ROSS O’Sullivan has become the toast of Paris once before and it’s no longshot that he’ll do the same this weekend, when Irish Cesarewitch hero Chally Chute becomes the trainer’s first Group 1 flat runner in the Prix Royal-Oak (2.50).

Eight years have passed since the upwardly-mobile dual-purpose trainer sent out Baie Des Iles to win the Grade 2 Prix des Drags at Auteuil - an especially notable winner since it was O’Sullivan’s first runner in France.

With momentum high following a massive handicap strike at the Curragh, it looks a smart piece of placing to target Chally Chute at Sunday’s €350,000 staying event at Saint-Cloud.

Amongst his seven rivals are the Ballydoyle pair of Queenstown and Amelia Earhart (second and sixth in the British Champions Long Distance Cup at Ascot only last weekend), Tom Clover’s Lonsdale Cup winner Al Nayyir, Prix du Cadran fourth Double Major, Amy Murphy’s Prix Chaudenay scorer Jabracadabra, as well as Prix de Royallieu fourth Consent. An official rating of 114 makes Julie White and Dominic O’Neill’s stalwart feature just outside the top-30 highest-rated horses in training in Ireland, as well as being the seventh top-rated Irish flat horse not trained by the O’Briens. It is testament to his trainer that the seven-time winner is now up to a career-high mark at the age of eight.

“It’s very exciting to have our first runner in a Group 1,” O’Sullivan told The Irish Field. “He’s been so consistent and his rating allows him to take his place in the race. It doesn’t look silly to have him in there anyway. The trip looks right for him and it’s a small field.

Light campaign

“It’s nice that he’s going there a fresh horse too. He’s got very low mileage over the last two seasons, because we haven’t got to run him all that often with the ground; we know he obviously likes an ease. There is rain due to arrive on Saturday. We’ve had reports on the ground to be walking along the lines of yielding, good to yielding, and if the rain arrives that should be a help to us.

“He came out of the Irish Cesarewitch very well and we’re really looking forward to running him. Julie and Dominic are hopefully making the trip over, as are myself and Katie [Walsh]. We’ve never had a runner on the flat in France before, so to have one in a Group 1 is special for us all.” Reflecting on his previous history in the French capital, O’Sullivan added: “I can remember going there with no expectations. Katie had just retired from race-riding and we managed to get Paul Townend to ride her, albeit he took a bit of convincing off a low weight!

“When she went and won, it just turned into the weekend of dreams. It was like something out of a Carlsberg ad! That was eight years ago now, though. We’d love to do it again.”