NEWS
Linngari stretches out to land German Group 1
Posted: Sunday, July 27, 2008 5:38 PM
by Myra Lewyn
International runner Linngari snapped a three-race winless stretch and earned the second Group 1 victory of his career by blowing past runner-up Pressing (Ire) in the final 200 meters to win the $243,335 Grosser Dallmayr-Preis Bayerisches Zuchtrennen (Ger-G1) on Sunday at Munich.
The six-year-old Indian Ridge horse won by two lengths under Ryan Moore and covered the 2,000 meters (9.94 furlongs) in 2:10.05 on turf rated as good.
Group 1 winner Pressing finished two lengths in front of Group 3 winner Fair Breeze, the third-place finisher in the nine-horse field.
Linngari distinguished himself while previously competing against some of the world’s elite racehorses during his career, but he had not posted a victory in three starts since winning a 1,500-meter (7.45-furlong) handicap at Nad al Sheba Racecourse on January 24 in his 2008 debut.
Linngari posted the first Group 1 win of his career in the Premio Vittorio di Capua (Ity-G1) for trainer Alain de Royer-Dupre in October at San Siro Racecourse in Milan to cap his 2007 campaign. He also won the Jumeirah Bab al Shams Al Fahidi Fort (UAE-G2) earlier that season for South African trainer Herman Brown after capturing the 2006 edition of the race. He finished a close second to eventual Japanese Horse of the Year Admire Moon in the ’07 Dubai Duty Free (UAE-G1).
Linngari scored a visually impressive victory on Sunday for Sir Michael Stoute in his first attempt at the distance since he was a three-year-old in Stoute’s shedrow for breeder the Aga Khan.
Now campaigned by a partnership that includes Peter Walichnowski, Linngari improved his record to 11 wins in 26 career starts. The chestnut horse is out of the winning Kahyasi mare Lidakiya.
Myra Lewyn is a Thoroughbred Times Today editor
