11 minute read
European review
Palace Pier: the son of Kingman pictured here winning at Royal Ascot. He went on to win the Prix Jacques le Marois, putting in the best performance seen in Europe by a three-year-old so far in 2020
Pier stretches clear
Advertisement
Palace Pier adds a second Group 1 to his resumé impressing when beating the older horses at Deauville, writes Jocelyn de Moubray
ADAY AT THE RACES in in the same race in 2014 and 6.24s faster Deauville in August felt than Dubai Millennium, who won a famous remarkably like, well a day at renewal in 1999 when the ground really was the races in Deauville. If you heavy. shut your eyes the noise of the The race was run at a fast pace, the first 5f enthusiastic crowd, the horses, was more than two seconds faster than in the the jockeys, the seagulls all as we are used big handicap run over the straight track half to; it was only the masks the humans were an hour beforehand. wearing which marked out the difference. Palace Pier and Alpine Star maintained a
French racing has rarely felt more similar pace right to the line by which time privileged as the show goes on with their rivals were tiring fast and dropping prize-money which is, now more than ever, away. the envy of the rest of the European racing Even for the first two the fastest part of world. their race came between 3f and 2f from the
Trainer John Gosden was unable to be finish. there in person but his horses, as usual, Palace Pier’s performance suggests he performed at their very peak. will be able to stay further than a mile, while
Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed Al Alpine Star clearly enjoyed the ground and Maktoum’s Palace Pier put up the best had already shown enough stamina to go so performance of any European three-yearclose to winning the Prix de Diane. old to date in 2020 when taking the Group 1 There may be some questions to be raised Prix Jacques le Marois by three-quarters of a over the standard of horses trained in France length from the Niarchos family’s Alpine Star at the moment, but none whatsoever about with the other Group 1 winners left five and the quality of the best French races. more lengths behind them. Fancy Blue, Alpine Star and Raabihah, the
The son of Kingman, who was bred in first, second and fourth in the Diane, have all partnership by Highclere Stud and Floors shown even better form on their subsequent Farming, came from behind in a very fast-run starts with the Sea The Stars filly Raabihah race and put up an excellent overall time. winning a Group 3 in Deauville in style at the
France Galop now provides full tracking beginning of August. times for each horse in every race at the main Palace Pier is Kingman’s best son to date French tracks, and it provides a treasure trove and Juddmonte’s sire’s second crop of threeof data. year-olds has further enhanced his overall
The ground was officially heavy for the reputation. weekend of the Jacques le Marois, but the Kingman stood at only £55,000 for his data suggests it was more like soft. first four seasons and his first crop of 111 foals
Palace Pier ran the straight mile in included 23 Group/stakes performers and 1m38.06s, 3.84s faster than his sire did five Group winners, his second crop of 105 www.internationalthoroughbred.net
Highly interesting Ammerland yearlings from the internationally proven top families of BALTIC BARONESS and LOPE DE VEGA
foals has already, in this shortened season, produced 16 black-type performers and seven Group winners, including Palace Pier.
Palace Pier is out of the unraced Nayef mare Beach Frolic and so joins a growing group of top horses by Kingman out of mares from the Mr. Prospector line which includes Headman, Domestic Spending, Calyx, Sangarius, Alocasia and Fearless King.
John Warren bought his third dam Miss d’Ouilly from Jean Luc Lagardère’s Haras d’Ouilly in Deauville in 2000 for Highclere and Guy Roxburghe’s Floors Stud.
She had won a Listed race over 1m1f at Evry and was a half-sister to Miss Satamix, who won the Jacques Le Marois for Lagardère in 1995. It has taken some time but Palace Pier has returned the family to success at the highest level.
Jockey-Club strength in depth
If the form of the Diane is looking good a month later the Prix du Jockey-Club looks even better.
The first three reappeared in the Group 2 Prix Guillaume d’Ornano over 1m2f in Deauville and once again Prince Faisal’s Mishriff, trained by Gosden, proved to be better than The Summit and Victor Ludorum.
This was a strange race run at a very slow pace and like most of those on the round course during the Jacques Le Marois weekend the small field raced on the far side of the track on the back straight, and so must have covered more than 1m2f in total.
The first 5f was run nearly four seconds slower than the three-year-old Listed race run over the same course the following day, also on the far side down the back straight, but once they started racing, Mishriff was always on top of his old rivals.
The son of Make Believe has plenty of speed for horse who stays 1m2f.
That Listed race in question was won by Hurricane Dream, Team Valor’s Hurricane Cat colt who had been ninth in the JockeyClub. He narrowly beat the Jockey-Club fourth Dawn Intello.
The Group 2 Prix Hocquart, run this year over 1m4f in Deauville at the beginning of the meeting, was won well by the Le Havre colt Port Guillaume, fifth in the Jockey-Club, with the sixth Pao Alto behind him in third.
The Jockey-Club eighth Fantastic Spirit won a conditions race on Jacques le Marois day.
Port Guillaume will be one of the leading French-trained contenders in the Group 1 Grand Prix de Paris, to be run this year at ParisLongchamp in September, while Mishriff is heading for the Irish Champion Stakes (G1).
Space Blues: continues to improve
Space Blues provided Godolphin, Charlie Appleby and Dubawi with another Group 1 winner when the four-year-old came from well off the pace to win the Group 1 Prix
Mishriff: the Group 1-winning son of Make Believe shows “great speed” for a horse who gets 1m2f
Maurice de Gheest by three-quarters of a length from Hello Youmzain with Lope Y Fernandez and Earthlight close up behind.
