Qatar Prix de Royallieu (Group 1)

THE Tsui family, which is based in Hong Kong but has been one of Europe’s top owner-breeders for over a quarter of a century, continued its love affair with ParisLongchamp last Saturday with a second successive strike in Arc weekend’s newest Group 1 event, the mile and six furlong Qatar Prix de Royallieu.

Exactly 30 years on from David Tsui’s dynasty-building victory in the 1993 Arc with his Deauville yearling purchase Urban Sea, and 14 years on from Urban Sea’s offspring Sea The Stars completing his untouchable three-year-old campaign in the same Parisian showpiece, Sea Silk Road, like the previous season’s heroine, Sea La Rosa, a William Haggas-trained daughter of Sea The Stars sporting the Tsui yellow and purple silks, crowned her career with a dominant three-length victory.

Aidan O’Brien’s blinkered Library set a scorching gallop which was perfect for the patiently-ridden Sea Silk Road, who was a chance ride for Aurelien Lemaitre with regular pilot Tom Marquand otherwise engaged in Newmarket.

Double handful

Lemaitre could be picked out with a double handful as virtually everything else in a 14-strong field was scrubbed along with a quarter of a mile to race, and, once Sea La Rosa hit the front a furlong later it was simply a matter of how far the British raider would win by.

The outsider of the party, Diva Donna, who has largely struggled since graduating from handicap company a year ago but does stay well, picked up the pieces to take second, three lengths adrift, with Dermot Weld’s Shamida the best of a disappointing Irish contingent in seventh, Joseph O’Brien’s Thunder Roll was 11th and Library dropping right out to beat only one.

Maureen Haggas, representing her husband, confirmed afterwards that Sea Silk Road was going out on a high and would be retired.

“Mrs (Ling) Tsui came up with the plan herself to keep this filly in training as a four-year-old and it has really paid off,” Haggas said.

Qatar Prix du Cadran (Group 1)

THE Royallieu was highly competitive, which is more than can be said for Saturday’s other Group 1 event, the Qatar Prix du Cadran.

Thankfully the Alan King-trained Trueshan, the one member of a paltry six-runner line-up to have already proved himself as properly up to this level, came out on top in convincing fashion, though it remains to be seen if he actually had to run anywhere near his previous best to prevail.

Jockey Hollie Doyle made the sensible decision to allow Trueshan to make the running, wary of a repeat of his comeback run in the Group 2 Doncaster Cup, where the partnership somehow won despite Doyle being almost run away with for the first mile and a half as she forced him to take a lead.

Settling nicely in front, Trueshan took a little while to engage top gear in the home straight but had matters firmly in control approaching the final furlong and had four lengths to spare at the line over Moon Wolf. Again, the Irish team here was underwhelming, Charles Byrnes’ Run For Oscar at least managing a distant third, while Aidan O’Brien’s Emily Dickinson failed to handle the ever-quickening ground and dead-heated for last place.

The drying underfoot conditions were uppermost in Doyle’s mind when she was interviewed while riding back to the winner’s enclosure.

“I walked the course this morning and I was very worried but it’s turned out well,” she admitted.

“I decided to grab the bull by the horns and let him stride on and he’s really loved it, bowling along.”

THE Irish visitors did enjoy one big moment on the card, in the richest race of the day, the Criterium d’Automne which is restricted to juveniles purchased at one of Arqana’s five flagship sales for unraced youngsters.

These sales races can often take a lot less winning than they should given the money on offer, so it came as no surprise that Joseph O’Brien’s Wootton Bassett colt Islandsinthestream was sent off a red-hot favourite having already notched second places in both Group 1 and Group 2 company.

Brought to the wide outside, he was made to work pretty hard to get his head in front a furlong from the finish of this mile event but was on top by a length and a quarter at the winning post. He is now in line to step up further in distance and tackle the mile and two furlong Group 1 Criterium de Saint-Cloud in a fortnight’s time.

Four-timer

The best performance from the three supporting Group 2 races probably came in the mile and two furlong Qatar Prix Dollar from the Champion Stakes-bound Horizon Dore, who completed a four-timer since twice banging his head against the immovable Big Rock in the spring.

Trained in Marseille by Patrice Cottier and wearing the same yellow and green Gousserie Racing silks as Sealiway did when voyaging over to Britain to plunder the Champion two years ago, this gelded son of Sealiway’s sire, Galiway, shrugged off the 2lb penalty he earned via his Group 2 Prix Eugene Adam victory to score by a length and a quarter.

Well beaten

But, before anyone gets too carried away expecting him to become the fourth French invader to carry off the Champion since its switch to Ascot a dozen years ago, it needs to be pointed out that his nearest pursuer here, the Paul and Oliver Cole-trained front-runner Jack Darcy, was well beaten in an Ascot handicap off a mark of just 104 as recently as July.

The father and son Newmarket training team of Simon and Ed Crisford were both absent, understandably preferring to watch their juvenile sensation Van Deek take apart the Middle Park Stakes field much closer to home.

Top-class effort

That didn’t stop a rather less vaunted member of their yard, the Fastnet Rock gelding Poker Face, producing a genuinely top class effort to land the Qatar Prix Daniel Wildenstein by two lengths.

He probably rather fooled his connections by winning over a mile and two furlongs at Pontefract last autumn, hence they stuck to that trip, with no success, until mid-summer.

Dropped back to a mile to win a listed race on a return visit to Pontefract at the end of July, he then landed a Group 3 over Deauville’s straight mile and, given the lack of a decent pace here, showed surprising speed having raced keenly in midfield to quicken up and beat his fellow British raider Isaac Shelby.

Maxime Guyon, who is certain to land his third French Jockeys’ Championship as he has a 20-winner lead with less than four weeks left in the competition, picked up the lucrative spare rides aboard both Islandsinthestream and Poker Face.

He had earlier sparked a treble in rather more familiar silks, the ‘blue with white seams and sleeves’ of his main employers, the Wertheimer brothers, when landing the Group 2 Qatar Prix Chaudenay on Christoph Ferland’s Double Major.

Guyon’s local knowledge probably made the difference in this mile and seven-furlong contest, as he kicked for home early in the straight and built up a good enough lead to hold the late surge of Dermot Weld’s Harbour Wind by three-quarters of a length.