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Flames igniting the action in France
There has been a very different set of results in France this year, reports Jocelyn de Moubray
THE IMPRESSIVE WINS FOR the Pascal Bary-trained FeedThe Flame and Good Guess, trained by Francois Chappet, in the last two French Group 1s restricted to three-year-olds completed what has been an excellent season in France for horses trained in France.
All seven of these Group 1s were won by horses trained in the country – Blue Rose Cen, Marhaba Ya Sanafi, Jannah Rose and Ace Impact were the other four winners –and, of the 21 places, only four were taken by horses trained in England and Ireland.
This is the first time French trainers have achieved this under the current programme, and the first since 2014 and the old set up when the Prix Jean Prat was run over a mile at Chantilly.
Overall, French-trained three-year-olds have won 24 of the 25 Group races over more than 6f for three-year-olds in France, the sprint races alone remaining as the easy pickings for English and Irish trainers.
It is too soon to be talking about a new trend, but it does feel as if something has changed.
It could be that the competition from abroad is not as strong as it used to be, for years the Grand Prix de Paris was, for instance, dominated by sons of Galileo and Montjeu.
While Jean-Louis Bouchard, the owner of Feed The Flame is a long-time supporter of French racing, breeding and its trainers, there have been some significant newcomers to ownership in France – Yeguada Centurion, the Cheboub family, Serge Stempniak, Hisaaki Saito and Al Shira’aa Farms are among those who have made significant investments in recent years.
And, even if it is not always the case, many of the better races in France are now run at a consistent pace from beginning to end.
A final possible explanation is the new names amongst top Group race trainers in France, including Christopher Head, the Marseille-based Patrice Cottier and the Deauville-based Stephane Wattel.
Progress in sport is often the result of a combination of investment and innovation. Feed The Flame didn’t make his debut until the beginning of April, and it was always going to be difficult for his trainer Pascal Bary to have the son of Kingman ready for the Prix du Jockey-Club run only two months later.
The colt had to be supplemented to take his place in the Classic and, for a horse making only his third career start after two easy wins in small fields, he ran with great credit to be fourth in a race run at a furious pace.
The Grand Prix de Paris was run at a good pace but not a breakneck one, no sectional times were taken but the leader ran the first 1400m some two and a half seconds, or 12l faster, than the fillies did in the Prix de Malleret half an hour earlier, and the final time was the second fastest in the last ten years.
Jockey Christian Demuro held Feed The Flame up at the rear of the field and the pair came with a late run to beat Adelaide River and Soul Sister narrowly but by a comfortable length and a neck, and this trio came 3l clear of the remainder.
Sectional times would surely have shown that Feed The Flame produced an exceptional burst of speed as the final 400m were run in 22.59s and Bouchard’s colt was at least 4l behind the leader at the 400m from home.
Feed The Flame is sire Kingman’s eighth Group 1 winner from his first six crops to race and his first over 1m4f, even if Persian King did finish third in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.
Overall, 93 per cent of Kingman’s three-year-old winners have been over less than 1m2f. In this respect Feed The Flame is an outlier, but he comes from a family with plenty of stamina – he is out of a Montjeu mare, who was out of a full-sister to the St Leger winner Rule Of Law.
He was bred by Haras de Monceaux, who bought his dam Knyazhna from Ukraine’s leading thoroughbred breeder Viktor Timoshenko.
Feed The Flame was sold as a yearling at Arqana August where his owner has been a regular client for decades.
Bouchard’s first-ever winner was in Deauville in 1981 trained, like his new champion, by Bary who was also then at the beginning of his racing career. In the years since Bouchard has won three Prix du Jockey -Clubs with Celtic Arms, Ragmar and Blue Canari, and a fourth as a part-owner of Dream Well, and he has been a regular buyer of yearlings with agent Gerard Larrieu.
He bought and raced Feed The Flame’s half-brother Sacred Life, who was a short-priced favourite for a Group 1 at two but the race was abandoned due to strike action.
Knyazhna has her Group 1 winner now and Feed The Flame will, of course, beRamatuelle: the two-year-old daughter of Justify is already a Group 3 and a Group 2 winner prepared for the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.
Good Guess also looked like a top horse when winning his first two starts at two in a brilliant style. The Fabrice Chappet-trained son of Kodiac then flopped in a Group 3 at Deauville last August.
Hisaaki Saito’s colt fulfilled his early promise this year when winning the Prix Djebel (G3), also on Deauville’s straight track, and was then an unlucky sixth in the Poule d’Essai des Poulains (G1) after missing the break.
He ran an excellent prep race for the Prix Jean Prat when giving weight to all of his rivals in the Prix Paul de Moussac (G3).
Ignored in the betting for the subsequent Group 1, the Cheveley Park-bred colt had the race set up for him when the Cottier-trained Kingman filly Sauterne set a very strong pace and, after travelling easily at the rear of the field, Good Guess was the only one able to maintain the pace to the line. He finished 3l ahead of Sauterne with Breizh Sky third and the English and Irish challengers all well beaten.
