KEN Condon’s early season star Success Days, winner of the Ballysax Stakes and Derrinstown Stud Derby Trial, ended the year on a distinctly downbeat note when trailing in last of seven in Munich’s Pastorius-Grosser Preis von Bayern, the last Group 1 of the German season.

It was his first run since also finishing last in the Derby at Epsom, when he suffered a stress fracture, but the trainer was confident that Success Days would be back in form for the German race. “He had been working well, he travelled over well and he was eating up well. I thought he was in as good a shape as he had been in the spring but he ran a shocker. Shane (Foley) said he was beaten at halfway. It is a real headscratcher and we’ll have him checked when he gets back home, but he is perfectly sound and as far as we can tell there is no obvious problem.”