After hoovering up the midweek Classic trials, it’s back to the real thing for Aidan O’Brien on Sunday in both French Guineas at Longchamp.
Diamond Necklace will try to add to True Love’s Newmarket 1,000 Guineas victory last weekend when lining up in France’s equivalent, the €550,000 Emirates Poule D’Essai des Pouliches, off at 3.25pm Irish time.
Last year’s impressive winner of the Prix Marcel Boussac over course and distance, the unbeaten filly will be ridden for the first time by Ryan Moore. She has secured an all-important low draw around the Longchamp mile in stall three of the 15 runners. O’Brien’s maiden, Venosa, is also in the line-up for a race he’s won just once before with Rose Gypsy 25 years ago.
The champion trainer’s big hope for the colts’ Classic, the “Poulains”, is Puerto Rico. He’s got stall seven of the 13 runners while his stable companion Dorset is in three.
RM Block
Last year Henri Matisse delivered O’Brien a seventh success in the French 2,000, a vital victory in one of Europe’s three major Guineas prizes for colts.
Following Gstaad’s honourable second to Bow Echo at Newmarket last weekend, the focus will be on Puerto Rico, who has an unusual profile for a major Ballydoyle Classic contender.
Beaten in his first five starts as two-year-old, he broke his maiden in Doncaster’s Champagne Stakes and then looked a transformed proposition when landing a pair of French Group One contests.
He sped around Longchamp’s seven furlongs to land the Lagardère and again made most to score in Saint-Cloud’s Critérium International.
Racing prominently clearly suits this likable colt, and he holds a pair of leading French hopes, Nighttime and Rayif, on that Lagardère effort. Both Diamond Necklace and Puerto Rico are making their seasonal debuts, unlike True Love, who won her Guineas Trial at Leopardstown.
The Dublin track has another test of Classic credentials on Sunday where Pierre Bonnard bids to re-establish his Epsom claims in the Cashel Palace Derby Trial.
Both Benvenuto Cellini and Constitution River propelled themselves to the forefront of the Derby betting by winning the Chester Vase and the Dee Stakes this week. On Monday, Hawk Mountain also impressed in a French trial at Chantilly.
It was all very different last month in the Ballysax where Pierre Bonnard, the colt O’Brien originally described as his main Epsom hope, could finish only seventh behind stable companion Christmas Day.
O’Brien immediately maintained the Group One-winning colt will be a very different prospect for the run under his belt and that will be put to the test in a €100,000 Group Three dominated by O’Brien and his sons, Joseph and Donnacha.
The latter runs the Curragh maiden winner Shaihaan, who could be one to relish much quicker ground conditions.
Fresh from his latest Classic success, Wayne Lordan teams up with Pierre Bonnard and he will also be on duty at Naas on Saturday where his mounts include Ice Dancer in the Darley Oaks Trial.
The plethora of Trials also takes in Lingfield on Saturday, where O’Brien will try to add to his seven previous victories in the race. They include the ill-fated Anthony Van Dyck, who scored there en route to Epsom glory in 2019.
Isaac Newton is the stable representative this time in a contest that usually features Ballydoyle’s second division rather than their absolute top hopes. Failure to beat Moore’s mount won’t be a boost for home contenders in next month’s blue riband.
Godolphin’s big hope in the Derby Trial is Maho Bay, while their Romantic Symphony is a likely favourite for the earlier fillies’ version. Cameo and Bloom represent Ballydoyle.
