LARC Prix Maurice de Gheest (Group 1)

AIDAN O’Brien’s sequence of fabulous French forays, and the wonderful run of Gallic successes in Ireland, came to an abrupt halt in the €380,000 LARC Prix Maurice de Gheest at Deauville last Sunday.

Contrary to the expected script in a race that they had successfully defended just twice in its previous six incarnations, the supposedly overmatched locally trained contingent were responsible for the first two home in this six-and-a- half-furlong Group 1 contest.

And the three Irish challengers were swept aside, all finishing in the second half of the 12-runner field.

Victory, and a comprehensive one at that, went to the prolific Footstepsinthesand six-year-old Marianafoot, to further enhance the burgeoning reputation of his 35-year-old trainer, Jerome Reynier.

He was followed home by André Fabre’s Tropbeau, who overcame racing some way off the favoured stands rail to snatch second place from the favourite, the July Cup hero, Starman, right on the line.

But the runner-up was fully a length and three-quarters adrift of the Mickael Barzalona-ridden Marianafoot, who was winning the eighth consecutive race of a meticulously conceived campaign that began when he returned from a 10-month layoff at this track back in December.

It has followed a linear progression ever since with appearances at roughly one-month intervals, the first four coming on all-weather surfaces outside stakes company, followed by a listed success, then two more at Group 3 level, prior to this stunning breakthrough triumph in the very top echelon of competition.

As Marseille-based Reynier explained afterwards: “This is the race that I have been targeting since before the turn of the year and it’s great to have pulled it off without a single blip.

“Monsieur Seroul [Marianafoot’s owner-breeder] tried to talk me out of running him over six furlongs in April, insisting that he was not a sprinter and needed further, but I asked him to have faith, saying that it didn’t matter if he was beaten and pointing out that if he won it would open lots of new doors for him.

Quite easily

“He’s actually won quite easily in the end. While there is a slight chance he could come back again for the Jacques Le Marois next Sunday, there is the small obstacle of a certain Palace Pier standing in his way and the races that I really have in mind for him are the Prix de la Foret, provided that the ground is not too soft, and the Breeders’ Cup Mile.”

Reynier has remarkable patience for one so young and all three of his best horses, Marianafoot, Skalleti and Royal Julius, have been brought along steadily before peaking at the age of six.

He is without doubt France’s trainer of the season – he began it without a single Group 1 to his name but now, following the Prix d’Ispahan and Bayerisches Zuchtrennen victories of Skalleti, has three on the board, two more than Fabre or Jean-Claude Rouget can boast in 2021.

Remarkably, all three have come for the aforementioned Jean-Claude Seroul, who raced both Marianafoot’s dam and grand dam.

“It took me 50 years to finally win my first Group 1 and now, in the space of two and a half months, I have won three,” Seroul exclaimed.

The ground, which was given as ‘soft’ but was simply riding dead, was neither soft or fast enough to explain defeat for the vanquished.

Campanelle did have a valid excuse, however, as she almost unseated Frankie Dettori leaving the stalls and, having then swerved to her right and raced in the centre of the course where the ground was at its softest, finished last.

“She’s used to having a pony with her in the preliminaries which explains why she got upset leaving the paddock and again when we were behind the stalls,” Dettori said.

No answer

Starman hit the front briefly approaching the furlong marker but had no answer to the winner.

“He’s run a huge race and the ground wasn’t that bad so we had to give it a go,” said his trainer, Ed Walker, “it’s just that he’s not as brilliant on it as he is on fast.

“The weather has made his programme very difficult this year and, given the likely conditions at both Haydock [for the Sprint Cup] and Ascot [for the Champions Sprint] I fear that he may not run again this year. We’d love to take him to Hong Kong but at the moment Covid is making that impossible.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he stays in training next season as I think he’s got more physical improvement in him.”

While the nine-year-old Brando deserves huge credit for finishing fourth in one of his pet races (he won it in 2017 and was beaten just a neck into second two years later), the Irish contingent sunk without trace.

Lope Y Fernandez fared best of them in a never-dangerous seventh, Law Of Indices was already beaten when slightly short of room at the furlong pole and was eighth, and Thunder Moon paid for jockey Maxime Guyon’s inexplicable decision to switch out into the centre of the course and trailed home in 11th.