Deauville Sunday

2.50pm The Aga Khan Studs Prix Jacques Le Marois (Group 1) 1m

After two agonising big race near-misses, one by the barest of margins and the other when a pacemaker was given too much rope, Rosallion would have been a highly deserving winner of the Group 1 The Aga Khan Studs Prix Jacques le Marois at Deauville on Sunday.

But Richard Hannon’s four-year-old was withdrawn on Friday night in favour of a tilt at next Saturday's City Of York Stakes.

The Marois field still contains two horses, Dancing Gemini and Docklands, who have already beaten Rosallion this season. But even they may be worth opposing with the crack Japanese miler Ascoli Piceno.

This race has fallen into Japanese hands once before thanks to Taiki Shuttle, albeit more than a quarter of a century has passed since then, and Ascoli Piceno has built up an exceptional race record over the course of the last three seasons.

Only once out of the first two (when racing around the tight bend of Rosehill in Sydney) in nine career starts which have included two domestic Group 1 triumphs, she is a seasoned intercontinental traveller, having already scooped a big pot in Saudi Arabia in February. She will be ridden, as usual, by Christophe Lemaire, a man who enjoyed a number of huge moments at this Normandy track before emigrating to Japan.

Aidan O’Brien has two intriguing runners. Ryan Moore has chosen to partner last winter’s ante-post favourite for the 2025 colts’ classic, The Lion In Winter, who began the season with two flops before partially redeeming himself with a third place over seven furlongs in the Group 1 Prix Jean Prat.

Ballydoyle will also be represented by Diego Velazquez, a four-year-old son of Frankel who has just been sold to the Sangster family and will be retiring to the English National Stud at the end of this campaign. A three-time Group 2 winner, he has finished unplaced in all three tries in Group 1 company.

Alongside Dancing Gemini, who may be pepped up by a two-month break, and Docklands, who will much prefer this straight track compared to the idiosyncrasies of Goodwood last time, a further strong British challenger is Notable Speech, who has been a little off colour of late but won both the 2000 Guineas and the Sussex Stakes last season.

An eighth successive foreign Marois success looks all but guaranteed as a three-pronged home team, led by the Poule d’Essai des Poulains fifth, Ridari, is set to be outclassed.

SELECTION: ASCOLI PICENO Next Best: Rosallion

There are three Irish runners on the rest of Sunday’s card. Aidan O’Brien runs his unbeaten Wootton Bassett colt Daytona in the €73,200 The Aga Khan Studs Prix Francois Boutin, a Group 3 seven-furlong juvenile event which has also attracted the Joseph O’Brien-trained Andab, while Dermot Weld saddles Purview in the €50,300 The Aga Khan Studs Prix Nureyev, a mile and two furlong listed contest for three-year-olds.

Deauville’s highlight today is the €183,000 Group 2 Prix Guillaume d’Ornano over a mile and two in which Andre Fabre’s Prix du Jockey Club runner-up Cualificar faces four rivals headed by the Brian Meehan-trained Rashabar and the Japanese raider, Alohi Alii.