WITH a quiet weekend in Britain, it was left to France to provide the best action. Two Group 1s and five Group 2s give us plenty to cover.

Those Group 1s were the Darley Prix Morny for two-year-olds and the Darley Prix Jean Romanet for older fillies on the Sunday afternoon, which went to Earthlight and Coronet respectively.

The former was a well-run affair and contested by several of this season’s best juveniles, and in beating the smart filly Raffle Prize readily, the pair clear, Earthlight ran a 121 timefigure that would make him top dog, only for Pinatubo’s remarkable 128 figure at Goodwood.

Raffle Prize consolidated her position as the best younger filly seen to date with a 117 figure, and Golden Horde ran at least as well here as when winning at Goodwood, reflected by a 111 rating. This really does look solid form, the fastest of four races on the card.

While Earthlight is undoubtedly pretty good, a word of caution about his prospects: he strides very quickly indeed – above 2.60 strides-per-second early on Sunday – and could well prove best at short of a mile.

Coronet asserted her class in the Romanet against second-division rivals but once more looked a tricky ride, hanging persistently left. This was a steadily-run affair, and her mediocre 98 basic timefigure gets boosted to a far more representative 118 on sectionals, including a 35.15s last 600 metres.

There were other significant British wins on Sunday’s Deauville card for Dame Maillot in the Prix de Pomone – 107 edged up to 109 on sectionals – and for Marmelo in the Prix Kergorlay. The latter held off the penalised Call The Wind with a 116 effort on sectionals (runner-up 121), but with an ordinary handicapper in Haky (102) rather close for comfort in third.

Significant wins on the same course earlier in the week went the way of Headman (74 on bare time, 121 on sectionals as he did very well in that respect once again) in the Prix Guillaume d’Ornano, Fount (91/104) in the Prix de Lieurey, Olmedo (111/113) in the Prix Gontaut-Biron, Tropbeau (104 on overall time and sectionals) in the Prix du Calvados, Delaware (65/117) in an especially slowly run Prix Daphnis and Terebellum (88/115) in the Prix de la Nonette.

A mention also needs to be made of Helter Skelter, winner of a two-year-old listed race on Saturday from the British challengers Saqqara King and Shared Belief. The son of Wootton Bassett beat little, and ran an ordinary overall time, but delivered some extraordinary late sectionals to come from last to first, suggesting he should be rated at least 112 by such a measure. That puts him second only to the aforementioned Earthlight among French-trained juveniles to have been seen so far.