Chantilly Sunday
3.05pm Prix De Diane Longines (Group 1 3yo Fillies) 1m 2f 110y
Three outstanding home-trained fillies are set to dominate what could be a spectacular renewal of the Group 1 Prix de Diane Longines at Chantilly tomorrow, with Pensee Du Jour set to overcome worries about her ability to handle fast ground and hold off Jannah Rose and Blue Rose Cen.
This classic has gone the way of Irish or British visitors four times in the past five years but, while John and Thady Gosden’s Running Lion has been priced up as favourite by many bookmakers, her form is riddled with holes, while the two-pronged father-son challenge provided by the Aidan and Joseph O’Brien-trained pair of Never Ending Story and Caroline Street looks some way short of the quality of recent Irish raiding parties.
Pensee Du Jour is a Wildenstein home-bred and Andre Fabre-trained Camelot filly out of an unraced half-sister to the brilliant Arc winner Peintre Celebre.
She has looked like an exceptional racehorse from the very moment she first set foot on a racecourse in February and brushed aside the subsequent Group 3 winner and Group 1-placed Crown Princesse.
Confident
She went on to land two more easy victories, one in listed company and the other in the Group 3 Prix Penelope, on soft ground, but I am confident that she will be equally adept on this quicker surface.
If she wins she will become the first filly since Pawneese in 1976 to complete the Penelope/Diane double and what could be more fitting on the day that the Prix Pawneese, a listed mile and a half contest for older females, is inaugurated to commemorate the Wildenstein family’s great mare and early member of their magnificent ‘P’ dynasty?
Jannah Rose is likely to prove her biggest danger. Her trainer, Carlos Laffon-Parias, is well stocked in the three-year-old filly division this season, hence he saddles a decent second string in the shape of the recent listed heroine Left Sea.
But Jannah Rose has always looked to be the best of them. A daughter of Frankel who cost €650,000 at the Goffs Orby Yearling Sale and is closely related to the Irish Group 2 scorer Creggs Pipes, she is unbeaten in three career starts and has already struck at Group 1 level in the mile and two furlong Prix Saint-Alary.
In a normal year, Blue Rose Cen would be hot favourite here having already pulled off a massive Group 1 double in landing both the Prix Marcel Boussac and the Poule d’Essai des Pouliches.
Yet this step up from a mile will stretch her stamina and her draw in stall one may make things tricky as she could find herself tight for room on the inside up Chantilly’s relatively short home straight.
Running Lion, who would have participated in the Epsom Oaks but for being withdrawn after getting upset in the stalls, is trying to give the Gosden yard a third Diane triumph but it is very hard to get excited about any of her four wins, three of which came on all-weather surfaces.
The most recent of them, and the only one on turf, was a four and a half-length triumph in a Newmarket listed event, but that was on soft ground, and the two fillies that chased her home have been well beaten in all of their future starts.
More compelling
A more compelling British raider is Novakai, from the Karl Burke stable that sent out Laurens to win this in 2018. Her four-length second in the Group 3 Musidora Stakes was boosted when the winner, Soul Sister, followed up in the Oaks, and she boasts rock solid two-year-old form, having finished runner-up in both Group 1 and Group 2 company.
Never Ending Story has twice come up well short against Blue Rose Cen, including when fifth in the Pouliches, and will be hard pressed to overturn that form with the second home, Lindy, let alone with the winner.
And Caroline Street, who may end up being better over shorter trips, landed what was possibly a sub-standard renewal of the Group 3 Blue Wind Stakes, only just beating a penalised stablemate.
Of the remainder, it might be worth looking out for Lady Ewelina, one of the two German challengers, who started her racing life in Poland but is an unbeaten Group 3 winner – not bad given that she cost a paltry 3,500gns as a yearling.
SELECTION: PENSEE DU JOUR Next Best: Jannah Rose
Rest of the Card
There are a trio of competitive €80,000 Group 3 contests on the undercard, not to forget the aforementioned Listed Prix Pawneese, which can herald a return to winning ways for last year’s Diane second, La Parisienne.
Most interesting of the Group 3s is the Prix du Bois Longines, a juvenile contest which has attracted a trio of British runners. The French domestic early-season two-year-old form looks stronger than usual this season and there is every chance that the very sharp Goken colt Zorken will be able to stretch his speed out to six furlongs and extend his winning sequence to three here.
Seven go to post for the Prix du Lys Longines for three-year-olds and it will be a surprise if Maniatic, who came up against the Prix du Jockey Club hero Ace Impact last time, does not give Andre Fabre a 16th win in this mile and a half stamina test.
Fabre is also likely to hit the bullseye in the final Group 3, the Prix Betrand du Breuil Longines, a mile event for older horses, with Tribalist. Despite carrying a 4lb penalty, this four-year-old son of Farhh can complete a 2023 pattern race hat-trick at the main expense of the improving German raider, Calif.