THE year 2019 had been a depressing year for German racing and breeding. Both the Deutsches Derby and Preis der Diana (German Oaks) had been kept at home, but that was no great achievement as there had been no foreign runners.

However, the other five German Group 1 races had all gone to foreign raiders.

In particular Germany’s top race, the Grosser Preis von Baden, had seen Godolphin’s Ghayyaith score by a spectacular 14 lengths from the filly Donjah with that season’s German Derby winner Laccario a well-beaten third.

That form reads much better now. Ghayyaith, bred by Dermot Weld’s Springbank Way Farm has since shown that that was no flash in the pan, and his impressive 2020 victories in the Coronation Cup, Coral-Eclipse Stakes and Juddmonte International have made him the highest-rated turf performer worldwide.

He is now to retire to Kildangan Stud in Co. Kildare for an initial fee of €30,000. Runner-up Donjah won this year’s Group 1 Preis von Europa, and while Laccario has still not won a race since his Derby victory, he has had his problems and was this autumn twice runner-up in Grade 1 races in his new base in the USA.

German-owned

The situation is almost reversed this year. The Derby and also the Preis der Diana had, thanks to loyal sponsors, their normal prize money and were won by French-trained In Swoop and British-trained Miss Yoda respectively, but these winners were not only German-bred but also German-owned.

In Swoop was a Schlenderhan homebred and by their resident stallion Adlerflug, while Miss Yoda was bred by Gestüt Etzean and a €280,000 BBAG yearling. She ran in the colours of Westerberg, the nom de course of Georg von Opel, who lives in London, has a Swiss passport but is a member of the German car manufacturing Opel family.

Von Opel has also bought fillies in partnership with Coolmore and looks likely to become a major breeder in time. Miss Yoda was well beaten on her only start since Düsseldorf on unsuitably heavy ground in the Group 1 Prix de Royallieu, but In Swoop has certainly confirmed the Hamburg form.

He finished runner-up on both his starts since, first to Mogul in the Grand Prix de Paris and then to Sottsass in the Arc.

Not only that, Torquator Tasso, another colt by Adlerflug and trained by first-season trainer Marcel Weiss, followed up his second place to In Swoop in the Derby by running a close third in the Grosser Preis von Baden to Barney Roy (completing a Godolphin hat-trick in the race), then narrowly defeating Dicaprio, another son of Adlerflug, in the Group 1 Grosser Preis von Berlin.

Finally Torquator Tasso and Dicaprio finished second and third, in another very close finish, to the three-year-old Camelot filly Sunny Queen in the Grosser Preis von Bayern.

In Swoop is now rated the top three-year-old in the world over 12 furlongs on turf, and the German Derby form has been massively boosted.

Sunny Queen, a direct descendant of the celebrated Schlenderhan mare Schwarzgold, was sold before the race, for a reported half-million euros, to the South African-owned Cayton Park Stud, but is to remain in training with her German trainer Henk Grewe, also responsible for Donjah and Dicaprio, while all indications so far are that In Swoop (with Francis-Henri Graffard), Torquator Tasso and Dicaprio are also to stay in training, giving Germany a strong hand in the major middle distance events in Europe next year.

If one regards In Swoop and Miss Yoda as German, then Barney Roy, who also scored in Munich and was bred by Eliza Park International, was the only foreign winner of a major German race in 2020.

Looking forward

OBVIOUSLY events next year will depend on the crowds returning to the racecourse and on a relatively quick end of the pandemic, also a positive plan for Baden-Baden. Deutscher Galopp has provisionally planned 141 racedays in 2021, with prize money back to 2019 levels at €11.3 million.

Let us hope that this actually comes to pass, in which case we can probably expect another successful year for German racing and breeding.