Qatar Prix du Jockey Club (Group 1)

OUT of left field, a potential European Champion emerged from last Sunday’s Group 1 Qatar Prix du Jockey Club.

Beforehand, I had doubted that Big Rock, a horse that had been on the go all winter, could be as good as he had looked in winning his final two prep races. I was wrong.

And I called in to question Marhaba Ya Sanafi’s ability to confirm the form of the Poule d’Essai des Poulains and prove himself a genuine Group 1 performer. Wrong again.

If there was to be a star within the 11-runner field, it was surely Pascal Bary’s unbeaten Kingman colt Feed The Flame? Not entirely wrong this time as, along with Big Rock and Marhaba Ya Sanafi, Feed The Flame did run well, the trio filling positions two to four.

But, in terms of star quality, there was only one horse firing the imagination after the mile, two furlongs and 110 yards of the Chantilly classic had been covered in a new race record time.

That was the only other unbeaten colt in the line-up, Ace Impact, who was giving trainer Jean-Claude Rouget his fifth Jockey Club success in the last eight years and, from the Pau handler’s three-strong representation, was the choice of stable jockey Cristian Demuro.

Overlooked

Quite how so many pundits overlooked the chances of a colt with such strong credentials, yet returned at the generous odds of 19/2, will remain a mystery. He had, after all, completed his preparation with victory in the same listed race, the Prix de Suresnes, used as a final stepping stone to glory as the Rouget-trained Sottsass, clocker of the previous race record time four years previously.

Perhaps it was the fact that, unlike any of Rouget’s five previous Jockey Club winners, he had not raced as a juvenile.

In this season of unconventional routes to classic victory - Chaldean unseating on his comeback, Auguste Rodin finishing 12th, Paddington landing a handicap – both the first two home had raced in January: Ace Impact making a winning debut at Cagnes-Sur-Mer and Big Rock suffering a third straight maiden race beating.

Ace Impact was probably also underrated because of his sire, the Dalham Hall Stud resident Cracksman, who had made a no better than solid start with his first crop.

This was in effect, a spurious Italian ‘Group 2’ win apart, not just Cracksman’s initial Group 1 triumph, it was his first pattern win of any kind.

Ideal pace

What was crystal clear on Sunday was that Ace Impact was by far the best horse in the race, albeit he may have come across an ideal pace scenario by coming from the rear off a strong gallop. It was a clean contest and there were no hard-luck stories.

As expected, Big Rock made the running and his inexperienced pilot, Aurelien Lemaitre, appeared to get the fractions just right.

The field was on the stretch from the word go, and Big Rock had victory in the palm on his hand when three lengths clear a furlong and a half out, only for Ace Impact to engage overdrive and scorch past to score by three and a half lengths.

The gap to the third was another big one – two and a half lengths - with Feed The Flame close behind in fourth and the sole British raider, Epictetus, a fair but unspectacular fifth.

Aidan O’Brien’s Continuous had been in a good position in fourth with a quarter of a mile to run but dropped away late to be beaten by over 15 lengths in eighth.

Although bred in Ireland, Ace Impact was raised in France at Barbara Moser’s Haras du Long Champ.

His breeders, the German couple Waltraut and Karl Spanner, have only two mares including his dam, Absolutly Me, who was one of the first two horses that they had in training in France back in 2011 and managed two victories and a pair of listed places before going a perfect five-from-five with her initial quintet of foals.

The Spanners tend to race their home-breds but, in order to keep their string to a manageable size, they sent Ace Impact to the Arqana yearling sales, where he was snapped up for €75,000 by Serge Stempniak, a property developer from Douai in northern France who already part-owned one of his two listed-placed half-brothers, Alessandro.

Rouget said: “We always liked Ace Impact and intended to run him last summer, but he simply never lost his winter coat so we shelved that plan.

“The thing that really impressed me today is the way that he mowed down the leader after Big Rock looked to have the race in the bag.

“He’s entered in the Eclipse but we’ll just wait and see. He has the right profile for the Arc, he’s the right physical type and has the right kind of action. I’m especially delighted to win with a horse carrying the colours of a French owner.”

Proud

Christopher Head was full of praise for the winner and proud of what his own horse, Big Rock, had achieved.

“We came up against something pretty special today,” he said. “Big Rock ran his race and proved that he is really good, it took something truly exceptional to beat him.”

Andreas Schutz said similar things about Marhaba Ya Sanafi. “I’m really happy with his performance even if I would have preferred him not to have had to come from so far back,” he reacted.

“Our big target was the Poulains, so to finish on the podium in the Jockey Club is a nice bonus. I think his owner would like to drop him back to a mile for his next run.”

SUNDAY was another highly encouraging day for the French training fraternity, as they repelled the foreign invaders in all but one of the six stakes races featuring overseas involvement.

The day got off to a particularly good start for the locals as, contrary to the trend of recent years, the visiting two-year-olds were turned aside in the Listed Prix La Fleche.

The winner here was the Coolmore-bred No Nay Never colt The Fixer who was bouncing back from a surprise defeat when banging his head on the stalls and finishing fourth of six.

His trainer, Francis Graffard, is now aiming him at the Norfolk Stakes at Royal Ascot.

Ascot is also on the mind of Stephane Wattel after his standard-bearer, the Irish-bred Tamayuz four-year-old Simca Mille, never needed to get out of second gear to land a five-runner Group 2 Grand Prix de Chantilly.

“The obvious thing to do with Simca Mille now would be to go for the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud,” said the Deauville trainer. “But, although it is only 16 days away, we might think about the Prince Of Wales’s Stakes.

Take a chance

“Sometimes you have to take a chance and I think Ascot owes me one after what happened to City Light [he was beaten by a short-head in the 2018 Diamond Jubilee Stakes].”

The Ger Lyons-trained Zarinsk set a strong pace in the Group 2 Prix de Sandringham but ran out of puff and was caught on the line for third.

This mile event for three-year-old fillies saw the Irish-bred Frankel progeny Kelina relish the fast ground to reverse Poule d’Essai des Pouliches placings with Sauterne and leave trainer Carlos Laffon-Parias musing about a tilt at the Group 1 Prix Rothschild in the expectation that Royal Ascot will come too soon.

The day’s final Group 2, the five-furlong Prix du Gros-Chene, witnessed a 15/1 surprise as the Patrice Cottier-trained Game Run, beaten in claiming company just seven months ago and trying this trip for the very first time, edged out Clive Cox’s Get Ahead.

Aidan O’Brien’s Boogie Woogie was sent off favourite for another contest restricted to three-year-old fillies, the mile and a half Group 3 Prix de Royaumont, but she had to settle for second behind Andre Fabre’s Ottery, an 800,000gns Tattersalls purchase who thus became the third 2020-born horse from just nine members of that generation acquired at public auction by Juddmonte to succeed at pattern level – the 2000 Guineas victor Chaldean is one of the others!

The one overseas win came in the six-furlong Listed Prix Marchand d’Or as the teak-tough George Boughey-trained Perdika, the best member of the first crop of the Oak Lodge Stud stallion Unfortunately, landed her second blacktype success on her 15th start since late September.