The race was run during a heatwave and before the rain returned to Normandy. Despite watering the ground was on the fast side and the winner put up one of the best splits of the meeting racing from the 2f to 1f pole in 10.76s at 43 mph.
Space Blues is unbeaten in four starts since the European Flat season began and has looked better with each run.
He is out of the Noverre mare Miss Lucifer who won the Group 2 Challenge Stakes over 7f.
His third dam is a full-sister to High Hawk, the dam of In The Wings, and he joins the impressive list of top horses by Dubawi who are inbred to the Derby winner Shirley Heights. It is a role-call that includes Al Kazeem, Arabian Queen, Coronet, Hunters Light, Journey, Left Hand, Old Persian, Sobetsu, Too Darn Hot, Wild Ilusion, Wuheido, and now Space Blues.
Fabre relies on the lightly raced types
André Fabre has not, it is safe to assume, been enjoying Deauville this year.
Persian King was never going in the Jacques Le Marois, Victor Ludorum didn’t settle in the Guillaume d’Ornano and Earthlight was never quite on terms with the leaders in the Maurice de Gheest.
His stable, though, did provide some lightly raced horses with big futures early on in the meeting.
Baltic Gold, a Gestüt Ammerland homebred son of Golden Horn and the Group 1 winner Baltic Baroness, remains unbeaten after winning a conditions race over 1m4f, sprinting through impressive finishing splits with PC Boudot looking between his long legs.
The son of the Prix Vermeille winner, whose third dam is the great Borgia, is likely to go for the Grand Prix de Paris next.
Two-year-old winners for Fabre and Japan
Fabre saddled two of the better-looking two-year-olds of the month – the Group 3 Prix Six Perfections winner, the Kendargent filly See The Rose, and the Juddmonte-owned Frankel filly Petricor, who won the Prix les Ammonites, usually the best unraced maiden of the season.
Petricor is the first foal of the Dansili mare Ruscombe, who was a useful winner herself and is a half-sister to the top stayers
Sea Moon and Brian Boru.
The colt’s equivalent, the Prix de Crevecoeur, was won by the Wootton Bassett colt Midlife Crisis in a faster overall time than the fillies’ race, even if the two winners ran almost identical times for the last 2f of their respective races.
Midlife Crisis was a first European winner in the colours of the Japanese owner Shigeo Nomura and is trained by Hiroo Shimizu at Chantilly.
Bought for €120,000 at Arqana August from the Haras d’Etreham, Midlife Crisis is
GOSDEN AND DETTORI started August winning another valuable race together when Westerberg’s Miss Yoda made all the running to win the Group 1 Preis der Diana at Dusseldorf.
Dettori controlled the race from the front and, even if the Sea The Stars filly floated a little at the beginning of the straight, they stayed on well to the line to win by three-quarters of a length and a nose from the German fillies Zamrud and
Virginia Joy.
The second and third had contested the finish to the major domestic trial, and the
Jessica Harrington-trained Silence Please was fourth, suggesting this was a high-class performance from the winner.
Miss Yoda was bred by Gestüt Etzean and was the top-priced filly at the 2018 BBAG
September Sale.
Two weeks later the Group 1 1m4f Europa
Preis was run in Cologne, moved due to
COVID from its usual date in September.
The British-trained Dame Malliot and
Barney Roy were the two favourites, but were upstaged by the German-trained outsiders Donjah and Kaspar.
The four-year-old filly Donjah managed to get her head in front of the three-year-old colt Kaspar in the very last stride.
Donjah is a Teofilo filly owned by Darius
Racing who bought her from Gestüt
Karlshof for €100,000 at the 2017 BBAG
September Sale.
She had looked like a potential top filly when winning both her starts for trainer
Henk Grewe, including a Group 3, at two but didn’t reappear at three until the Preis der Diana in which she finished sixth on her seasonal reappearance. out of the Australian-bred mare The Hunt Is On. His fourth dam Featherhill was a top mare in France and the US in the 1980s and produced the Etreham stallion Groom Dancer.
Wonderful Tonight wins for Menuisier
Trainer David Menuisier, the Frenchman based in Pulborough in Britain, was another British-based trainer to win a Group race in Deauville with a three-year-old when the Le Havre filly Wonderful Tonight made all
It takes time for any horse to make up for so many months on the sidelines, and if Donjah succeeded in winning a Group 2 in Italy and finishing Group 1-placed twice in Germany, she looks to be better as a fouryear-old.
Kaspar is a Gestüt Rottgen home-bred by Pivotal. He was not sold at €140,000 at the BBAG September Sale, and is now the third Group 1 performer produced by his talented dam Kastila, already the the running to win a high-class running of the Group 3 Prix Minerve over 1m4f for owner Chris Wright.
Wonderful Tonight reversed earlier form with the Aga Khan’s Valia on softer ground and is likely to make her next start in a Group 1 at ParisLongchamp.
Le Havre’s three-year-olds have been slow to get going in 2020, but in Vaucelles, the winner of the Group 2 Prix de Malleret in July, Port Guillaume and Wonderful Tonight, Monfort and Preaux’s stallion has had three
European tour for Dettori and Gosden reaps Group 1 rewards in Germany
high-class Group winners in a month. dam of Kassiano and Kasalla.
He, too, seems to be progressing as, after breaking his maiden in May, he finished fifth in the Group 2 Union Rennen, fourth and later placed third in the Deutsches Derby (G1) and stepped up again in Cologne.
He is another potential contender for the Grand Prix de Paris, also the target for the Gestüt Schlenderhan-owned a Deutsches Derby winner In Swoop.
