Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud (Group 1)

LAST Sunday’s Group 1 Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud was a proper top-quality horse race, something that cannot have been said very often about this mile-and-a-half Group 1 event over recent years.

For while it sometimes had been won by an outstanding horse (Waldgeist, Treve and Novellist being the best of the previous decade), it has often attracted a small field and its roll of honour included the likes of Way To Paris, Zarak and Silverwave, admirable performers maybe, but hardly household names.

Record time

This time around there was a bigger than usual field of nine and a pace so strong that the race record time, set way back in 1987 by Moon Madness, was lowered by more than a third of a second.

The two highest-profile previous Group 1 scorers in the field, the odds-on favourite Hurricane Lane and the top local hope, Mare Australis, were both well beaten.

Good mare

Yet there can be little doubt that the only other proven elite level performer among its nine runners, Alpinista, demonstrated in victory here that she is both a spectacularly good mare and one with the potential to climb to the top rung of the ladder by landing a race held over the same trip on the opposite bank of the River Seine in the autumn, the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.

Ryan Moore was determined to get to the lead aboard the solitary Irish raider, High Definition, but he had to pretty forceful to get the Galileo colt’s head in front in the early stages.

Harried by Lone Eagle and constantly edging away from the rail, he set a strong tempo but had no answer when the stalking Baratti slipped up his inside with two and a half furlongs to run.

In the circumstance they did pretty well to almost hang on for fifth, seven lengths behind the winner.

Soon challenged by Bubble Gift, Baratti dug in gamely before succumbing approaching the furlong marker to Alpinista, who had been held up in the final trio prior to making rapid advances down the outside.

Under a strong drive from Luke Morris, Alpinista persistently edged to her left, squeezing up Baratti in the shadows of the post, but still ran out a comprehensive length-and-a-quarter winner ahead of that gutsy rival, who himself held off Bubble Gift by a head.

There was then a three-length gap back to Sweet Lady and another two and half to Lone Eagle in fifth.

Trainer Sir Mark Prescott, who was notching his biggest success since Marsha landed the Nunthorpe Stakes almost five years ago, had been honest beforehand in admitting that Alpinista, in common with many other members of his Newmarket yard, had taken a long while to show her veteran handler the right signals this spring, hence she had missed her initial objective, the Coronation Cup.

This victory represented a big step-up on what she had achieved in landing three German Group 1 events late last year, albeit the first of those races was given a monumental form boost when it’s runner-up, Torquator Tasso, landed the Arc two months later.

Rematch

A rematch in this year’s Arc is now highly likely, with Prescott suggesting she will have just one more start before that date with destiny, most likely getting some practice over the same course and distance by taking in the Prix Vermeille.

Morris, who was banned for four days for hampering Bubble Gift at the start and given a ‘slap on the wrist’ fine for using his whip above shoulder height, said that Alpinista has not done much work at home beforehand.

While admitting that she was suited by the combination of fast ground and being able to adopt waiting tactics from off a fierce pace, he was optimistic that she would improve for this first outing in seven months.

“It was very much a prep for the autumn and I’d be hopeful she could step forward,” he said.

Purple patch

Baratti, who had not been tried in pattern company in any of his previous seven starts, came up with a massive career best to continue a purple patch for his sire, Frankel, who enjoyed a one-two here on the back of recent triumphs for Westover, Nashwa and Inspiral.

Baratti’s trainer, Andre Fabré, suggested that he too will head for the Arc and that his more fancied runner, seventh-placed Mare Australis, had possibly failed to handle the track.

Even bearing in mind his preference for more cut in the ground, the effort of last year’s Arc third, Hurricane Lane, in beating just one horse home was too bad to be true.