Graeme North tips for the Qtar Prix du Jockey Club

Timeform’s Graeme North provides an in-depth preview of Sunday’s action from Chantilly including in the Qatar Prix du Jockey Club.

Three weeks on from the Poule d’Essai des Poulains, as it traditionally is, the Prix du Jockey Club is the centrepiece of Sunday’s meeting at Chantilly on a card that also features the two Group 2 races, including the Prix du Sandringham as well as two Group 3s and two listed races one of which is the Prix La Fleche which is the first significant two-year-old race of the season at the Parisian tracks.

With temperatures around the high twenties and little rain forecast, the going looks set to be on the quick side (it was given officially as ‘bon’ or ‘good’ on Saturday morning) and there look to be a couple of bets to be had, albeit a couple of races at the time of writing have still not been priced up.

For any readers who’ve never been to Chantilly, the location is even more splendid than it looks on television, but the main grandstand and paddock area is surprisingly small for a track that hosts two Classics annually and acted as a temporary venue for the Arc while Longchamp was being rebuilt.

Unlike Longchamp, where the last 600m is pretty much flat according to Google Earth and the 1600m over which the Poulains is run drops 8m from its highest point to the winning post, Chantilly’s last 600m rises 4m after a descent in front of the Grandes Ecuries, the big stables you can see on television. While their respective topographies might be different, a low draw is deemed just as important on the round course at Chantilly as it is at Longchamp, so there will have been some groans when the draw was made public, though the British and Irish contingent have by and large not fared badly.

Unsurprisingly, the best point to start when assessing the runners for the Jockey Club is the Poulains, or the French 2000 Guineas as it is more widely known, and there is one overbearing clue in its results since 2010 that has uncovered the Jockey Club winner each time the horse in question went straight to Chantilly – simply back the horse if it finished in the first three in the Poulains from a draw of 15 or higher.

Since 2010 only three horses have met that criteria – Lope De Vega in 2010 who overcame stall 15 at Longchamp, Intello in 2013 who finished third from stall 17 and New Bay in 2015 who finished second from stall 16.

It’s been a long wait since New Bay but this year we have another qualifier, Camille Pissarro, who stayed on strongly under Christophe Soumillon to finish third just over a length behind his stable-companion Henri Matisse. Interestingly, all three Jockey Club winners mentioned ended up overcoming defying draws of 10 or wider at Chantilly with Lope De Vega even scoring from 20 but Camille Pissarro has been handed stall 1, which for all its good record in recent years, with a top-four finished achieved by eight horses from that berth since 2010, might present more problems for the horse than the longer distance given he has been ridden from well back in his last half-dozen races.

He’s currently a 100/30 chance and while I don’t dispute he is the rightful favourite as one of the few Group 1 winners in the field, there might be a better bet elsewhere.

Fourth at Longchamp, and only a cigarette paper behind Camille Pissarro, was Luther and on that basis he should be a fair bit shorter in the betting (currently 12/1) on the assumption he will get the same sort of prominent ride that kept him out of trouble at Longchamp but it remains to be seen whether he is over the hard race he must have had on the sharp end of a very taxing pace at Longchamp and he’s drawn 13.

It wouldn’t surprise me if Poulains fifth Ridari ended up emerging best of the other three who ran in the Guineas (Detain (sixth) and Heybetli (tenth, likely to be outclassed again), also try their luck).

Detain ran the last 600m faster than Ridari, but whether such a moderate mover will appreciate a second quick race on fast ground I’m not sure. On the other hand, Ridari, who’d ultimately shown a good turn of speed when winning the Prix de Fontainebleau against lesser opposition on slower ground in his classic trial, is bred to take a big step forward over further than a mile, being by Churchill out of a middle-distance mare from the Aga Khan studs, and will surely be more at home on this more galloping track than he was at Longchamp where once again he took some time to hit full stride. His price is ebbing away, however, as short as 4/1 in places.

Detain’s stable-companion Bowmark is entitled to take his chance having won quite nicely at York’s Dante meeting, while another progressive type Cualificar has physique on his side but is slightly reminiscent of last year’s Sosie in that it might be his best form might end up being another three or four months down the line.

Dubawi’s record in the Derby will surely come under scrutiny again next week (spoiler – it’s not good) if Delacroix hangs on to his current position as ante-post favourite, but he’s already sired a Jockey-Club winner in the form of New Bay and has four representatives this year, Parachutiste (who looked a good prospect last time but is drawn 17), Trinity College, an Aidan O’Brien second string, Azimpour, another second string, and the supplemented King Of Cities.

