ARC weekend at Chantilly was a poor one for the home defence, which managed just one win (Vazirabad in the Prix du Cadran) in the Group 1 races. The two-year-old Group 1 races, the Prix Marcel Boussac and the Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere, went to Britain through Wild Illusion and to Ireland through Happily respectively.

As both races were at 1600 metres and run within 35 minutes of each other, time comparisons are meaningful, and time comparisons speak very much in favour of the former race, which stopped the clock in a time that was 1.04s faster. Sectionals show that nearly all of this differential came in the final 400 metres.