euro racing
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ARISLONGCHAMP’s autumn season kicked off with a superb renewal of the Prix du Moulin (G1) which attracted six Group 1 winners. The race was a great spectacle with Pierre-Charles Boudot and Persian King putting up a championship performance to hold the late challenge of Pinatubo, and this pair finished 6l clear. Boudot is the go-to jockey for ParisLongchamp and on Persian King he showed, as he was to do a week later on Mogul, that nobody is riding the track better at the moment. The final time of 1min36.73s for the mile at ParisLongchamp was a good one without being outstanding, but Boudot’s tactical achievement was remarkable. He went off in front from the start, which is rare in itself for a horse from the André Fabre stable, and he managed to get a clear lead over his rivals without going too fast. Persian King ran the first half of the race in 51.66s for the 800m, just a reasonable pace, but crucially at this stage he was 3l ahead of James Doyle and Pinatubo. Persian King ran the last 800m of the race in 45.07s, a very fast time indeed, and Doyle didn’t seem to realise the hill he had to climb to catch the leader until it was too late. Persian King ran the final 400m in 21.95s, and Pinatubo ran even faster covering the distance in 21.52s, but it was too late and at the line Godolphin’s three-year-old Shamardal colt was still a length and a quarter behind Godolphin and Ballymore Thoroughbred’s four-year-old Kingman colt. Pinatubo made up over 2l on Persian King in the final 400m, while both were speeding away from their high-class rivals, it was an impossible task and he never looked like passing the long time leader. Persian King has a pretty faultless record of seven wins, including three Group 1s from 11 career starts. If you discount his career debut and his seasonal reappearance this year, Persian King has only been beaten twice – when second to Sottsass in the Group 1 Prix du Jockey-Club and on heavy ground in the Prix Jacques le Marois (G1) at
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Deauville this year behind Palace Pier. Palace Pier, another son of Kingman, is surely the only other contender for leading honours over a mile in Europe this year. Persian King has not always looked as good as he did in the Moulin, but the Fabretrained colt has won Group 1s when looking a little below par, and when he is at his very best it will take a top performance to beat him. A week later on Mogul, Boudot rode a different but equally effective race to take the Group 1 Grand Prix de Paris for Aidan O’Brien. Running the Grand Prix de Paris in September will surely be one of the innovations of 2020 which will be maintained for the future. The race attracted a strong international field, including the English and Deutsches Derby winners, as well as Mogul, who had sometimes looked like the best of his generation in his stable, as well as Port Guillaume who had seemed to be France’s best middle-distance colt. The race was run at a strong pace, the first 1400m was run two seconds faster than the Vermeille and a ridiculous nine seconds or 45l faster than the Prix Foy! With 600m to run Mogul, In Swoop and Gold Trip were more or less alongside each other some 6l behind the leader. When the field swung into the straight In Swoop and Gold Trip started angling out towards the middle of the track in order to get a clear run. Meanwhile, Boudot saw his chance and switched inside instead. Mogul quickened, took up the favoured position on the far rail, and the race was over. The son of Galileo had two and a half lengths to spare at the line over In Swoop, who passed his old rival Gold Trip to take second on the line. The O’Brien stable, like every other one in Europe, has not quite had its usual consistency this season. Mogul is a top-class middle-distance colt and if the ratings don’t yet agree he looks to have the potential to be as good as his full-brother Japan, who won this race in July last year before running fourth in the Arc. Shastye has become Newsells Stud’s star
