CRACKSMAN did his very best to brighten up a gloomy afternoon, and thankfully the weather did not deteriorate from chilly and dull to wet and downright unpleasant until after racing had finished – just in time to soak the fans of the disc jockey ‘The Avener’ as he started his set of banging tunes!

The Mayor Of Paris and the Minister Of Agriculture were on hand to help carry out the official reopening ceremony and the feedback from first-time visitors was largely positive, even if the official crowd figure of over 10,000 seemed optimistic in the extreme.

Possibly the greatest achievement of the new ParisLongchamp is that its design and lay-out means that it should be possible to create a decent atmosphere on run-of-the-mill racedays.

When it was just plain Longchamp a few hundred people tended to get lost in the cavernous stands.

Cracksman apart, the best performance on the track came from Ice Breeze, who finished well to get within a length of the winner, Funny Kid, under a 6lb penalty in the Group 3 Prix de Barbeville.

The Prix Vicomtesse Vigier back here on May 27th awaits for Pascal Bary’s four-year-old, prior to a possible tilt at the Gold Cup at Ascot.

Recoletos rewarded

CRACKSMAN even managed to cast his giant shadow on last Tuesday’s Group 2 Prix du Muguet at Saint-Cloud, as its tidy winner, Recoletos, was having his first start since crossing the line over eight lengths behind Cracksman in the Champion Stakes at Ascot last October.

Dropping back in trip to a mile, Recoletos gave the 2017 Muguet champion, Jimmy Two Times, a decent head start yet still mowed him down to score by a length and three-quarters.

His trainer, Carlos Laffon-Parias, will now point the son of Whipper at the Prix d’Ispahan and Royal Ascot is on his agenda too – he could avoid another Cracksman clash in the Prince of Wales’s by taking up his other engagement there, in the Queen Anne Stakes.

PESLIER PERFECT

Recoletos’ triumph completed a marvellous few days for his veteran jockey, Olivier Peslier.

The 45-year-old had notched just eight French winners since the turn of the year up until last Friday, when he enjoyed a listed race double at Toulouse.

Now he was trumping that with a pattern race pair, following up his Group 3 Prix Penelope victory on the Freddy Head-trained Luminate 90 minutes earlier.

All this came little more than a week after his eldest daughter, 22-year-old Megane Peslier, rode her first winner on a horse called Jeitoso Bayer at Bordeaux Le Bouscat.