PARISLONGCHAMP

SUNDAY

3.15 PRIX DU MOULIN DE LONGCHAMP (GROUP 1) (3YO+ COLTS & FILLIES) of €450,000. 1m

Tomorrow’s Prix du Moulin de Longchamp hosts a fascinating clash of the generations with six three-year-olds, all of which have been at least Group 1-placed and including a pair of top-level winners, taking on a select group of older horses led by Recoletos and Lightning Spear.

Over this one-mile trip, the initial impression is that this year’s classic colts may not be up to much, though the fillies, and in particular Alpha Centauri, who thrashed Recoletos in the Prix Jacques le Marois, look a much stronger bunch.

Wind Chimes and Homerique are the two three-year-old fillies in the line-up and both have sound claims. Preference is for Wind Chimes, like Alpha Centauri, a daughter of Mastercraftsman.

She has always been held in the highest regard by trainer Andre Fabre and finally began to repay some of his confidence when storming to a comprehensive victory in the Group 3 Prix de Lieurey at Deauville last month – form that was franked when the three-and-a-half-length runner-up, Poetic Charm, scored at Longchamp on Wednesday.

Her only previous Group 1 sortie was a close third in the Poule d’Essai des Pouliches and, given that she runs in the purple and white silks of Coolmore Stud’s Derrick Smith, it may be significant that Aidan O’Brien has decided to give this race a miss with Gustav Klimt and allow Wind Chimes centre stage.

Homerique is comfortably the least experienced member of the field, with just four races under her belt. They have been four pretty good ones, including third in the Prix de Diane and a last time out Group 3 triumph, and it is intriguing that trainer Francis-Henri Graffard has chosen to drop her back in trip from a mile and a quarter when earlier suggestions were that she was a candidate for the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe over a mile and a half.

Without Parole and Intellogent, winners of the St James’s Palace Stakes and Prix Jean Prat respectively, are the pick of the three-year-old colts. Without Parole is on something of a recovery mission having flopped in both the Sussex Stakes and when stepped up to an extended mile and a quarter in the Juddmonte International, while Intellogent also came up short against his elders in the Marois.

Expert Eye finished five lengths in front of Without Parole in the Sussex Stakes but still looks more like a seven-furlong horse than a genuine miler, while Wootton is held by Without Parole on Royal Ascot form and flopped when dropped in trip at Deauville last time.

Moving on to the older horses, Lightning Spear, trained in England by David Simcock, has been admirably consistent in this kind of company this season and finally broke his Group 1 duck at the 16th attempt when beating Expert Eye is the Sussex. He was only sixth in this last year, when it was run at Chantilly.

The other really solid contender is Recoletos, who beat the rest of a classy field by three and a half lengths and more when runner-up in the Marois and can be forgiven his below par Royal Ascot effort when he was upset by a pre-race dope test.

Fabre has a decent second string in the shape of the four-year-old Plumatic, but he has much more on his plate here than when crossing the Channel to plunder last month’s Group 3 Sovereign Stakes at Salisbury.

With no rain forecast in Paris for the foreseeable future, fast ground is virtually guaranteed, which should suit most of the field, with the exception of Royal Julius.

SELECTION: WIND CHIMES Next best: Recoletos

The undercard features a brace of one-mile Group 3 juvenile contests, the Prix des Chenes and the Prix d’Aumale, in which English trainer Charlie Appleby will try to extend his recent French winning spree with the unbeaten once-raced pair, Court Poet and Ceratonia.