FRANKIE Dettori and John Gosden were completing a double as 35 minutes earlier Mehdaayih had shown her quality when winning the Group 2 Prix de Malleret over the same mile and a half course and distance.
The daughter of Frankel, buffeted about repeatedly while finishing seventh as favourite for the Investec Oaks on her previous start, was last of the seven runners passing the three-furlong marker.
Yet, while covering more ground than any of her rivals as she came around the outside, on this occasion she enjoyed a trouble-free passage and was only struck once by Dettori’s whip as she drew two lengths clear of Edisa. She recorded a time that was just three hundredths of a second slower than the Grand Prix.
“That didn’t really go to script, as we had hoped to ride her handy today,” Gosden admitted afterwards.
“She missed the break and found herself out the back, she won because of her class and her ability to quicken.
“We haven’t really thought about her future programme – we were just concentrating on this race.”
Mehdaayih returned to winning ways at Saint-Cloud / Healy Racing
DURING the week it looked like the new incarnation of the Group 2 Prix Eugene Adam, a three-year-old mile-and-a-quarter contest which had been moved from away from Maisons- Laffitte’s straight course, would be a non-event as only three entries remained at the penultimate declaration stage.
Thankfully, three supplementary entries materialised to give the contest some legitimacy, and the ease with which Headman brushed aside his fellow British raider, Jalmoud, and the Andre Fabre-trained favourite, Flop Shot, suggests that it may have produced an above average winner to sit on the roll of honour that has not included a top-class horse since Twice Over in 2008.
Like Twice Over, Headman is owned and bred by Prince Khalid Abdullah. Dropped out in fifth place, the Kingman colt and a half-sister to the dual Arc runner-up Flintshire, was in front passing the 300-metre pole and, ridden out, had three lengths in hand at the line.
He was an inaugural big winner for the nascent trainer/jockey combination of Roger Charlton and Jason Watson.
“Headman is a beautiful colt, very powerful and imposing, and you have to remember that this was just the fifth race of his career,” Charlton asserted.
“After he made a winning two-year-old debut we thought he might be a Guineas horse, but when we dropped him back to seven furlongs he got beat so we changed tack and stepped him up in trip.
“He’s needed time to come to himself and was still green today, so I would like to take the patient approach and be guided by what Prince Khalid wants to do.”
EARLIER on the Saint-Cloud card, Charlie Appleby took his French tally for 2019 to six winners from 12 runners when the No Nay Never colt Art Du Val made all to score by just under a length in the Listed Prix de Saint-Patrick over a mile.
“We’ve gone steadily with him since his last run, in Dubai in February, and he’s really strengthened up,” Appleby said. “We should have plenty of fun with him now and may look at giving him an American campaign.”
AMERICAN trainer Wesley Ward suffered a rare blank at Royal Ascot but had better luck in Saint-Cloud.
After filling second spot in 2017 and 2018, he made it third time lucky in the first juvenile pattern race of the French season when Maven held off Jolie by a head in the Group 3 Connolly’s Red Mills Prix du Bois at Chantilly on Saturday night.
THE Chantilly fixture was a free admission event featuring pony races and then live music in the paddock as darkness fell. Further innovation came on Monday, July 1st, with the abolition of the system of coupling for win bets on the Pari Mutuel (French Tote) – from now on all horses will be separate betting entities even if their owner has another representative in the same race.