Andreas Wöhler can stretch a brilliant German summer into a Group 1 hat-trick when shock Derby winner Dardanos takes on last year’s Classic hero Hochkönig and a strong British team in Sunday’s Grosser Preis von Berlin.
Wöhler followed Dardanos’ 84-1 German Derby upset by winning last weekend’s Preis der Diana with Soreanga, leaving him with the chance to land a third top-level prize in little more than a month.
Dardanos became the longest-priced winner in German Derby history when defeating 17 rivals at Hamburg, but Wöhler does not view the result as quite the accident the odds suggested.
Wöhler was quoted in a Hong Kong Jockey Club release as saying: “We knew that Dardanos had improved from his previous outing, but we did not know by how much. Winning the Derby will always be so very special.”
Victory at Hoppegarten would also end a six-year wait for a German-trained winner of the €155,000 contest over 2,400 meters, with subsequent Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe hero Torquator Tasso the most recent home success in 2020.
The three-year-old was supplemented for Sunday’s race and will again be partnered by Eduardo Pedroza, who rode Soreanga to victory in the German Oaks at Dusseldorf.
Dardanos now has to prove his Hamburg breakthrough can carry into open-age company, with the 10-runner field featuring six German-trained runners and four visitors from Britain.
Hochkönig provides the most direct domestic measure.
The 2025 German Derby winner was sidelined for an extended period after his Classic success and has been solid rather than spectacular in three starts this season, most recently finishing fourth in the Group 2 Grosser Hansa-Preis.
That Hamburg race was won by Global Health, who has also been supplemented, but the strongest opposition may come from Britain.
Andrew Balding sends Almeric after the lightly raced four-year-old finished third behind Ombudsman in the Group 3 Brigadier Gerard Stakes and filled the same position behind Rebel’s Romance in the Group 2 Princess Of Wales’s Stakes.
He remains without a win this season but brings form around two of Europe’s leading middle-distance horses and will be ridden by Jason Watson.
Sir Mark Prescott’s Tiffany has finished second in each of her past five starts, including three Group 1s, as she continues to chase an elusive first top-level victory.
The Club's release also quoted Prescott following Tiffany’s latest second-place finish: “When you’ve finished second four times in a row, you just knew there would be a fifth! But she ran another great race.”
Godolphin has two chances through Saeed bin Suroor.
Tornado Alert returns from more than a year away, having won last season’s Group 1 Grosser Dallmayr-Preis in Munich, while 10-year-old Dubai Future attempts to become one of the oldest Group 1 winners in recent memory after landing the Group 3 Henry II Stakes at Sandown in May.
The recent honor roll underlines the standard required, with Rebel’s Romance, Al Riffa, Simca Mille, Alpinista and Torquator Tasso among the winners since 2020.
Wöhler himself has won the race three times, most recently with Melbourne Cup winner Protectionist in 2016.
The Grosser Preis von Berlin is the next World Pool feature and is carded as S2-4, with the race scheduled for 9:40 p.m. Hong Kong time on Sunday.
