Deauville Sunday

3.40 Prix Jean Prat (Group 1) (3yo Colts And Fillies) 7f (Straight)

The Prix Jean Prat is rarely a strong race for a Group 1 (none of its last three winners ever scored in pattern company thereafter) and the 2025 renewal looked like being a low key affair until Aidan O’Brien supplemented his much talked about Sea The Stars colt The Lion In Winter.

Suddenly a clash between the Irish 2000 Guineas runner-up, Cosmic Year, and Shadow Of Light, who finished a fine third in the English equivalent before failing to justify a short price when only fifth in the Commonwealth Cup, acquired a whole new layer of intrigue.

O’Brien has long sung the praises of The Lion In Winter, but a bruised foot forced him to miss his main target, the Dewhurst Stakes, at the end of an otherwise unbeaten juvenile campaign, and then another setback meant that he missed the early classics and had to be rushed to the Derby by way of a modest run in the Dante Stakes.

Now, four weeks after beating just four of his 17 rivals at Epsom, the Ballydoyle brains trust has decided to drop him radically back in trip from a mile and a half to seven furlongs.

Ante-post odds compilers seem to have given up on him, prompting quotes of as long as 8/1 about him notching a first top level triumph here, but O’Brien would surely not be risking a third straight flop unless he was showing the right signals at home and he can prove the doubters wrong.

Huge boost

Trained by Harry Charlton, Cosmic Year was readily put in his place by another Juddmonte-owned colt in Field Of Gold when last seen at the Curragh and that form was given a huge boost when the winner did a similar demolition job on the St James’s Palace Stakes field.

The representative of Charlie Appleby and Godolphin, Shadow Of Light got much closer to Field Of Gold in the Newmarket Guineas but probably caught him on an off day.

His subsequent Commonwealth Cup effort was a real disappointment for a two-time Group 1 juvenile winner.

Domestic trainers account for the rest of a 10-runner line-up. Woodshauna and Maranoa Charlie, who have beaten each other once apiece in recent months, will probably prove the best fancied of the home team but I am expecting a big performance from Daylight, who has been aimed at this race since failing to stay in the Poule d’Essai des Pouliches.

SELECTION: THE LION IN WINTER

Next best: Daylight