THE title battles on the flat do not yet have clear-cut winners. Christophe Soumillon looked to be cruising to a seventh Cravache d’Or but he is now having to pull out all the stops to hold off Maxine Guyon. He is coming with a well-timed late run and has cut the Belgian’s lead down to just 14 and there is plenty of all weather racing to come before the end of the season. Whereas the stable of Alain de Royer-Dupré is ticking over, that of André Fabre is still churning out mainly two-year-old winners most of which are ridden by Guyon who has been runner-up in the jockeys’ table for the past four years. With Fabre’s enormous stable behind him, Guyon still has a real chance of getting up on the line but next year could be more difficult as he has signed up with the Wertheimer brothers.

Fabre also has a second reason for stoking up the boiler until the end of the season as he is in a desperate fight with Jean-Claude Rouget to become leading trainer for the 26th time. As of last Wednesday, Fabre had a lead of €195,480 and he is nearly on the €5.5 million mark. As Pau has more clement weather then Chantilly at this time of year, perhaps the odds are just on Rouget to be leading trainer for a second time.