Great weather, a great atmosphere, and many popular winners – that’s how the Oktoberfest race day on Thursday, September 18, at the racecourse in Munich-Riem can be summed up. Two days before the start of Oktoberfest, the Munich Racing Club put visitors in the mood for the Oktoberfest, the world’s largest folk festival, with exciting races, music, and culinary delights. The festival originated with a horse race in 1810 on Munich’s Theresienwiese.
The Southern German Horse Club isn’t quite that old, but it can still look back on a few years of history. Since its founding in 2007 with the goal of allowing racegoers on modest incomes to actively participate in the sport of horse racing, the energetic group of owners has never managed to win two races in one day. That changed today, when the four-year-old mare Veneziana first won a handicap III over 2,000m, ridden by champion jockey Thore Hammer-Hansen.
Victory number 40 for the Galopp Club Süddeutschland
French amateur rider Kevin Braye then rode the five-year-old Storm and Conquest in the Handicap IV, also over 2,000m. “He’s very lazy, I had to support him the whole time, and that’s what I did. In the end, it was enough,” said the Alsatian after his victory in the fourth round of the Bavarian Amateur Championships. Veneziana and Storm and Conquest are trained by Werner Glanz in Riem. “It was the 40th victory for the Galopp Club.”
But that wasn’t the end of the story for Austrian-born Glanz. Leon, already seven years old, won the MIG Fonds Prize, a 2,000m handicap II with prize money of €11,500, the most valuable test of the day. The winner was Munich-based Rene Piechulek: “It was a very calm race, but there was a lot of speed in the final bend, and I always had a good feeling.”
The two-year-old Shetian from Schlenderhan Stud impressed in the opening round for champion trainer Peter Schiergen from Cologne. The highly talented apprentice Esentur Turganaaly Uulu from Kyrgyzstan had little trouble keeping the competition at bay in the 1,600m Prize of the Parsdorf Horse Clinic.
Trotting race at the end
The finale of the Oktoberfest race day was musically provided by the lively band “Die Derbies” – before that, there was an unusual comeback: for the first time in 14 years, a trotting race was held on the Riemer Grasbahn.
With 17 starters, the first harness race in Riem in 14 years was well-attended. After a thrilling race, Desiderio, ridden by German silver helmet Christoph Schwarz, came out on top, beating the long-time outsider Gino (R. Pletschacher) and Ocean Eyes (C. Fischer) in the speed section. The latter moved up to third place after the race directors dropped Billy Kimber (P. Platzer), who had finished third, behind Itturia (R. Haller) due to an interference with Itturia in the first turn.
The next race day in Riem is on October 25th with the Lotto Bayern Grand Prix as the main event.
