Saint-Cloud Saturday

The last three of France’s 28 annual Group 1 flat races are staged this weekend starting with two juvenile events at Saint-Cloud today.

These are always extremely difficult contests to predict, as it is hard to be sure which of these youngsters remain at the top of their games this late in the campaign.

Even more so this year, as the ground has turned properly soft and - after such a long, dry summer - so little previous form has been recorded on a testing surface.

All of which should make punters wary of taking a short price in either affair. Nevertheless, Donnacha O’Brien’s Proud And Regal does hold very strong claims in the Criterium International.

A son of Galileo and the dual Group 1 heroine Simply Perfect, he lived up to those bloodlines with a decisive success in the Group 3 Tyros Stakes and then a front-running third in the Group 2 Futurity Stakes.

They were prior to a career-best second when elevated to the top table on his most recent outing, behind Al Riffa in the National Stakes.

That form has not been franked, but it did prove Proud And Regal’s ability to operate well with plenty of juice in the ground and even just a repetition of that effort could well be enough to see him prevail here.

The second Irish raider in a field of seven is another choicely bred Galileo colt, Espionage, trained by Donnacha’s father, Aidan.

He will need to have come on a good deal for his win in a Curragh maiden if he is to be involved in the finish here.

The four home-trained candidates are led by the Group 1 Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere third, Breizh Sky, though that looked a modest renewal of the famed Arc Day event and preference is for Jean-Claude Rouget’s Kubrick, winner of the Group 3 Prix des Chenes.

The solitary British challenger is Salt Bay, from the bang-in-form Ralph Beckett yard that has done so well with its two-year-olds this term.

He looked a highly promising sort when landing his Haydock debut.

SELECTION: PROUD AND REGAL

Next Best: Salt Bay

The only French runners in a field of nine here come from the unlikely sources of the provincial stable of Ludovic Gadbin, currently ranked no better than 28th among his nation’s trainers, and the yard of the expatriate Japanese, Hiroo Shimizu, who is outside the top 100 in the Championship table.

Gadbin’s Strako makes a little more appeal that Shimizu’s Sylphid without looking likely to stop an exclusively Anglo-Irish finish to this mile-and-two-furlong stamina test.

The only member of the line-up with previous Group 1 experience is Jim Bolger’s Gan Teorainn, and though she was second in the Prix Marcel Boussac last time, that was five lengths behind the winner.

She had been beaten by 12 lengths in her other top-level outing, when seventh in the Moyglare Stud Stakes.

Aidan O’Brien is doubly represented, with the Prix des Chenes and Group 2 Beresford Stakes runner-up, Adelaide River, and Covent Garden, who took three attempts to lose his maiden tag but is a full-brother to a pair of top-class colts, Johannes Vermeer and Wembley.

A British quartet includes the Andrew Balding’s Ndaawi and the Harry Eustace-trained Cite d’Or, who finished first and second, separated by a neck, in an Epsom conditions race on their latest appearances.

But preference is for the other pair, the John & Thady Gosden-trained Frankel colt, Arrest, winner of two of his three career starts, and the likely front-runner, Charlie & Mark Johnston’s Dubai Mile, who set too slow a pace when beaten by half a length in the Group 2 Royal Lodge Stakes at Newmarket last time out.

SELECTION: ARREST

Next Best: Dubai Mile

ParisLongchamp Sunday

A sub-standard renewal of the French equivalent of the St Leger has 12 declared, including the dual winner of the corresponding Irish race, Dermot Weld’s Search For A Song, and the 2020 Prix du Cadran heroine, Princess Zoe, trained by Tony Mullins.

Neither of the Irish hopes have been at their best this term, and though Search For The Song did battle on bravely to take third when bidding for a third Leger last month, she may not be ideally suited by testing ground.

The likely winner is the Jean-Pierre Gauvin-trained mudlark Iresine, who has been aimed at this race since registering a smooth last-to-first triumph in the Group 2 Prix Foy.

He may have most to fear from Hugo Palmer’s Rajinsky, who has run some fine races in top handicap company in Britain this season.

SELECTION: IRESINE

Next Best: Rajinsky