THE flat season also got underway in Germany with an interesting and high quality listed race at Hoppegarten on Saturday. It featured the one-two from the 2023 Deutsches Derby. Impressive two and a quarter-length winner on that occasion and later of the Group 2 Qatar Prix Niel, Fantastic Moon had to settle for second place here behind his German Derby second Mr Hollywood, giving that rival 2kgs.

Trained by Henk Grewe in the colours of Sheikh A Bin Khalifa Al Thani, who part owns the Irish-bred with W Soren Oberhof and S Weiss, Mr Hollywood had also finished second in the Group 1 3rd Wettstar.de Grosser Preis von Baden before being last in the Arc. The son of Iquitos stayed on well to win by a length and a half.

Last year’s French 2000 Guineas winner Marhaba Ya Sanafi recently made a winning reappearance but he did not start favourite for Monday’s Prix Edmond Blanc over a mile, that place taken by the Mickael Barzalona-ridden, Andre Fabre-trained Tribalist. The Godolphin-owned son of Farhh made all and held on well to win by three lengths.

There was a British-trained winner of the Group 3 Prix Penelope for three-year-old fillies over a mile, two and a half furlongs.

The Karl Burke-trained Making Dreams, under jockey Alexis Pouchin, beat outsider Sheema’s Rose having led early, she was headed after a furlong, racing keenly in second, led again after three furlongs and stayed at it well.

The Irish-bred daughter of Make Believe had won three times in a busy two-year-old career for Nick Bradley Racing 5 and Elaine Burke and she had six lengths to spare here with another six back to the Jospeh O’Brien-trained short-priced favourite Je Zous in the six-runner field.