TopSpec Trainer of the Quarter – Henk Grewe
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The choice for Trainer of the Quarter was no easy one, with many notable successes, but it is Henk Grewe who takes the honours. Scooping both the colts’ and fillies’ BBAG auction races for two-year-olds in September, as well as adding his name to the roll of honour for the Deutsches Derby in July with Sisfahan, Grewe most recently won the Gr. 3 Premio Elena E Sergio Cumani in Rome with Flamingo Girl.
Mister Applebee was an impressive runaway winner of the BBAG auction race at Düsseldorf, and Atomic Blonde fought bravely for her win in the BBAG Johanna and Hugo Memorial; both appear to have a bright future. “Mister Applebee looked very good and is now going to the Ferdinand Leisten Memorial,” Grewe says, hoping to replicate the success of his Horse of the Year, Rubaiyat.
Grewe has 100 boxes at his base in Weidenpescher Park in Cologne. His first notable success came in 2015 with the Austrian Derby, but in the short time since, he has built up a team that has seen him crowned Champion Trainer in 2019 and 2020.
“It has been a good season, especially because of the Deutsches Derby, even though we haven’t had as many winners as last year,” Grewe says. “Winning the Derby was really special for me because I was under so much pressure. Everyone was expecting me to win it for the last three years and now that I have won it, that pressure is gone; it makes everything easier.”
Sisfahan made it look very easy indeed in Hamburg and was having his first start at Group level. “It's nice that Andrasch was on the horse, my parents are here, my brother is here with my niece, who is having a birthday today. He's a great horse and it's just a dream today,” Grewe said on the day. With Sisfahan’s win, Grewe not only enjoyed the greatest success of his career so far but also topped the meeting as leading trainer.
It hasn’t been all joy for Grewe during this time, and he recently lost the promising Preis der Diana runner-up Isfahani—a Gr. 3 winner at two. “It's incredibly sad; when I got the message from the clinic, I was absolutely shocked. Unfortunately, she never had the chance to show her true colours, and I am still convinced that she was the best horse that I have ever trained,” he says of the tragic filly.
“We have a lot of late horses who we hope will be very good for next year,” he says, looking ahead. “COVID has made everything much more difficult. There has been a lot more paperwork and travelling has been much harder, but my team have really handled it well. For me, our team is the most important thing; they work so hard and without them, none of this would be possible.”
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