Criterium de Saint-Cloud (Group 1)
FOR the second season running, a successful Sunday afternoon at Saint-Cloud meant that Aidan O’Brien enjoyed a top-level treble on the final big European Group 1 weekend of the season.
Unlike his juvenile bonanza of 2025, this time one of the winning trio was an older horse, namely the teak-tough stayer Queenstown.
Star billing on the day undoubtedly went to the Wootton Bassett colt, Drumbeat, who led home a 1-2 for Ballydoyle, and a 1-2-3 for the O’Brien family, when following up Giant Sequoia’s dominant Doncaster victory 24 hours earlier by surging away in the final furlong under Ryan Moore to land the Group 1 Criterium de Saint-Cloud by two lengths.
His stablemate, Shakespeare, who had been well beaten in two pattern race appearances since getting off the mark at the Curragh in August, showed marked improvement, possibly prompted by encountering a genuinely testing surface for the first time in his life, to take second.
The placings were rounded out, a further length back, by Joseph O’Brien’s Jesus Green, who had finished in front of the winner when they met in a Leopardstown maiden in mid-summer.
Stamina test
Rather sleepy out of the stalls and detached in last place in the early stages, Jesus Green came around the outside to deliver what looked like being a winning challenge approaching the furlong marker, but may have found the closing stages of this severe mile and two furlongs stamina test beyond him on officially ‘holding’ ground.
“I think Drumbeat has come forward since winning the Zetland Stakes at Newmarket,” Aidan O’Brien said. “It was a really classy performance from him and I would imagine that he’ll be trained for the classics.
“He’s not a slow horse and I’d say he’d have the speed to have a crack at a Guineas. After that, he’d be very comfortable going up to a mile and a quarter, maybe even further. He’s not simply a stayer, he showed that when he quickened through the middle of the field today.”
Prix Royal-Oak (Group 1)
AIDAN O’Brien completed a big double on the card, when Queenstown proved himself the hardiest of warriors in the mile-and-seven-furlongs Prix Royal-Oak, going one position better than he had managed in the same event 12 months previously.
This was Queenstown’s third Group 1 outing in little over three weeks, and he had performed with great credit in the previous two, finishing placed on both occasions. There was every opportunity here for him to have showed signs of weariness after that exacting schedule, and the signs were unpromising in the early stages as Moore needed to roust the six-year-old gelded son of Galileo along to get him to adopt his usual position at the head of affairs more than a quarter of a mile after the stalls had opened.
But he then got into a good rhythm in front and, brought under pressure with three furlongs to run, soon had a handy advantage over the chasing Jabracadabra, with the remainder of the field the best part of four lengths or more behind the leader.
When Jabracadabra began to weaken approaching the furlong pole, Consent came through from the rear to look a possible danger, only for her to lug in to the inside rail. Straightened up by Luke Morris, Sir Mark Prescott’s filly stayed on well late, but the line was always coming in time for the front-runner, who still had three-quarters of a length in hand at the post.
“It’s not normal what he managed here,” said O’Brien, marvelling at Queenstown’s appetite for racing. “He was off the bridle but just kept galloping, so he’s an incredible horse. Ryan was very strong on him, that was a brilliant ride.
“He’s Scandinavia’s lead horse really, that’s his main role in life, and hopefully he’ll be back to perform that role again next season.”
Criterium International (Group 1)
AIDAN O’Brien had two candidates, including the favourite, Capability Brown, in a field of seven for the opening Group 1 contest on the card, the Criterium International.
They both ran solid races to fill the places behind another front-running winner, Master Man, who provided numerous ‘firsts’ as he held off Capability Brown by half a length with Aix La Chapelle, a regally-bred son of Justify, handling the muddy conditions surprisingly well to take third, another length in arrears.
The first home-trained winner of this mile event since Ectot in 2013, Master Man was a first success at the top table both for his 65-year-old trainer, Richard Chotard, and for Anthony Crastus, who himself is no spring chicken for a jockey at the age of 41.
€25,000 yearling
Also an initial Group 1 victor for his sire, Goken, Master Man was sourced by his trainer for a mere €25,000 at Arqana as a yearling - this victory, following a pair of wins in valuable sales races, took his official earnings to €430,240.
He runs for a large group of owners, mainly long-time supporters of Chotard, who had a licence in Chantilly for 20 years, mainly dealing with hurdlers and chasers, before relocating to his current base 500 miles away in the far south at Calas, near Marseille, a decade ago.
An understandably overjoyed Chotard said: “It’s just incredible. He’s a good horse and he won really well on the Saturday of the Arc meeting at Longchamp. But this time, we were taking on the Irish, so you can’t expect much.
“But he was in top form. We simply decided to stick to the rail and take the lead so as not to disrupt his usual routine, my main instruction was simply not to interfere with him. He’s a machine!
“There are a great many owners involved, so it’s been an incredible adventure among friends! He’ll now spend the winter somewhere warm and I hope that he’ll be able to stay the 2,100 metres of the Prix du Jockey Club next season.”
THERE was no luck for the Irish raiders in any of the three Group 3 races on the card. Denis Hogan’s Meriden fared best, finishing fourth behind the David Smaga-trained Half Half in the Prix Perth, while Joseph O’Brien, who saddled Beset to take seventh behind Andre and Lavinia Fabre’s Eleganz in the Prix Belle de Nuit, had the disappointment of seeing his pair, Sindria and Qualixia, fill the last two places in a Prix de Flore won by Britain’s Miss Justice, from the Brian Meehan yard.
Filly to note
The Gosdens have a nice filly for next year in Coaxed who overcame very soft going to win the Group 3 Darley Prix des Reservoirs over a mile at Deauville on Monday. She had been third in the Group 3 Prestige Fillies’ Stakes at Goodwood in August. By Baaeed out of the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes winner Persuasive, the Cheveley Park Stud-owned and bred filly won by three-quarters of a length.