THE weather has been crazy in many parts of western Europe this year, and Hamburg was the chief sufferer last week, when it rained heavily and almost continually for the first five days of the German Derby meeting, their only fixture of the season.

The ground was officially heavy throughout the week, and the fifth day of the meeting had to be abandoned entirely. Luckily it was mainly dry for the final weekend, but the damage had been done. The ground on Derby day was described by visiting jockey Ryan Moore, who partnered Aidan O’Brien’s supplemented Landofhopeandglory, as “worse than winter jumping ground” and other jockeys described it as being “like glue.”