A WEEK on from British horses landing both the Prix Morny and the Prix Jean Romanet, the cross-Channel raiders were expected to dominate again on the final day of the month-long Deauville festival.

However, although Coulsty made it three British triumphs in the last five renewals of the Group 3 Prix de Meautry Lucien Barriere, William Knight’s Fire Ship had to settle for an honourable third in the defence of his Group 3 Prix Quincey Lucien Barriere crown.

In the showpiece event, the Group 2 Lucien Barriere Grand Prix de Deauville, the John Gosden-trained Gatewood couldn’t quite justify odds-on favouritism, going down by a head to the gutsy front-runner, Cocktail Queen.

Yet Cocktail Queen is in many respects another big winner for the lot from across the pond as she is owned and bred by Hampshire’s Jeff Smith of Lochsong fame. And, although the training and riding honours went the way of the mother-son combination of Myriam Bollack-Badel and Alexis Badel, this Motivator filly had, up until three months earlier, been trained in Newmarket by David Elsworth.

Smith explained afterwards that, following a terrible bout of ringworm that decimated her three-year-old season, Cocktail Queen was only just coming back to her best this spring when Elsworth suggested the switch to France in order to find her favoured soft ground.

It has been an outstanding season for Smith. Without a Group 1 winner since Lochangel landed the Nunthorpe Stakes back in 1998, this was his third Group 2 triumph of the campaign following on from the successes of Norse King (in the Prix d’Harcourt) and Arabian Queen (in the Duchess of Cambridge Stakes).

Improved by the recent re-employment of trailblazing tactics, Cocktail Queen was following up her surprise victory in the Group 3 Prix Gontaut-Biron over two and a half furlongs shorter just 15 days earlier.

She also warranted Bollack-Badel’s insistence that Smith cough up a €14,400 supplementary entry fee. The last horse to complete the Gontaut-Biron/Grand Prix double was a certain Cirrus Des Aigles so Cocktail Queen has a long way to go to emulate his subsequent exploits, starting with the Group 1 Prix de l’Opera on Arc Day.

Gatewood was ill at ease on what jockey William Buick described as tacky ground but still stuck his neck out willingly while the Brazilian import, Going Somewhere, was possibly disadvantaged by racing alone against the inside rail while staying on resolutely into third, just a length behind the front two.

Coulsty achieved a long-held ambition of owner Lord Vestey, who looked resplendent in his panama hat as he welcomed his first ever Deauville winner. “My wife Celia and I love this place and have been coming since before we were married,” he revealed.

An Irish-bred son of Kodiac, Coulsty began the year with a surprise listed success at Newmarket but has really thrived since encountering softer ground in recent weeks. Never far behind the pace-setting Robert Le Diable, Coulsty hit the front passing the 200-metre pole and ran on strongly to hold a one and a quarter length advantage at the winning post.

Gammarth, runner-up in this race back in 2012, filled the same position again with Robert Le Diable in third. Newmarket’s Group 2 Challenge Stakes is a logical next target for the winner.

Coulsty’s win was a 151st French Group 3 victory for his jockey, Olivier Peslier, and came less than two hours after his 150th aboard Solow in the Prix Quincey.

Sporting the silks of his retaining owner, the Wertheimer brothers, Peslier brought his mount over to the stands side rail soon after the start and the partnership never saw another rival, storming home by an eye-catching five-length margin from Spoil The Fun despite the whip never being employed.

Solow has now won five of his last six starts stretching back to June 2013. He has dumbfounded the stamina expectations of his trainer, Freddie Head, who has always thought of him as a stayer and, when he suffered that solitary recent defeat, in late May, asked him to go almost twice as far as the Quincey distance of a mile.

Trainers’ table: The red-hot Jean-Claude Rouget has extended his lead over André Fabre in the trainers’ championship to almost €1.9 million.