LAST week’s ‘Grosse Woche’ at Baden-Baden, Germany’s most important meeting of the year, saw some exciting finishes, but not in the big race of the week, the Group 1 Grosser Preis von Baden, in which Guignol (Jean-Pierre Carvalho/Filip Minarik) made all the running to score by two and a half lengths from the favourite Iquitos, who just held Colomano by a short-head for second place.

This year’s Derby winner Windstoss was fourth, with the two Godolphin runners Best Solution and Prize Money disappointingly trailing the six-runner field. The going was much too fast for the Godolphin pair, who will now run in Australia.

The race was a tactical triumph for Carvalho and Minarik, who knew the only way to beat Iquitos, who had won the race last year, was to set a false pace, and Minarik timed it beautifully, going very steady for the first nine furlongs and then quickening on the turn into the straight.

Iquitos, who likes to come off a strong pace with a late run, was unsettled by this and never got in a blow. In any case, he may not have been at his best, as he was quite agitated before, and also after the race, which is quite unlike him. He is still a possible runner in the Arc, where he will get the strong and even pace that he needs.

Guignol, a son of Cape Cross, was seen to best effect here and his rating has risen to 119, just one pound behind Grosser Preis von Berlin winner Dschingis Secret and one pound above Iquitos.

Dschingis Secret and Guignol are unlikely to meet again, as the former-mentioned prefers right-handed tracks – and is also on course for the Arc if he runs well enough this Sunday in the Foy – while Guignol is much better the other way round.

He is now likely to try to repeat his 2016 victory in the Grosser Preis von Bayern at the left-handed Munich, while the Japan Cup (also left-handed) looks an interesting late autumn option with a lucrative bonus on offer.

Colomano reversed Derby form with Windstoss, but the evidence strongly suggests that the three-year-colts in Germany this year are only average. However, for owner-breeder Gestüt Röttgen, trainer Markus Klug and jockey Adrie de Vries it was still a good day as their filly Narella ran out a most convincing winner of the Group 3 Zukunfts-Rennen and must now be regarded as Germany’s top juvenile.

She is from a top Röttgen family but is by Reliable Man, who stood for four years at Röttgen but will be in France from 2018. His international owners were apparently unhappy with the lack of support from German breeders, and indeed his yearlings have not sold as well as expected although they are on the whole well-made, and his first crops down under have performed very well.

There were three Group 2 races run at the meeting, and French raider Son Cesio took the Goldene Peitsche for Henri-Alex Pantall by a head. He and rival Daring Match were racing on opposite sides of the track and it was near impossible to tell which one had won, though Adrie de Vries on the winner claimed that he never had a moment’s doubt. Son Cesio was not winning out of turn, as he was running in the race for the fourth time and had been runner-up in 2014 and 2015.

Pas De Deux (Stephen Hellyn) repeated his 2016 victory in the Darley Oettingen-Rennen, Germany’s top mile race, with a game all-the-way success from Palace Prince, who won the main feature on the opening day of the meeting.

Pas De Deux seems to be rather fragile, and this was only his second race since he won a year ago. If all goes well, he will run next in the Prix Wildenstein at Chantilly on Arc weekend.

Trainer Peter Schiergen also expects to be at Chantilly that weekend, as he has earmarked the Prix de l’Opera for his Preis der Diana winner Lacazar and he now has a second possible runner for that race in Ashiana, who produced an impressive burst of speed to win the T. von Zastrow Stutenpreis for fillies and mares.

The daughter of Mastercraftsman looks much improved and she is now qualified for the Fillies and Mares Turf at the Breeders´ Cup. Her owner, Cologne race club president Eckhard Sauren, enjoys an adventure, so Del Mar could well be the next stop after Chantilly.