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There is a Grade 2 2m 4f Chase at Auteuil tomorrow worth €151,200 to the winner. This falls one day after the Grade 2 Amlin 1965 Chase at Ascot over a similar distance, worth a comparatively paltry £28,475 to the winner.
I know the likes of Mullins, Nicholls and Nick Williams are waking up to the opportunities, but why are British trainers not contesting these French races more often?
By a similar token, can we ever expect to see the top French horses running in our best events? It would be great to see Bonito Du Berlais over here.
The end of the jump season is coming here in France, so there is currently no point for british or irish horses to make the trip there.
But I agree with your comment. Lately
Zarkandar
won the GP d’Automne which is the autumn equivalent of the french Champion Hurdle, so I won’t imagine what the british/irish top horses could achieved in the best french races like the Grand Steeple-Chase or the Champion Hurdle.
Same thing goes for horses like the youngBonito
or even
Shannon Rock
which may be a real Gold Cup horse in my opinion.
In the past Francois Doumen used to send horses in UK. For instance
The Fellow
won both the King George VI and the Gold Cup.
First Gold
won a King George VI and two Martell Cup. Even
Val d’Alene
won races in England.
Unfortunately it only seems to be a question of priority…
What was the name of that French wonder horse which flopped badly over here ? Something beginning with ‘m’?
No wonder they don’t come here much with prize money like that. Didn’t Ferdy Murphy relocate there for the prize money a few years back?
Kasbah Bliss was odds on for the World Hurdle against Big Bucks and Punchestowns. With years of hindsight it should of been 12/1…….
Gaelic Warrior Gold Cup Winner 2026
What was the name of that French wonder horse which flopped badly over here ? Something beginning with ‘m’?
No wonder they don’t come here much with prize money like that. Didn’t Ferdy Murphy relocate there for the prize money a few years back?
Ferdy did indeed – not sure how he’s getting on though?
Are you thinking of three-time Grand Steeplechase de Paris winner
Mid Dancer
PC? He ran a decent enough race but was firmly put in his place by Monet’s Garden at Carlisle a few years ago.
There was always talk of Cyrlight coming over to take on Best Mate in the Gold Cup in their era. It’s a shame we never got to see that match.
French jumps races are similar to the flat, being run at a slow pace with it turning into a sprint at the end. This won’t suit many British and Irish horses and our end to end gallops won’t always suit French runners.
I’ll never forget backing The Fellow at 14s when he won the King George and his head defeat by Cool ground in the Gold Cup is still my biggest disappointment in racing.
Does anyone remember Jair Du Cochet turning in the greatest round of fast and fluent jumping of hurdles I have ever seen at Cheltenham as a 3/4 year old? Even Simon Holt couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
To be fair to John McCririck it was he that kept saying that The Fellow needed to wear blinkers.Kasbah Bliss is an amazing horse; won at Lonchamp on Arc day the other year at quite an age.
What was the name of that French wonder horse which flopped badly over here ? Something beginning with ‘m’?
No wonder they don’t come here much with prize money like that. Didn’t Ferdy Murphy relocate there for the prize money a few years back?
Ferdy did indeed – not sure how he’s getting on though?
Are you thinking of three-time Grand Steeplechase de Paris winner
Mid Dancer
PC? He ran a decent enough race but was firmly put in his place by Monet’s Garden at Carlisle a few years ago.
There was always talk of Cyrlight coming over to take on Best Mate in the Gold Cup in their era. It’s a shame we never got to see that match.
Yes that’s the horse I was thinking of thanks. No disrespect to Carlisle but an odd selection for a raiding mission .
I’m curious about how Ferdy is doing.
Didn’t a French horse come over to Cheltenham last year (chestnut hurdler) came nowhere and had a bad fall?……… I think if the English trainers showed the British owners what is really over there they might start to move their horses to be trained out there. It does seem really ridiculous that trainers can get owners to part with the thick end of 100k plus for young horses, bring them to England, win a 2k race at Taunton. If they stayed in France they could make a real return on their horses, French do not race to lose money. English trainers now refer to horse ownership as a ‘hobby’. Simon Munir owns alot of horses in France, they pay for the English side of things. A days racing in France is alot more interesting than at home, the emphasis being on producing top young horses. Something that is lost on English trainers, that is why they go over there to buy them!!
Didn’t a French horse come over to Cheltenham last year (chestnut hurdler) came nowhere and had a bad fall?!
Excellent points Obi, totally agree.
Yeah,
Seebreeze D’Ho
(not a French star by any means) had a fatal fall in The New One’s International Hurdle last season. They also brought over
Kario De Sormain
, who unseated very early in Newmill’s Champion Chase and the giant
Original
won the Wayward Lad Novices’ Chase before doing nothing in Forpadydeplasterer’s Arkle.
Top French hurdler
Gemix
ran in the Relkeel last season at Cheltenham too – finishing a tailed-off 4th of 4 behind More Of That, Salubrious and Glens Melody. He has since won a French G1 and was 2nd to Zarkandar in the Grand Prix D’Automne.
Wasn’t Kauto Star known as ‘l’extraterrestrial’ in France before Smith bought him? Checking the RP results I’m not sure why, he didn’t seem to dominate over there?
Another reason given to me by UK trainers for not running in French chases, is the variety of fences they employ, some of which would only be encountered on a cross country course here.
Even at the major Paris tracks, you see things like an Irish Bank, a Bullfinch, a low brick wall and a water jump called Le Grand Riviere – which as the name suggests, is a lot wider than anything you’d see over here. Most of the chases also include one or two hurdles on the way round.
It’s much easier to deal with their hurdle races, as the obstacles are essentially the same as those used in the Fixed Brush hurde races yesterday at Haydock.
As for Ferdy, he’s had one winner over jumps in France in 2014 from 38 runners – total win and place prize money just over 20,000 euros. Here’s the problem, the skill of running horses out the back in novice races to get a favourable handicap mark isn’t much use in the French program.
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