AFTER the hullabaloo of opening its doors for the first time in two and a half years last Sunday, this coming Sunday it’s all about the racing at ParisLongchamp with three Group 3 classic trials - the Prix de Fontainebleau and Prix de la Grotte preparing colts and fillies for the Poule d'Essai des Poulains and Pouliches, and the Prix Noailles, over the full Prix du Jockey Club trip.

Intriguingly, Aidan O’Brien will saddles his first French runners of the season and he looks to have a particularly solid chance in the Noailles with his Eyrefield Stakes hero, Flag Of Honour, who should be perfectly at home on the testing ground.

His rivals are led by Andre Fabre’s Gyllen, who will hold a fitness advantage over much of the field having landed the Listed Prix Francois Mathet at Saint-Cloud last month, and an interesting unbeaten supplementary entry from the Freddy Head yard, Young Fire.

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The waters of the Grotte are muddied by the fact that O’Brien’s representative, Magical, is in the same Coolmore Stud ownership as the likely favourite, Fabre’s Wind Chimes. Earmarked for the 1,000 Guineas at Newmarket, Wind Chimes routed her opposition on both career her juvenile starts but she sidestepped her scheduled reappearance at Deauville on Monday owing to heavy ground and will surely be ridden with other targets in mind.

Magical is not quite at the top of the incredibly strong Ballydoyle pecking order but she was still good enough to win the Group 2 Debutante Stakes last term prior to running in three straight Group 1 events, including when fourth in the Prix Marcel Boussac at Chantilly on Arc Day.

Mission Impassible was one place in front of Magical in the Boussac and is set to cross swords with her again, while Latita, undefeated in three provincial starts for Fabrice Vermeulen but now under the care of Jean-Claude Rouget, adds an intriguing extra ingredient.

The Fontainebleau is another fascinating contest despite its small field. Irish hopes rest with Rostropovich, a 1.1 million guineas Frankel colt who began to justify that price tag by landing the Futurity Stakes before finishing a well-beaten third to Verbal Dexterity in the National Stakes.

Godolphin has two highly promising colts in the line-up in the shape of six-length maiden scorer Mind Mapping, and Wootton, successful by a wide margin in both his starts to date. But the most likely winner is Olmedo, the top-rated juvenile colt in France in 2017 thanks to his second place to O’Brien’s Happily in the Group 1 Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere.