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Fabre has also produced three very good-looking fillies for Khalid Abdullah, and if the Poule d’Essai des Pouliches may come too soon for them, all are likely to be competing in Group races soon
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to outstay Special Duty and then held off the late challenge of Evading Tempete to win Prix Imprudence. A week later, with the ground still soft, the American Post filly Liliside won her second Listed race of the year at Saint Cloud holding off the late challenge of Zagora with Gotlandia and Kartica, who were to run well behind Anna Salai later, third and fourth. Zagora has subsequently been bought by Martin Schwartz and has been transferred to the Rouget stable. Fabre has also produced three very goodlooking fillies for Khalid Abdullah, and if the Poule d’Essai des Pouliches may come too soon for them, all are likely to be competing in Group races soon. The Dansili filly Disclose won a newcomers race at Saint-Cloud brilliantly in early April and those she beat have run respectably since. Full Steam is a daughter of Oasis Dream who had been second on her only juvenile start before breaking her maiden at Chantilly very easily indeed. However, the best of them all could be the Storm Cat filly Deluxe. Hasili’s daughter won her only start at two and made a winning reappearance at Longchamp, always looking to have the measure of another Storm Cat filly trained by Rouget.
time to settle and by the time their jockeys had succeeded in calming them they had allowed Rajsaman to race into an uncontested lead of 5l. Rajsaman was still 5l clear at the top of the straight and was the first to be allowed to accelerate. The remainder of the field were immediately beaten, but Lope de Vega and Siyouni showed their class to close to within half a length at the line. Both are top-class colts but it could be
Lope de Vega who has the most scope for improvement over the coming weeks. An alternative Poule d’Essai winner could be the Robert Collet-trained Whipper colt Royal Bench. Collet has a good line to the best milers with his Kingsalsa colt Too Nice Name, who was second to 2,000 Guineas winner Makfi in the Prix Djebel and fifth to Rajsaman, and has always rated Royal Bench as a potential Group 1 horse. After winning his maiden at Longchamp, Royal Bench could finish only sixth in the Criterium International, but looked a highclass prospect again when winning on his reappearance at Longchamp by 8l. This time Collet ran a pacemaker to set a decent pace and Royal Bench had no difficulty racing away from field in the straight. The second and third have both run well since and Royal Bench is clearly a future Group horse at the very least.
Poulains contenders line up
The French-trained favourites for the first colts Classic will be the principals from the main trial, the Prix de Fontainebleau at Longchamp, but it is difficult to say which of Rajsaman, Siyouni and Lope de Vega will finish in front on the day that matters. Rajsaman is a Linamix colt who was running as pacemaker for the Jean Luc Lagardère winner Siyouni, although he had himself won a Listed race at two and looked like a good prospect. After setting off in front at a reasonable pace, both Siyouni and Lope de Vega took
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Siyouni: the Prix Jean Luc Lagardère winner was beaten on his reappearance by Rajsaman