Baden-Baden's “Great festival week” is building to a crescendo, with Saturday's action centred around the G2 T von Zastrow Stutenpreis for some of the country's leading fillies and mares, with an automatic berth into the GI Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Turf on the line. Several of these took part in the G1 Preis der Diana (German Oaks) at Dusseldorf on Aug. 6, with the runner-up Megera (Fr) (Motivator {GB}) clear best of them. Rashit Shaykhutdinov's bay had previously won the May 20 Listed Preis Dusseldorf, but her performance in the 11-furlong Classic represented a major leap forward and if she is able to reproduce that she should be hard to beat. Fourth in the Diana was Stall Ullmann's Tusked Wings (Ire) (Adlerflug {Ger}), who had captured Hoppegarten's G2 Diana-Trial over 10 furlongs on her prior visit to the races on June 4, while the older brigade boasts Gestut Wittekindshof's Aug. 6 Listed Fritz Henkel Stiftungs-Rennen scorer Near England (Ire) (Lord of England {Ger}). She was the winner of last year's G3 Hamburger Stuten-Preis and G3 Deutsches St Leger at Dortmund and if able to get back to that standard will set the 3-year-olds a test.
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