THIS is the crazy German race where horses swim through a lake as their jockeys try desperately to hang on before reaching dry land.
The amazing cross-country spectacle takes place in Hamburg each year.
It is believed that the snappily-titled Alpine Motorenol-Seejagdrennen is totally unique to Germany.
Jockeys compete for a £12,000 purse in the 2m2f contest, most recently won in July 2019 by 19-10 shot Serienlohn.
A replay of the race shows the moment the horses crash into the water.
Carnage ensues as two jockeys totally lose control of their mounts, with one jockey forced to flounder in the water as his horse swims off.
Another tries to hold onto his reins before seemingly giving up when failing to get back in the saddle.
It leads to a funny moment where the commentator yells ‘das ist Box Office’ in relation to one of the horses who unseated his rider.
Bizarrely, that horse was the former JP McManus-owned runner that AP McCoy retired on in 2015.
While chases such as the Grand National in this country can have up to 40 runners, this German race has far fewer.
Just five horses started the most recent contest – with three horses finishing.
In 2016 there were 13 entrants – one of the biggest fields ever for the race – and all of them negotiated the lake successfully.
The race takes place during the city’s Deutsches Derby festival.
Racecourses Bad Harzburg, near Hanover, and Quakenbruck in Lower Saxony, stage lake chases like this, but at both of those the horses can gallop through the water.
This is the only one where the lake is so deep the runners have to, erm, swim.
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