henk grewe
Growing dominance Trainer Henk Grewe has won his second German championship in just his sixth year of training. Jocelyn de Moubray chats to the man taking German racing by storm
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HE COVID YEAR HAS BEEN a difficult one for every trainer in Europe, but for Henk Grewe it has been nevertheless a remarkably successful one. At the time of writing he is sure to be champion trainer in Germany for the second time – with 52 wins he is more than 10 clear of his closest rival Markus Klug. To have won consecutive championships in his home country in only his fifth and sixth full seasons as a trainer is some achievement, but his success and ambitions are set to allow him to compete with the top trainers in Europe in the years to come. He has already done so – after all his stable’s 65 wins across Germany, France and
Sunny Queen: the daughter of Camelot won the Group 1 Grosser Preis Von Bayern in November
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Italy in 2020 include 22 black-type races, 13 Group races and two Group 1s. The only trainers to have won more Group races in Europe in 2020 are the O’Brien’s – Aidan and Joseph – John Gosden and Charlie Appleby. This is a fact worth repeating. The 37-yearold Grewe in only his sixth full season as a trainer with around 90 horses in his Cologne stable has won more Group races in Europe this year than, to give only the names of the others high up on the list, Andre Fabré, Jean Claude Rouget, Francis Graffard, Mark Johnston, Andrew Balding, Jessica Harrington, and all of the other European trainers aside from the aforementioned four. Grewe’s Group 1 wins came with Darius Racing’s Donjah in Cologne in August, and with Sunny Queen carrying the colours of Gaynor Rupert’s Cayton Park Stud. She won at Munich in November – both fillies were, as have many of Grewe’s best winners, purchased as yearlings at BadenBaden.
