THE Prix Foy was dull, the Prix Niel was exciting, but both ended up as perfect Arc preparations for their respective winners.

Waldgeist finally found the sound surface that he was after, following two doughty but unavailing efforts on testing ground in Britain, to land the Foy for the second straight year with the minimum of fuss, beating Way To Paris by two lengths.

His German owner-breeder, Dietrich von Boetticher, said: “That was a wonderful training run for Waldgeist and should get him ready for the next challenge – he was in control from start to finish.

“He keeps coming up against champions and though it’s true that he hasn’t always won, he’s always been bang there with them. Andre Fabre was satisfied with today’s run and we are very much looking forward to seeing him in the Arc, where we hope the ground will be good.”

Waldgeist \ APRH

Because the King George duel between Enable and Crystal Ocean was so compelling, people tend to forget that Waldgeist was less than two lengths behind them on ground that he dislikes. Fabre is reportedly confident that his five-year-old can give Enable a real fright in the Arc if the weather gods are on their side.

Trainer Jean-Claude Rouget took the precaution of supplying his Prix du Jockey-Club winner, Sottsass, with a pacemaker in the Prix Neil to make sure that nothing could go wrong. Despite this, everything did go wrong!

That pacemaker, Veronesi, went slightly too fast and was ignored out in front for much of the race. Then the old fox Olivier Peslier, aboard Mutamakina, managed to get Sottsass boxed in against the rail behind Veronesi, who was taking longer than expected to drop out, in the home straight.

At the furlong marker it seemed highly possible that Sottsass would be beaten while finishing on the bridle, only for some daylight to finally appear.

Sottsass shot through the gap and quickened up so well on his first attempt at a mile and a half that he had a length and a quarter to spare over Mutamakina at the line, with Aidan O’Brien’s Mohawk failing by a short-neck to snatch third.

“I was both anxious and not anxious,” Rouget admitted after the race. “It was better to win, but if he had been beaten it wouldn’t have been a big deal.

“In the end he’s only had to really race for less than a furlong and at the same time he’s proved that he gets the trip. It’s in his nature to get a bit agitated but Christian Demuro said that he was pretty calm today, he seems to be maturing.

“Don’t forget, he was having his first start for three months this afternoon and you would normally expect a horse to improve a lot for the run after coming back from such a long break.”