VILLEROY IS GROUP CLASS AT BADEN-BADEN

They say that New York is such a great town they named it twice. I'm not sure you could say the same of Baden-Baden. But one thing is certain, they have a great racetrack, one that is arguably the most complex on the planet.

Looking at the map of Baden-Baden racecourse is really confusing. The place is laid out like spaghetti junction.

One horse that clearly likes the peculiar twists and turns of Germany's top track is VILLEROY (38). He stretched his unbeaten run at the course to four when taking a good class 2 handicap in seriously fast time last week-end.

It would be interesting to see what Villeroy could do at a track like Goodwood or Epsom. If he stays in Germany he'll no doubt be running in pattern company soon. If it's at Baden-Baden I'd give him a great shot of winning a Listed or Group 3 contest.

BANKNOTE CASHES IN ON HIS FRESHNESS

BANKNOTE (37) has earned several write ups from me and ran fast enough to merit another one when winning the Group 3 Badener Meile from the smart ASPECTUS (36). Both he and Aspectus have run a fair bit faster in the past and would have done so here had Aspectus set a faster pace.

As I’ve mentioned before, Banknote is best when fresh and seems to need a turn. So far he has come into a race around a turn off a break of five weeks or more ten times. He's won eight of those ten times. His two losses were very slow run races where he finished second to smart winners who got first run on him.

I’m now beginning to wonder just how fast Banknote really is. I’m certainly going to be wary of opposing him in any race around a turn that he contests off a five week plus break this season.

Aspectus was supplemented into the race and it was certainly an interesting experiment to see how he’d do cut back to a mile. But, as in last year’s German Guineas, it did seem that a mile was on the sharp side for Aspectus. His best run came over 11 furlongs according to my speed ratings when he earned a Group 1 class speed rating from me to beat the brilliant Lauro. Over that sort of trip on the fast ground he seems to need I expect Aspectus to win a Group 1 race sometime this season.

ANDORO IS VERY PROMISING

German racing is in a desperate financial state these days. The number of races run annually has plummeted to something under 2000. And the reduced programme makes it awfully hard to place certain types of horses , most notably good three year olds. Basically you’ve just got to go for handicaps as there really aren’t enough conditions races. This being so I wouldn’t knock ANDORO (37) for having won a minor handicap on the German 2000 Guineas card at Cologne last week-end.

Andoro certainly didn’t win like a handicapper. The photo of the race shows him scoring hard held. It also shows that he’s still green as he has his head to one side and his ears are at different angles, giving him that confused look you’ll often see on an inexperienced horse.

No doubt Andoro will be heading for pattern company sooner rather than later. I would imagine his owners will shoot for a Derby Trial on one of his next few starts. He certainly has the build of a good horse. He’s remarkably mature for a three year old and is a big strapping, deep chested sort with massively muscled neck and withers. I guarantee some of the big Irish and British jumping yards will be after him. He’d certainly be an amazingly good juvenile hurdle prospect.