Graeme North looks back on the recent big-race action in France.
Spirit on the radar
Deauville’s summer meeting comes to an end this weekend with its final fixture until October 21 when it hosts the Group 3 Prix des Reservoirs and while this Sunday’s fare isn’t quite as alluring as some we’ve had recently, with just one Group 2 race and two Group 3s heading a handicap-heavy card, those races in themselves are intriguing enough.
In the G2 Grand Prix de Deauville Arrest bids for his first win since the Geoffrey Freer Stakes just over a year ago, since when he has finished second in the St Leger, the Ormonde Stakes and the Princess of Wales’s Stakes. A repeat of any of those pieces of form (save perhaps for the Ormonde where he was beaten six and a half lengths by Point Lonsdale) should be good enough here for all he hasn’t really made the progress expected from three to four and it’s worth remembering he was only just touched off on his only previous start in France in the 2022 Criterium de Saint-Cloud.
Very fast ground wouldn’t be ideal but a heavy spell of rain passing over the track on Saturday doesn’t suggest those conditions will prevail but all the same he wouldn’t be a betting proposition for me at the even money he has opened at in the betting.
Those who place great faith in form figures will be drawn to the supplemented Homo Deus who has gone 1111 this year but all those wins came on or before April Fools Day on ground that was extremely testing even by French standards and he won’t get those conditions here even if he is fully wound up.
If there is a challenger to Arrest I imagine it will come not from another of the supplemented runners, the German challenger Quantanamera, but from Sacred Spirit whose form has been steadily progressive. His last six form figures read 122112 and he’s taken the progression from handicaps to Group races (much as Homo Deus has) in his stride and would have given the William Haggas-trained Klondike much more to think about last time had he not been ridden from so far back. I’d probably be looking more for 100/30 than the 9/4 which is the best I’ve seen so far, however.
Fast horse looks a bet
Seven go to post in the first of the other two Group races, the Prix Quincey over 1600m. So far as current form is concerned, Wathnan Racing’s Make Me King is just about top from a Timeform perspective after his clear-cut win in a smart handicap at Newcastle on Northumberland Plate Day, a performance he then near enough repeated under a penalty in the much deeper Tote International at Ascot.
There’s a world of difference between well-run handicaps conceding weight to inferiors and the more tactical affairs typically found in French Group races, however, and I’d be keener on Fast Raaj. He can blow a bit hot and cold but has a cracking turn of foot on his day and really ought to have finished much closer to the front-running Caramelito and the 2023 French 2000 Guineas winner Marhaba Ya Sanafi last time at Chantilly where he was travelled strongly throughout but found himself with nowhere to go as the race developed ahead of him. He beat the re-opposing Topgear by a length and a quarter at Chantilly last year in the Group 3 Prix Messidor, is the best of these when at the top of his game (closely followed by Topgear) and should have too many guns for an upgraded British handicapper.
Bradsell form worth noting
The Prix de Meautry is a competitive affair and not short of British interest with Spycatcher, James’s Delight, Go Bears Go and Saint Lawrence all throwing their hat into the ring. Spycatcher is nominally the best of the British challenge on the best of this year’s form, but that effort came at Newmarket in April on his reappearance since when he’s run at least 7lb below that level including on a recent trip to France when he was sixth behind Shouldvebeenaring in the Prix de Ris-Orangis.
Saint Lawrence was a head in front of him that day and has since run even better when sixth to Lazzat in the Prix Maurice de Gheest, so clearly needs respecting, as does James’s Delight who won the listed Prix Kistena over course and distance at the start of July after landing the often-significant six-furlong handicap on what used to be Timeform Charity Day.
His trainer Clive Cox followed a similar plan with Harry Three in 2022, winning both the York race and the Kistena, but ended up with a regressive type after flying too high in the Group 1 Prix de Meautry, so it appears he has learned from that and is adopting a calmer approach this time around.
Go Bears Go is back with David Loughnane for whom he won the Phoenix Sprint in 2022 but more interesting contenders, unusually for a French sprint, are the home-trained contenders Beauvatier and Coeur de Pierre.
Beauvatier ran a cracker last time when third to Lazzat in the Maurice de Gheest despite getting involved in a bit of a bumping match and is speedy enough for this shorter trip not to be an inconvenience, but Bradsell’s win in the Nunthorpe on Friday provided a timely boost for Coeur de Pierre who pushed him to a length and three quarters in what was an unusually deep contest for a listed race.
Coeur de Pieere is better known as a 1000m performer but he ran as well as he ever has when winning the Prix de Seine-et-Oise at the end of 2022 over 1200m on softish ground at Chantilly and stamina won’t be a problem.
