Racing: Boreal looks an authentic King George contender

Where Germans and horse power are concerned, Schumacher is a name that would motor to mind before Schiergen. But in all the furore over Tony McCoy's topping of Sir Gordon Richards's seasonal winners' tally earlier this year, one fact was rather overlooked. Richards's score was only a domestic record; the European mark McCoy had to aim for was Peter Schiergen's 271 set seven years ago. Of course McCoy passed it with 18 to spare, but Schiergen remains Europe's winningmost Flat jockey in a season.

Cologne-based Schiergen, 37, Germany's five-times champion rider, is now in his fifth season as a trainer and, with a power-packed stable of 100-plus, it is only a matter of time until he takes a handlers' title too. In his brief term in his second career he has already handled equine celebrities like Tiger Hill, third in the 1998 Arc, Sumitas, second in Dubai Millennium's Prince Of Wales's Stakes, and the classy globetrotting filly Catella. On Saturday he sends potentially his best to date, Boreal, to Ascot tackle the established stars in the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Diamond Stakes.

German-trained winners at any level in Britain have been traditionally few and far between. When 20-1 shot Star Appeal won the 1975 Eclipse Stakes, his was the first successful Teutonic raid since Turnus won the Stewards' Cup and the Chesterfield Cup in 1850. And, in general, we have been rather patronising about German racing, dismissing their best horses as being below the very top and regarding Star Appeal's successes – he also won the Arc at 119-1 – as merely a stark warning about the perils of punting.

But the numbers are increasing and the gaps diminishing as Germany has begun to assert. The worth of the country's breeding stock as a source of classy stamina has been noted by some of the shrewdest operators; Kazzia, for instance, Godolphin's dual Classic heroine, is German-bred. Names like Borgia, Caitano and Silvano have done sterling duty on the global stage; Proudwings annexed the Group Two Falmouth Stakes at Newmarket last year, and Boreal became the first since Star Appeal to score at premiership level here when he demolished some of the best of the home side's first division in the Coronation Cup at Epsom. And if more omens are needed, was not one of McCoy's Market Rasen five-timer on Saturday German-trained?

Boreal, Borgia's half-brother, won his local Derby last season and ran a two-length third to Nayef in the Sheema Classic in Dubai in March. He will be only the sixth German raider in Saturday's 52nd running of Europe's great summer showpiece and has not much to improve on, the previous best placing being Orsini's fifth in 1959. Before that Niederlander was 10th in 1952 and afterwards came Star Appeal, 9th in 1975; Acatenango, 6th in 1987; and Platini, 10th in 1993.

At Epsom last month, Boreal looked outstanding in the preliminaries and ran accordingly, leaving Storming Home three and a half lengths in his wake. Even allowing for the fact that the soft ground that day disadvantaged him much less than his rivals, it was a performance that puts the chestnut right in the picture on Saturday, when he will once again be partnered by Kieren Fallon.

"Boreal is at the top of his form," said Schiergen. "He acts on any ground; it was on the fast side when he ran so well in Dubai when not fully wound up and heavy when he won the German Derby. Realistically, we wouldn't want it too firm, but the going is likely to be no problem." Schiergen goes to Ascot confident, but realistic, with a colt who is generally fourth choice in a market dominated by the Godolphin pair, Arc hero Sakhee and Prince Of Wales's Stakes winner Grandera. "Obviously, if Sakhee runs to his Longchamp form, he is the one I am afraid of," he said.

The good news for the Cologne camp is that officials at Ascot are to recommence watering the track – currently good-to-firm – after forecast showers failed to materialise in Berkshire over the weekend. And one trainer with fingers crossed for a continuing dry week is Marcus Tregoning, whose bid with Sheikh Hamdan's Nayef has taken on an extra emotional significance with the death at stud at the weekend of the colt's brilliant half-brother Nashwan, the 1989 King George winner.