THE most important event in 2018 will be the opening of ParisLongchamp. The €133m project to renovate the trackis on budget and on time. The keys will be handed over to France Galop by April 8th 2018 and all major races will be returned to the Bois de Boulogne after a break of two years.
One change concerns the Group 1 Prix Jean Prat which will be run at Deauville in early July. Later the same month there is a proposition to upgrade the Prix Guillaume d’Ornano to a Group 1 race and run it together with the Prix Rothschild on July 29th at the Normandy sea side track.
The Qatar Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe weekend will take place on October 6-7th and the Group 1 Criterium International will be moved from Saint-Cloud to ParisLongchamp.
STATISTICS
The battle to be leading owner in France will go to the wire. A third of the way through December, Khalid Abdullah was just €62,000 ahead of Godolphin France with winnings just short of €3.9 million. Then comes Al Shaqab Racing, the Wertheimer brothers and the Aga Khan.
Theresa Marnane is 11th in the table having amassed nearly €840,000 and this total is swelled to a spot short of €1.3 million with owners’ premiums.
André Fabre will be champion trainer for the 28th time. He has a strike rate of 23%, has won 145 races and winnings to the tune of €7.5 million. The only two Group 1 races he won in France this year were the Prix Ganay (Cloth Of Stars) and the Prix Jacques Le Marois (Al Wukair).
Abroad, he saddled Talismanic to win the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Del Mar.
Jean-Claude Rouget’s season was ruined by the outbreak of equine herpes but he still takes second place in the trainers’ list with 143 wins and €4.9 million in prize money.
John Gosden is in third place largely due to Enable’s victory in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.
Christophe Soumillon is already the champion jockey for a ninth time and he has broken the record of 300 wins in a season set up by Pierre-Charles Boudot last year. He will be runner-up in this list ahead of Maxime Guyon and Mickael Barzalona. Soumillon, by December 9th, had totted up €8 million in winnings or €11 million when owners’ premiums are added.
The leading stallion in France is Nathaniel (Enable) ahead of Galileo, Sea The Stars, Siyouni and Rajsaman.
On the jumping side, Guillaume Macaire is on target to better his record number of victories in a season which came to 282 in 2015 and he could hit 300 by the end of the season. His earnings will be approximately €8.4 million by the end of December. Francois Nicolle fills second place ahead of Guy Cherel and Arnaud Chaillé-Chaillé.
Bertrand Lestrade is the leading jump jockey in front of Kevin Nabet and last year’s champion, James Reveley who has won the most prize money, nearly €3 million. Martaline is the leading jump sire and just €1,000 to the good of Poliglote, Kapgarde, Saint Des Saints and Network.
Jumpers to follow in 2018 include De Bon Coeur, Wetstone, Edward D’Argent and Master Dino.
Classic prospects are Mind Mapping, Olmedo, Sacred Life, Polydream, Wootton and Mission Impassable.