This was a 7th win in the race for trainer Andreas Wohler, whose last success in the German Oaks came in 2022 with Toskana Belle and there can’t have been too many winners of this race that were as comfortable as Soreanga was once she hit the front. Travelling behind the early pace, the gaps opened perfectly in front of Soreanga and her rider Eduardo Pedroza and once asked to quicken she did so readily, clocking an impressive late speed figure of 58.07 km/h, more than 1 km/h faster than the runner-up and that enabled her to pull readily clear as she settled down to fight out the finish with Lapotheose. The first 2 recorded identical average stride length figures of 7.28m throughout the contest, but if there was a difference between the pair, it came when we compared the turn-of-foot that they both possess. Soreanga reached a peak average stride frequency of 2.51 strides per second, compared to 2.48 from Lapothesose and she was able to sustain that level of acceleration for far longer. In a race run at an even pace with a finishing speed around 101% from the principles, the tactical speed that Soreanga was able to use once she saw daylight at the head of the field became key. Despite looking slightly green and wandering around when she reached the front, she put this race to bed with a superb turn-of-foot inside the final furlong and galloped on through the line to record a run-out speed of 55.6 km/h, the best in the field. If we look at races run over 2,000m or further in Dusseldorf in the last 2 years, Soreanga ranks 1st for average speed with the 59.8 km/h that she recorded to win the German Oaks. Given that the German Oaks is a Group 1 race, that’s perhaps not a surprising statistic, but there were 5 or 6 runners who appeared to be in with a genuine chance of winning the race on Sunday with 500m to run. By the time they crossed the line, there was only one, as Soreanga put over half a second between herself and the rest. 

Lapotheose won the G2 Coolmore Prix Saint-Alary at Paris Longchamp in May and whilst she may come on for the benefit of this first run in 84 days, it would take a considerable turnaround for her to reverse this form. Soreanga produced a brilliant display with an average speed that was more than 3 km/h faster than an average winner over the course and distance in a pattern race from our database. In a fast time, she accelerated clear in the closing stages and is really the only name that I would be keen to add to the notebook from the 168th Henkel-Preis der Diana.