Deauville Sunday

2.15 LARC Prix Maurice de Gheest (Group 1 3yo+) of €230,000. 6f 110y

In the last couple of decades, the Prix Maurice de Gheest has on occasion been perceived as a relatively easy Group 1 race to win. Tomorrow’s LARC-sponsored renewal of this six-and-a-half-furlong Deauville contest is not one of those occasions.

The field of 11 features an unbeaten dual Group 1 winner in Earthlight; another three-year-old who already has a top-level triumph to his name in Golden Horde; a second two-time Group 1 scorer in the shape of the four-year-old Hello Youmzain; and Space Blues, who appears to have improved since finishing third in this race 12 months ago.

It is hard to get away from the chance of Earthlight, who has been brought steadily back to full fitness by master trainer André Fabre since an ill-timed minor leg injury cost him the chance of proving his stamina in a mile classic at the start of the summer.

The style of his facile comeback victory in listed company a month ago was hard to crab, even though the opposition was nothing special.

He beat Golden Horde twice last term (into third in the Prix Morny and then into second in the Middle Park Stakes), and though the margin in the second of those meetings was only a neck, it was still a comfortable victory.

He is yet to be tried over farther than six furlongs but this son of Shamardal’s pedigree suggests that he really ought to stay at least a mile, so this extra 110 yards should easily be within his compass.

Same form

Clive Cox had Golden Horde ready to run for his life on his reappearance, when making most to land the Commonwealth Cup at Royal Ascot. He wasn’t quite on the same form when third in the July Cup three weeks later, but he was taking on the older horses for the first time that day and failed to keep straight in the closing stages having raced keenly.

Hello Youmzain, hero of the Diamond Jubilee Stakes at Royal Ascot, was two and a half lengths further back in fifth in the July Cup. The current heatwave is not in his favour, as his best performances have come with some cut in the ground.

Space Blues wasn’t seen again for seven months after finishing within a length of the winner, Advertise, in the 2019 Maurice de Gheest. He returns on the back of a three-race winning streak, most recently landing the Group 2 Lennox Stakes with great authority, and could be the one to give Earthlight, who races in the same royal blue Godolphin silks, the most to do.

Aidan O’Brien is represented by the three-year-olds Lope Y Fernandez and Wichita. Runner-up in the 2000 Guineas, Wichita will be wearing cheek-pieces for the first time but appeared to have a hard race when fifth in the Sussex Stakes just 10 days ago and makes less appeal than his stablemate, who never recovered from a slow start in the Commonwealth Cup but then had the rest of the field well beaten when a three-quarter-length second to Pinatubo here in last month’s Prix Jean Prat.

SELECTION: EARTHLIGHT

Next best: Space Blues

Soft Light, beaten by only half a length when runner-up in last August’s Grand Prix de Deauville, could go one better over the same extended mile-and-a-half course in tomorrow’s main support race, the €56,000 Group 3 Prix de Reux.

Today’s Deauville highlight is an intriguing six-runner Group 2 Prix Hocquart but this time for three-year-olds.

Jean-Claude Rouget’s Port Guillaume was a head in front of Pao Alto when finishing strongly to take fifth in the Prix du Jockey-Club and should comfortably confirm those placings over this extra quarter mile.