In a race in which plenty are making up the numbers, I’m not quite sure why KING OF CITIES is available at 11/1 and 12/1 in a place. Almeric, who beat him in the strong-looking Feilden Stakes last time when the pair were miles clear of subsequent Dante fifth Nightwalker, would have been one of the favourites for the race had he made it here and there’s nothing not to like about the Feilden form in which King Of Cities ran a smart 110 timefigure. Out of a high-class mile and a half winner from a yard going well, he’s drawn just inside Ridari in stall 10.

Monteille a massive price

The first of the Group 2s, the Prix de Sandringham, features a very interesting filly in the form of Vadinska who won her only start, a newcomers event at Saint-Cloud at the start of May, by ten lengths eased down.

She could be anything as the saying goes but as a daughter of Kodiak out of a mare by Makfi, she might well have a fairly low ceiling in Group rating terms if her breeding is anything to go by and preference is for GODSPEED. She was one place and four lengths in front of the reopposing Ghouffran in the Poule d’Essai des Pouliches, the French 1000 Guineas, albeit she only finished eighth, but in her defence she had the worst of the draw and had previously run two of the last three 200m sections faster than the subsequent Guineas winner Zarigana in the Prix de la Grotte from a hopeless position. Christophe Soumillon takes the ride for the first time, and she’d be a bet for me at anything bigger than 9/2.

The other Group 2, the Grand Prix de Chantilly and run in honour of the late Aga Khan, has attracted just four runners. Junko sets the standard being 5lb clear on Timeform ratings but he must reverse last time out form with Arrow Eagle as well as Sibayan, albeit both of those were race fit whereas he was having his first race since scoring in this same race in 2024.

The Group 3 Prix du Gros-Chene sees the reappearance of the Champions Sprint Stakes winner Kind Of Blue and he’s very hard to oppose. He won that race on late-season soft ground but had earlier scored on firm at Doncaster before finishing fourth in the Commonwealth Cup and ought to have far too many guns for the usual motley crew of French sprinters.

Three-year-old Coto de Caiza also makes her first appearance of the season having won the Cornwallis when last seen but if there is a one runner easily capable of outrunning her odds it’s the home-trained MONTEILLE who has the ideal draw next to the rail. She won the listed Prix Texanita here last year and would probably have won the Group 3 Prix du Petit Couvert too last September with anything like a clear run. In view of the speed she showed then, which was her first run at the minimum trip and which she is trying for just the second time here, she still has something of an unexposed look about her and a recent sixth here behind the top-class Lazzat should see her stripping match-fit now on just her second run since joining Mario Baratti who won the 2024 Poulains with Metropolitain.

With no proof yet that Coto de Caiza has trained on, 80/1 is an insult with three places up for grabs and she’s well worth a wager each way. There doesn’t look to be anything of the quality of 2024 Arc runner-up Aventure in this year’s Prix de Royaumont.

Andrew Balding sends over the Cheshire Oaks runner-up Secret Of Love and a well-run 2400m will surely see her improving upon that form but as it stands she has a bit to find with the unbeaten Sunly who represents Francis Graffard and won a listed race at Longchamp at the start of May from the reopposing Konada. That said, she gave me the impression on good to soft ground last time that she wouldn’t want conditions too quick.

Karl Burke was the trainer to follow in French sprinting juvenile events last season and he saddles Super Soldier, a winner at Leicester before finishing second in a conditions event at Ascot, in the Prix La Fleche. That Ascot form looks some way in advance to me to anything the Marygate fourth Saucy Jane has achieved, and he ought to take a lot of beating and might end up being a backable price (2/1 or greater) given Kimi Rey and Focus represent top French connections and come here of the back of a win each.

A more interesting sprint is the Prix Marchand D’Or in which Burke is also represented, this time by Arabie who was a regular visitor to France last year and won two Group races as well as finishing fourth in the Prix Morny. He’s still to hit top form this year, however, and faces strong opposition in the shape of Soldier’s Heart who won his last two races as a youngster including the listed Hornblower Stakes at Ripon from the now Timeform 108-rated Benevento.

Fitness might be a concern, but a literal reading of that form arguably makes him the one to beat, not least given the one horse who looked potentially a very smart sprinter last year Apollo Fountain has lost his way in a hood and a tongue (which are retained again) this year. Joseph O’Brien’s Midnight Strike is another who hasn’t really progressed as anticipated and doesn’t have the best draw towards the middle of the track.

Selections

13.40 0.5pt each way 3 places Monteille (80/1 in a place, 33/1 or bigger acceptable)
14.20 1pt win Godspeed (assuming 9/2 or better)
15.05 1pt win King Of Cities 10/1 or bigger

Preview posted at 1530 BST on 31/05/2025

Graeme North tips for the Qtar Prix du Jockey Club

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