation) looks the best of the Germans, but he is badly drawn and it would be no surprise to see the foreign raiders successful here. The Dortmund meeting, which has been transferred from Frankfurt, is the penultimate turf fixture of the year; next Wednesday´s Dresden meeting, also with a listed race on the card, will be the final raceday on grass, and then we have only sand track racing at Neuss and Dortmund until next March. With all due respect, the racing at the two sand tracks is mainly of low quality and of little interest; next week´s English page will therefore be the last of 2016.