German runners at Le Croisé - Laroche

the last few days have seen relatively few German runners in France, but the situation is different today when 8 German-trained horses contest low grade races at Le Croisé - Laroche in north-eastern France. Christian Sprengel´s New Desert (Dominique Boeuf) sets the ball rolling in the 1100 metres seller for 3yo´s at 14.20 CET. An hour later, in a seller for older horses over the same trip, Saldario (Werner Baltromei/ Dominique Boeuf), Südsturm (Sascha Smcrzek/ Jerome Lermyte) and Pesago (Christian Sprengel/ Alxi Badel) are all engaged. In a seller over 2100 metres at 15.50 Uwe Stoltefuss´ Toninho (Johan Victoire) is opposed by Doris Smith´s Wings of April, while Grantley (Heinz Hesse/ Roman Perruchot) and Keltic Rock (Doris Smith/ Remi Campos) both contest yet another seller over 2100 metres at 16.50. Veteran Grantley is easily the best of the German runners, but is a sand track specialist and not certain to be suited by the very heavy going here, so Toninho gets our vote as the best prospect of a German winner. There is also N.H. racing from Enghien this afternoon and trotting from Vincennes this evening.