Standing ovation

The Group 1 Deutsches Derby was won by Palladium, the second year in succession that a Liberty Racing-owned colt has won the Classic. The three-year-old also backing up the great year that sire Gleneagles is enjoying, writes Jocelyn de Moubray

AT THE BEGINNING OF JULY it is, more often than not, obvious who the best middle-distance three-yearolds in Europe are.

This year it is perhaps not so clear cut as, although City Of Troy has two Group 1 victories to his name already, the form of the Derby and the style of his win in the Eclipse means that Coolmore’s son of Justify still has something to prove.

Look De Vega, the unbeaten winner of the Prix du Jockey-Club (G1), could well turn out to be the generation’s leader.

The son of Lope De Vega has only run three times and so has more scope for improvement than his more experienced rivals. In addition, those he beat at Chantilly include Ghostwriter, who was only 2l behind City Of Troy when third in the Eclipse, and Sunway, four and a half lengths behind at Chantilly and only three-quarters of length behind Los Angeles when second in the Irish Derby (G1).

A third real possibility is the Aga Khan’s Gleneagles gelding Calandagan who, after winning his two-year-old maiden by 10l at Chantilly, won two Jockey-Club trails most impressively in France and then the King Edward VII at Royal Ascot by 6l.

If Calandagan was still an entire he would probably have started favourite for the Group 1s at Chantilly or ParisLongchamp.

Justify and Lope De Vega are well established among elite stallions, but Gleneagles has had a different career path.

A son of Galileo, out of a full-sister to Giant’s Causeway and a half or full-brother to several other Group 1 performers, Gleneagles retired to Coolmore in 2016 at €60,000 after winning four Group 1 races over 7f and a mile at two and three.

His first crop did not live up to expectations, so much so that in 2021 he covered only 35 mares. Since then he has built up a solid reputation and has covered full books at a reduced fee of €17,500.

However, Gleneagles’ fifth crop, conceived in 2020 at a €35,000, currently includes three of the best middle-distance colts in Europe – the aforementioned Calandagan, Ambiente Friendly, who finished second in the Derby and third in the Irish Derby, and Liberty Racing’s Palladium, the surprise winner of the Deutsches Derby when getting the better of the long-time leader Borna to win by a head in the very last stride.

In addition, the 6f sprint winner Mill Stream added himself on to the sire’s 2024 success list with his deserved win in the Group 1 July Cup at Newmarket.

Gleneagles himself was a top miler, and, despite the emergence of the Group 1 sprint winner, many of his progeny stay further and his three-year-olds have an average winning distance of 1m1f, and this year of 9.5f.

Palladium had won only a maiden race in five starts before the Derby and had been beaten just over 2l by Narrativo when fourth in the Group 2 Union Rennen on his previous starts.

His trainer Henk Grewe’s other runner Wilko was far more fancied and Palladium went off among the outsiders at 23-1 in an 18-runner field.

As is often the case the Deutsches Derby attracted a large competitive field, including horses trained in France and England but for once there was no early pace, and most unusually the first four horses home were the first four from start to finish.

When the field took the first turn out of the home straight with 2000m ahead of them, Borna was leading from Alleno, Augustus and Palladium, and none of the other 14 runners were ever able to get into the race.

The early pace was so slow – they ran the first 600m in 42sec – that when the leaders finally accelerated at the top of the straight they had the race between them as all of the others has given them far too much of a start.

Palladium ran the final 400m in just over 23sec, 13 per cent faster than his race average, and was taken across the track to the stands’ side by his young jockey Thore Hammer-Hanson. The pair passed the trio on the far side of the course to win by a neck from Borna with Augustus a head back in third and Alleno in fourth.

The final time of 2m37.18sec was one of the slowest of recent years on ground which was officially good to soft, and the race was seven seconds slower than Sea The Moon’s win in 2014.

The circumstances of the race make it hard to tell just how good a performance this was but Borna, a son of Saxon Warrior bred by Francois Doumen’s Haras d’Ecouves, had been a good winner of the Derby Italiano (G2) on his previous start comfortably beating the Andrew Balding-trained Royal Supremacy, who was later third to Calandagan at Ascot. The third and fourth had both performed consistently well in the domestic Derby trials.

A more truly run race may well have produced a different result, but Palladium is clearly a gifted stayer well suited to a 1m4f trip.

More significantly Palladium is the second consecutive Derby winner purchased by Lars Baumgarten for his Liberty Racing Syndicate at the BBAG September Sale.

Last year’s winner Fantastic Moon had cost €49,000 in 2021 and a year later

Baumgarten went to €80,000 to buy Palladium from Gestüt Fährhof, which was significantly more than Gleneagles’ yearling average in 2022.

