Deauville Sunday

3.04pm Prix du Haras de Fresnay-Le-Buffard Jacques Le Marois (Group 1) 1m (Straight)

There may be no Irish involvement, but there is still plenty to get excited about in the Group 1 Prix du Haras de Fresnay-Le-Buffard Jacques Le Marois at Deauville tomorrow as two of the best members of the classic generation take on a quartet of top-class four-year-olds. To emphasise the quality of the field, six of the eight runners have already been successful at the highest level.

Further spice is added to the mix by the fact that Inspiral, who has given trainers John and Thady Gosden the last two of a remarkable sequence of four successive Marois victories, will be ridden for the first time by Ryan Moore as she bids to bounce back following two below par 2024 efforts and add to her tally of six Group 1 wins.

This Frankel mare is clearly well-suited by this course and distance but she looks to have lost some of her appetite for racing this season and may come up short.

The three-year-olds in the field are the Poule d’Essai des Poulains victor and subsequent St James’s Palace Stakes third, Metropolitan, and Haatem, who was caught on the line by his Richard Hannon-trained stablemate, Rosallion, in the Irish 2000 Guineas.

The standard bearer for up-and-coming Chantilly-based handler Mario Baratti, Metropolitan may just fare the better of that pair but, while Big Rock has lost his form, Marhaba Ya Sanafi and King Gold are not quite good enough. The unbeaten Ascot Group 2 winner Quddwah perhaps lacks the experience to overcome the very best after only four career starts, the the younger brigade can be held at bay by the final British challenger, the Roger Varian-trained Charyn.

This Grangemore Stud-bred son of Dark Angel was beaten in five straight Group 1 events last year but has improved significantly for another winter on his back and, after doing well to get within two lengths of the runaway leader, Audience, in the Lockinge Stakes, showed his true calibre when landing a comfortable victory in the Queen Anne Stakes at Royal Ascot.

If Charyn follows up here, it will continue a purple patch for his owner, Nurlan Bizakov, whose light blue and yellow silks were carried to glory by Lazzat in last Sunday’s Prix Maurice de Gheest.

SELECTION: CHARYN Next Best: Metropolitan

On the Marois undercard, Joseph O’Brien’s Kodi Bear colt Cowardofthecounty takes on four rivals in the seven-furlong Group 3 Prix Francois Boutin; the same trainer’s Stromberg has eight opponents in the mile and two furlong Listed Prix Nureyev; and the Jessica Harrington-trained Comic Book is the Irish representative in a field of 10 for the mile, four furlongs and 110y Group 3 Prix Lady O’Reilly (Prix Minerve).