German-breds at Huntingdon

Three low grade jumps meetings today in Britain and Ireland, and in our view Huntingdon stages the most interesting racing, with several horses with German connections running. In the opening maiden hurdle at 15.00 CET Perfect Summer (Lady Cecil/ Jack Quinlan) has attracted a lot of attentjon as he is the first ever runner over jumps saddled by Lady Cecil, whose late husband Henry would never have allowed it. He is owned by Hoppegarten boss Gerhard Schöningh and obviously will be expected to run well on his hurdling debut, but on flat form he is possibly inferior to Myboyalfie (John Jenkins/ Harry Haynes) and especially Lanceur (Lucy Wadham/ LeightonAspell), also making his jumping debut; this close relation to Lando was previously trained by Peter Schiergen and we fancy him to win today. Other runners here with a German background are North Germany (Warren Greatrex/ AP McCoy), making his British debut at 16.00 and 5 years ago one of the top lots at the Baden-Baden sales, as well as Fredo (Ian Williams/ McCoy) at 16.30 and Malanos (Tony Carroll/ Tom Whelan) half an hour later, both of whom have German pedigrees.

These are pretty weak races and all of the above could run well; McCoy looks set for another good afternoon, and we also hope that he wins the maiden hurdle at 17.30 on another Greatrex debutant, Boite, who two years ago was placed in the Queens Vase at Royal Ascot and is the best runner on flat form in action today.