I WOULD be pretty confident at this stage that the winner of the French equivalent of the Derby, the Prix du Jockey Club at Chantilly last Sunday, is superior to the winner at Epsom, Anthony Van Dyck.

Not many outside France would have heard previously of Sottsass, trained by Jean Claude Rouget and the winner of just a maiden and a listed race beforehand, but he burst into the big time with an emphatic two-length defeat of Persian King in course-record time, worth a 123 basic timefigure.