ANOTHER FRENCH-TRAINED three-year-old, who looks set to compete successfully in Group 1 races, is the Dabirsim gelding Horizon Dore. He is trained by Patrice Cottier for a partnership headed by the Cheboub family’s Gousserie Racing.
An easy winner of a Listed race at two, Horizon Dore was second to Big Rock in the Prix de Guiche (G3) over 1m1f on very soft ground. He has won twice since over 1m2f putting up excellent times on both occasions to win a Listed race at Longchamp with ease and then the Group 2 Prix Eugene Adam at Saint-Cloud.
At Longchamp, Horizon Dore ran the final 400m in 21.3s, 14 per cent faster than his race average, and at Saint Cloud in 21.8s, which was 17 per cent faster than his race average. It suggests that he is a horse who stays 1m2f well and has a formidable turn of foot.
Several of the best three-year-old colts of 2022 have had a difficult time this year, but Westover joined Luxemburg and Modern Games as a Group 1 winner at three and four with a comfortable defeat of Zagrey in the Group 1 Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud.
The pair had finished second and third behind Equinox in Dubai in March and reproduced the same form four months later at Saint-Cloud.
Juddmonte’s son of Frankel is a consistent high-class performer and it is rare to be able to win Group 1s at three and four, an achievement alone that should turn him into an attractive stallion when the time comes.
July is early in the two-year-old season in France, but this year there is one outstanding French-trained two-year-old – the Infinity Nine Horses, Ecurie Des Monceaux et Alowned Ramatuelle, the easy winner of the Group 3 Prix du Bois and the Group 2 Prix Robert Papin.
She was beaten on her second start by Philippe Allaire and the Haras d’Etreham’s Lope De Vega colt Beauvatier, but the form of that race is stacking up as he has gone on to win a Listed at Deauville in impressive style since.
Ramatuelle is a daughter of Justify and was bred by Centurion Yeguada and sold by the breeder at the Arqana August Sale for €100,000. Trained by Christopher Head, Ramatuelle is very fast and has won her three starts on a straight track by 4l or more. She will go for the Prix Morny (G1) where she is likely to be a short-priced favourite to give her trainer another Group 1 win.
Sea The Moon lined up for German sires’ championship
GERMANY’S THREE-YEAR-OLD CROP is certainly better than average, too.
Fantastic Moon came from behind to win the Deutsches Derby (G1) at Hamburg impressively from the Iquitos colt Mr Hollywood, who may have been racing on slower ground as he was the only one of the principles not to switch to the stands’ side in the straight.
Liberty Racing’s Sea The Moon colt Fantastic Moon was a champion two-year-old, and he completed a rare double to go on to win the Derby for his trainer, the Munich-based Sarah Steinberg, and breeders Philip and Marian von Stauffenberg.
The Derby once again attracted a full field of 20 runners with challengers from England and Ireland, who finished fifth and sixth.
In many ways it is remarkable that every year from around only 700 foals German breeders produce 20 horses able to run in the Derby and 20 fillies for the Preis der Diana (G1).
Every year five per cent of all colts bred in Germany run in the Derby – if the same were true in Britain and Ireland there would be about 750 colts ready to run in the Derby at Epsom!
Not every Deutsches Derby produces colts able to compete with Europe’s best but this year’s edition looks, at this early stage anyway, up to standard.
German Classic horses are late developers – it has to be hoped that the Derby of this year could turn out to be as good as the 2020 edition when In Swoop beat Torquator Tasso, Grocer Jack, Kaspar and Wonderful Moon among others.
Rain during the Derby week in Hamburg changed the ground to soft, which probably didn’t suit the other fancied runner Gestüt Karlshof’s Zarak colt Straight, but, together with Fantastic Moon and Mr Hollywood, he is another high-class prospect for the future.
The Preis der Diana, to be run in Dusseldorf in early August, is shaping up to be a competitive race as there are eight possible runners with official ratings of more than 105.
The current ante-post favourites are Gestüt Ebbesloh’s Cracksman filly Weracruz, who was a solid third in the Derby, and Gestüt Röttgen’s Sea The Moon filly Kassada, who was narrowly beaten in a Group 3 at Hamburg by the Zarak filly Princess Zelda.
Kassada had won a Group 3 in Berlin very comfortably and may not have been at ease on the very soft ground in Hamburg, she was also given a very aggressive front running ride and may have done too much too soon.
Princess Zelda is unbeaten in two starts and would have to be supplemented to run at Dusseldorf, but Gestüt Hachtsee’s filly is another high-class prospect for the future. A fourth Diana contender to impress in Hamburg is Muskoka, another Sea The Moon filly, who has won a Group 3 over a mile but is due to step up in trip and go for the Diana.
The Hamburg meeting more or less ensured that Lanwades Stud’s Sea The Moon will be Germany’s champion sire in 2023 as, aside from Fantastic Moon, Kassada and Muskoka, the stallion was also represented by Germany’s leading older horse Assistent, who beat two Derby winners and Northern Ruler to win the 1m4f Group 2 Hansa Preis.
Fourth in last year’s Derby, the Henk Grewe-trained colt has improved significantly from two to three and will now be aimed at Group 1 races.
