Longchamp Sunday

Prix Ganay (Group 1)

IF last weekend taught us anything about flat racing it was surely that while talent, precocity and youthful exuberance are enticing attributes, when it comes to preparing (and riding) thoroughbreds, there is no substitute for experience.

While this adage came most starkly under the spotlight thanks to the redoubtable Bolger/Manning partnership on Newmarket’s Rowley Mile in the 2000 Guineas, in terms of training it was also most definitely borne out in Paris, where the five biggest races were all won by handlers of pension-drawing age.

Head and shoulders at the top of the profession is, of course, Andre Fabre, who may have (temporarily) given up his status as France’s champion trainer but saddled six winners over the weekend including the two highlight winners.

His reaction to the victory of Mare Australis in Sunday’s Group 1 Prix Ganay was typical of a man who has seen it all before, who knows exactly how to deal with a top class horse and how best to get him in perfect condition to the nation’s top race, one that Fabre has already won a record eight times.

His tone was largely matter-of-fact, analytical and measured, betraying at most just a hint of satisfaction. Asked if the winner could follow in the footsteps of the last two Ganay heroes, Sottsass and Waldgeist, and win the Arc, he answered: “Yes, he could be an Arc horse eventually, and is an obvious candidate for the big races.”

Where would Mare Australis run next? “The Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud is a possibility but he could simply wait for a prep race before the Arc.”

How would he be suited by a step up to a mile and a half? “He will be just as good.”

This is only his fifth run since joining you 18 months ago, has he suffered some physical issues? “No issues, he has just needed time.”

Southern Ocean

Suddenly a horse who sounds like a filly - he is actually cleverly named, translating from Latin as ‘Southern Ocean’ – but is in fact a colt from the second crop of Coolmore’s dual Derby winner, Australia, has rocketed from having won nothing more than a listed race to becoming the number one Arc candidate for the pre-eminent Arc trainer.

My pre-race suspicion that Fabre would come up with the right tactics to scupper the favourite, Aidan O’Brien’s Mogul, proved correct, but the race played out very differently to how I envisioned.

Instead of getting his other runner, Magny Cours, to set a sedate pace before outsprinting the Irish raider, Fabre decided to make the 10-and-a-half-furlong event a true test and Pierre-Charles Boudot was at pains to set a decent gallop aboard the winner.

Mogul sat in his slipstream but had no response when Boudot asked for maximum effort rounding thefinal turn, losing second to the strong finish of Gold Trip before eventually taking third, a length and three-quarters and the same behind the front two.

Gold Trip showed a lot more than when he was over five lengths behind the winner in the Prix d’Harcourt, and it would be no surprise if he again played a strong supporting role in the Arc, a race in which he finished fourth last October.

AT 76 years of age some 14 months older than Fabre, Alain de Royer-Dupre got in on the act by taking Sunday’s Group 3 Prix Allez France when his Distorted Humor filly, Ebaiyra, who lowered the colours of the odds-on favourite, Raabihah.

Ebaiyra, who was not far off the best of a good vintage of classic fillies last term, looks set to be de Royer-Dupre’s standard bearer during this, his final season before retirement.

He said: “She’s improved a lot from last year, is bigger and better balanced, and now we will try to win a Group 1 with her. She’s effective at both 10 and 12 furlongs..”

THE roll call of old guard trainers was completed in Sunday’s Listed Prix de l’Avre when the Fastnet Rock colt Fenelon emerged as another potentially top class three-year-old in the Listed Prix de l’Arve.

He hails from the yard of Nicolas Clement who, some 31 years ago, became the Arc’s youngest successful trainer thanks to the victory of Saumarez.

Fenelon has a long way to go to be as good as him, and it seems the Prix du Jockey Club trip of an extended mile and a quarter will be too sharp for him, but he looks a strong candidate for the Grand Prix de Paris over a mile and a half.