The colt’s dam Path Wind is out of a full-sister to the dam of multiple Group winner Wild Coco and was bought in training by Fährhof in whose colours she finished second in the Group 1 Premio Lydia Tesio on her final start.

Palladium, her seventh foal, is by far her best to date, and she has a unraced two-year-old Soldier Hollow colt and a colt foal by Japan.

Fährhof is enjoying an outstanding year as a breeder – two of Germany’s best threeyear-old milers Penalty and Ghorgan were also sold from their same September draft.

Even before this latest triumph, Baumgarten’s Liberty Racing has had a significant impact on German racing attracting new investors from Germany, Australia and all over the world, and showing that partnerships are able to win the best races with horses bought at auction.

Owner breeders are still more important in Germany than in any other major racing country but these days the leading producers Fährhof, Röttgen, Karlshof and Brummerhof offer most, if not all, of their yearling colts for sale. Liberty Racing’s syndicates were hugely popular last year and this year there will be long queues to join Baumgarten’s happy band.

Jean Prat won by Starspangledbanner colt

The Prix Jean Prat is the last of the five French Group 1 races for three-year-olds (there were six but the Prix Saint Alary was downgraded to Group 2 in 2024) and for the second consecutive year all five were won by French-trained horses – Rouhiya, Metropolitan, Look De Vega, Sparkling Plenty and Puchkine.

Alain Jathiere’s Puchkine, a homebred son of Starspangledbanner,was a surprise winner of the Jean Prat as, after winning his first four starts and looking like a future top horse, the Jean Claude Rouget-trained colt had disappointed three times – he was unplaced in the Poule d’Essai des Poulains (G1) and only fourth behind Lazzat, Havana Cigar and Sajir in the Group 3 Prix Paul de Moussac.

The good ground in Deauville suited Puchkine better than the heavy ground earlier in the season and his jockey Ioriz Mendizabal used very different tactics jumping out of the stalls to track the Juddmonte pacemaker Zandy before going on with 400m to run.

Soon clear of his rivals, Puchkine stayed on to win by two and a half lengths from stable companion Havana Cigar. Beauvatier and Sajir, who all come from behind, finished together in second, third and fourth.

The sectional times suggest there was no fluke about Puchkine’s win. There was a strong pace from start to finish and the final time of 1m21.49s was only 0.2s slower than when Too Darn Hot recorded the fastest Jean Prat-winning time since the race moved to Deauville in 2019.

British trainer Karl Burke is the only non-French-based trainer to have several black-type successes in France this year why French-trained horses have become more competitive or why British and Irish trainers are winning fewer Group and Listed races in France, particularly those at a mile or further.

Puchkine ran the final 200m in 11.98s, three per cent slower than his race average, but the whole field was slowing at the end.

Puchkine is a fast horse, a worthy Group 1 winner and is likely to be competitive in top sprints in the future.

His unraced dam is a daughter of So You Think and he comes from the Meon Valley family of Reprocolor, who is his fifth dam.

Jathiere has become an important owner in France with 45 horses in training, including Flat and jumping horses. This was his first Group 1 winner and he is also the part-owner of the Saint Alary winner Birthe. Another French-trained three-year-old likely to be competitive in Group 1 races in the future is the Wertheimer brothers’ Bright Picture, an Intello gelding who was an easy winner of the 1m2f Group 2 Prix Eugene Adam at Saint Cloud.

This was a slowly run race and Bright Picture showed impressive acceleration –he ran the penultimate 200m in 10.9s and the last 400m some 12 per cent faster than his race average – to win comfortably by three-quarters of a length. The André Fabretrained gelding has won four of his five starts to date and was beaten over a length by Calandagan in the Group 3 Prix Noailles.

Arqana October Sale, Bright Picture’s dam Lucy The Painter won five of her 36 starts in Britain and comes from a Ballymacoll staying family – her second dam Royal Bounty was by Generous out of a Troy mare.

At the time of writing British and Irish trainers have won 14 of the 102 black-type races run in France and six of these were over a mile or more.

Karl Burke with four wins is the only non-French-based trainer to have won several black-type races in France this year. There appears to be less interest in winning in France §– for instance, John and Thady Gosden have only had two runners this year in the country, while Aidan O’Brien and Charlie Appleby have had only five each.

There has also clearly been a virtuous circle of better stallions based in France producing better horses and encouraging inward investment and so keeping new stallion prospects in France and raising the quality of the horses presented at Arqana, too.

Of the current top ten stallions in France the only ones not standing there are Wootton Bassett, who did for many years, Kingman and Lope De Vega.