Deauville Sunday

3.25 Prix du Haras de Fresnay-le-Buffard Jacques le Marois (Group 1 3Yo+ Colts & Fillies) 1M

For a second straight year, Ken Condon makes a two-pronged assault on tomorrow’s Group 1 Haras de Fresnay-le Buffard Prix Jacques le Marois at Deauville with Romanised and Success Days.

They finished fifth and ninth respectively 12 months ago. This time around the competition looks easier (eight runners instead of 11 and no megastar like Alpha Centauri) yet it is still difficult to see either Billy Lee or Niall McCullagh standing on the top step of the podium afterwards.

Romanised has largely dined at the very top table since his famous Irish 2000 Guineas triumph last May and deserved his day in the sun when landing last month’s Group 2 Minstrel Stakes, taking the notable scalp of Hey Gaman in the process. This represents a stiffer task, especially giving 6lbs and more to some classy three-year-olds.

Success Days is an admirable four-time pattern race winner but only an unforecasted deluge could give him much chance in this company.

The other older horses in the field are the 2018 Prix du Jockey-Club hero, Study Of Man, and his pacemaker, Vocal Music. Race sponsors the Niarchos family love to support this contest but the form of Study Of Man’s two Group 1 second places this spring is not particularly strong and he does not convince as a miler.

Classic generation

The finish may well be fought out by members of the classic generation and the Royal Ascot-winning filly Watch Me makes most appeal ahead of the colt Shaman, who was only fifth in the St James’s Palace Stakes at the Royal meeting.

A daughter of Olympic Glory trained by Francis Graffard, Watch Me can prove that her surprise 20/1 Coronation Stakes triumph was no fluke. Her only below par effort was when she had terrible luck-in-running during the Poule d’Essai des Pouliches and, with just five career starts under her belt, she is open to further improvement.

Shaman, a fine second in the Poule d’Essai des Poulains three months ago, may appreciate this return to home territory and can chase her home.

The only British challenger is Line Of Duty, from Charlie Appleby’s Godolphin-owned string. A rare progeny of the Coolmore stallion Galileo for that operation, he ended his juvenile campaign with a rousing success in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf in Kentucky.

That form has taken quite a few knocks, however, and early season attempts to make Line Of Duty into a middle distance colt have been aborted following disappointing displays in both the Dante Stakes and the Derby.

The field is completed by a fourth three-year-old, the supplementary entry Graignes, who is no slouch but has two lengths to find with Shaman on Poulains form and more recently finished a modest eighth in the Prix Jean Prat.

SELECTION: WATCH ME

Next Best: Shaman

MULTIPLE Group 1-winning trainer Nicolas Clement has been enduring a rough season owing to a bout of sickness in his yard and went almost three months without a winner during the spring.

There have been green shoots of recovery of late and Wonderment, the most recent of his top-level winners when landing the Criterium de Saint-Cloud last October, may lighten his gloom by taking tomorrow’s main support race, the €80,000 Group 3 Prix Minerve for three-year-old fillies over a mile and a half.

An Irish-bred daughter of Camelot, Wonderment is unpenalized for that success and ran a perfectly respectable race in the Prix de Diane to finish seventh. The Richard Hannon-trainer Star Terms, a deserving blacktype winner at ParisLongchamp last month following numerous near misses, is her biggest danger.