Last weekend
The three major races of interest at Deauville last Saturday, the first of two consecutive days of high-quality action, ended up being split evenly between Irish-trained, British-trained and French-trained runners with Ireland landing the first blow in the opening Criterium Du Fonds Europeen De L'elevage, a two-year-old race restricted to non-Group winners by nominated stallions.
Just six went to post, including Charlie Johnston’s first runner of the year in France, Lazy Griff who’d been outclassed in the Chesham before winning at Beverley, but the race went to the Joseph O’Brien-trained Apples and Bananas who made all the running, initially at a steady pace, and sprinted through the last 400m in a finishing speed of 110%.
O’Brien’s other runner Cap Saint Martin walked out of the stalls and never looked comfortable, and all in all I suspect this is ordinary form.
The first Group race of the afternoon, the Prix du Calvados, was won by Ollie Sangster’s Simmering who subsequently had her odds cut – undeservedly in my opinion - for the 2025 1000 Guineas.
Historical race standards suggest her three-length win represented an improvement on her previous form but probably not by as much as it looked. The runner-up Fraise Des Bois had been heavily favoured and flattered by track position at La Teste on her previous outing when winning by seven lengths and this run to me looked to only represent a small improvement on that form, while back in fourth was the middling Love Talk who’d never been involved in either the Star Stakes at Sandown or the Prix du Bois at Chantilly on her previous two outings.
I edged Simmering’s rating up to 104 and though I don’t rate her Guineas prospects just yet, she saw out this well-run contest (finishing speed 97%) strongly enough to think a mile is well within grasp.
The highlight of the day for me was the return of a filly I’ve written about with the Arc in mind several times this year in my Watch And Learn column, Aventure, and she did nothing to dissuade me of her claims at a big price still for that race with a win in the Prix de Pomone.
Passing the post just 0.05 seconds ahead of the runner-up Trevaunance, a useful mare in Ireland, and third-placed One Evening, last year’s Galtres and Park Hill runner-up, doesn’t look like high-class form on the face of it, but she was lobbing along in last place until the home turn in a race that turned into a burn-up (finishing speed 114%) and she made up all of our lengths in the space of 300m allowing her rider to take things easy in the closing stages.
By my calculations she’s worth a 14lb better upgrade than the runner-up and a 10lb better one than the third, which would make her around 118 or thereabouts. One Evening’s stable-companion Sweet Memories ran no sort of race and finished last.
With the winners of the Coventry, Norfolk, Duchess of Cambridge, Robert Papin and Cabourg all in opposition, last Sunday’s Prix Morny was the best-contested two-year-old race of the season so far (at east until The Lion In Winter and Ruling Court clashed in the Acomb) but further improvement from the July Stakes winner and Phoenix Stakes runner-up Whistlejacket was enough to see off the Coventry winner Rashabar by three-quarters of a length.
The rail hasn’t always been the best place to be at Deauville this summer, so it might be that Whistlejacket’s effort needs to be upgraded a little more but given his size and substance it’s hardly surprising he has been eking out a bit progress by the run and it wouldn’t surprise me if he was to reverse Phoenix Stakes form with Babouche should they meet again.
The race was well run with the finishing speed coming in at 98.5% and while none of the first three (French filly Daylight was third) got an upgrade from a sectional perspective there are grounds for thinking the second and third might be better than the result too with Rashabar making his ground quickly from the rear when pulled around rivals while Daylight was still travelling well when short of room. Arabie couldn’t confirm earlier form with Daylight and looks to have come to the end of his progress, while Arabian Dusk was already beaten when a bit short of room late on and Shareholder was far too free after nine weeks off.
Mqse de Sevigne was only workmanlike in winning the other Group 1, the Prix Jean Romanet.
She had such a clear advantage on form that she was sent off at 5/1 on, but she was run very close by the Joseph O’Brien-trained pair American Sonja and Maxux who both ran the final 200m faster than she did. Factoring finishing sectionals into the 108.5% finishing speed gives Mqse de Sevigne and Maxux a 3lb better upgrade than American Sonja but the winner always had things in hand and maybe it’s just her racing style that lends itself to tight finishes – none of her last six wins have been by further than a length and five of them have been by half a length or less.
Double Major looks to have got his mojo back and last season’s leading French three-year-old stayer (Timeform rating of 119) ran clean away with the Prix Kergorlay with his seven-length victory almost as far as he won last year’s Prix Royal Oak by.
The other Group race on the card, the Prix Alec Head (formerly the Prix de la Nonette) proved to be a straightforward victory for Friendly Soul much as anticipated given she always seemed likely to get her own way in front, but things might have been closer had runner-up Birthe (seventh in the French Oaks last time) not been given so much to do.
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