Aidan O’Brien’s Trinity College was edged out of Group One glory at Longchamp on Sunday evening as outsider Leffard recorded an emotional success for trainer Jean Claude Rouget in the Cygames Grand Prix de Paris.
The five-time French champion trainer bounced back from a wretched period blighted by serious illness to score a top-level victory with the 16-1 shot under jockey Cristian Demuro at Longchamp.
Trinity College started odds-on to give O’Brien a sixth success in the €600,000 feature of France’s Bastille Day holiday racing programme and looked to have it in the bag when Ryan Moore kicked him into the lead early in the straight.
However, Leffard, a supplementary entry into the mile-and-a-half contest just days before, took up the chase and pounced in the final strides to win. Colin Keane’s mount New Ground plugged on for third after ruining his chances by running too freely in the early stages.
RM Block
Rouget, 72, was immediately surrounded by wellwishers. Once top of the pile in France, and less than two years after the brilliant Ace Impact gave him a second victory in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, Leffard delivered Rouget back to the Group One spotlight.
Diagnosed with lymphoma last year, the illness prompted him to briefly consider training jointly with Jerome Reynier before that idea was abandoned. He also lost some leading owners, including the late Aga Khan, and his string has reduced significantly.
The man who broke through to dominate French racing from the provinces and is the most numerically successful trainer in European history having passed 7,000 winners in 2022, returned to his base in Pau in the south of the country and once more struck at the highest level.
“Life continues, we will do other things,” said Rouget, who in 2016 recorded a memorable success with Almanzor in a vintage Irish Champion Stakes at Leopardstown. His first Arc winner Sottsass also ran in the Leopardstown race in 2020.
“It was fantastic when I saw the horse coming at Trinity College,” Rouget added. “I did not there was a big difference between the two. I knew he was very good.”
Keane had earlier been forced to settle for second in the Group Two Prix de Malleret when the odds-on Sunly was narrowly edged out by Qilin Queen. Kieran Shoemark dominated the race from the front on the English runner and Sunly couldn’t reel her in.
