LAST Sunday’s other Group 1, the €350,000 Prix Royal-Oak over just shy of two miles, also lost two of its runners on raceday, though mercifully this time six still remained.

Defending champion Holdthasigreen denied an easy lead, Dettori aboard John Gosden’s Lah Ti Dar taking the field along at a brisk pace until the final six furlongs.

And, just as Holdthasigreen seemed set for a tussle with his old rival Call The Wind approaching the furlong marker, the pair were readily outstayed by a second British raider, the Irish-bred Technician, who is trained by Martyn Meade.

A third three-year-old winner of this, the ‘French St Leger’, in the last five years, Technician had a length and a quarter to spare over Call The Wind at the line, with Holdthasigreen a further three and a half lengths adrift in third and Lah Ti Dar a well-beaten fourth.

Freddie Meade, son of the winning trainer, said: “This horse never stops improving, he’s now won a listed, a Group 3, a Group 2 and a Group 1, and three of those have been at Longchamp, he’s unbeaten here. He’s an interesting horse to watch, as he never seems to be going well and he was one of the first off the bridle again today.

“We bought him for €40,000 as a yearling at Goffs – we wanted a Mastercraftsman and his dam [the Sadler’s Wells mare Arosa, from the family of dual Derby winner Shahrastani] had already produced three nice winners.”

Winning rider Pierre-Charles Boudot rivals Dettori as 2019’s ‘European Jockey Of The Year’ – this was his 24th pattern race success of a season topped by a Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe aboard Waldgeist.

“Technician is a real heavy ground specialist and there were other reasons why I was keen on his chances this afternoon,” Boudot said. “He got badly outpaced when we won the Prix de Chaudenay, so today’s strong gallop, with the front two taking each other on, played into our hands.”