The Weekly Wrap for Apr. 18

The white jacket and purple cap of Gerard Augustin-Normand's racing silks have in recent years become as instantly recognisable on racecourses as those more historically aligned to the French Turf of the Aga Khan, Wertheimer brothers and the Niarchos family.

All four sets of colours were prominent at Chantilly on Sunday, where the Niarchos-bred Senga provided her Claiborne-based sire Blame with a serious European Classic chance when winning the G3 Prix de la Grotte. The fillies' trial was also won by her trainer Pascal Bary in 2005 for the same owner-breeder when Divine Proportions (Kingmambo) struck en route to claiming both the G1 Poule d'Essai des Pouliches and G1 Prix de Diane Hermes.

In the colts' trial, the G3 Prix de Fontainebleau, Brametot (Fr) put down an important marker as the first Group winner for his young sire Rajsaman (Fr), himself successful in the same race in 2010, in which Siyouni (Fr) and Lope De Vega (Ire) completed the trifecta. The latter went on to dual Classic success and, while Siyouni didn't win again after his G1 Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere victory the previous year, both he and Lope De Vega have made notably successful starts to their stallion careers.

Hopes will be high that Rajsaman, the busiest first-season stallion of 2013 in France upon his retirement to stud, can follow suit. He has big footsteps to follow even from within his own farm of Haras de la Cauviniere, as he stands alongside Le Havre (Ire), whose first crop contained Avenir Certain (Fr). That filly's double strike in the French Classics was emulated last year by another of Le Havre's daughters, La Cressonniere (Fr), and both were raced by the stallion's owner Augustin-Normand in partnership with Antonio Caro.

Desperate Days For Rouget
The link between Le Havre, his Classic-winning daughters and now Brametot is of course Jean-Claude Rouget, who wrestled the French champion trainer's title away from Andre Fabre last year after a banner season which saw Europe's top-rated 3-year-old Almanzor (Fr) (Wootton Bassett {GB}) at the forefront of his team.

The strength in depth of Rouget's runners made him a worthy champion but some of his main rivals had seasons to forget owing to a respiratory virus which ravaged a number of stables in Chantilly. Certainly Fabre and both Criquette and Freddy Head were among the leading trainers in the town whose horses were affected in the first half of last season.

While Fabre has had all guns blazing during the early weeks of this season, Rouget is now in the position of facing a threat to his stable, and it is one with far more serious repercussions than mere lacklustre performances. Over the weekend, France Galop issued a bulletin to confirm an outbreak of the potentially fatal neurological strain of Equine Herpesvirus (EHV-1) in Pau, the south-west training centre in which Rouget has by far the biggest string. The champion trainer confirmed himself at Chantilly on Sunday that two of his horses–––the Antonio Caro-owned Alcoy (Fr) (Aussie Rules) and recent Saint-Cloud runner-up Mille Pieds (Fr) (Zoffany {Ire})––have been euthanised. A further 25 of his horses have tested positive for EHV from a barn of 57 colts and geldings which contains the Group 1 winners Almanzor and Zelzal (Fr) (Sea The Stars {Ire}).

Brametot's eye-catching victory, after missing the start and giving his rivals a five-length lead, could not have come at a better time to give his trainer a vital boost in a desperate week. In Chantilly, however, eyebrows may well have been raised in some quarters that Rouget is even allowed to field any runners, despite the fact that they are being tested on arrival at racecourses and stabled apart from other horses.

Quoted in yesterday's Jour de Galop, the trainer was at pains to point out that he is adhering strictly to the guidelines set out by France Galop.

“We have a special procedure at the racecourses,” he said. “We are not taking any risks. Last year there were risks when there was a virus here in Chantilly but France Galop did not consider it serious enough to communicate beforehand. We travelled thinking that there wasn't a risk but there was. I prefer to be frank and to communicate openly what is happening in order to dispel potential rumours from some of my colleagues who would welcome the news that my horses are forbidden to run.”

Taking Aim At The Classics
What effect this episode will have on Rouget's season is impossible to quantify, but the trainer has already ventured that even once he has the likes of Almanzor and Zelzal back on track, which is unlikely to be before June, he feels they will be firing at only 60 to 70% of their ability. At this stage, he is still leading the French trainers' table by number of winners, with six in hand over Fabre at the time of writing, but the former champion is ahead on prize-money and, if recent Group-race results are anything to go by, appears to have plenty of bullets to fire at Classic targets.

One result that narrowly failed to go Fabre's way at Chantilly on Sunday was the short-head defeat of Godolphin's Parabellum (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}), the most expensive colt sold at auction in Europe in 2015 when plucked from the Ecurie des Monceaux draft for €2.6 million at Arqana's August Sale.

His conqueror in the mile maiden, Ratiocination (Ire) (Excelebration {Ire}), formed the first half of a notable double for Pascal Bary and the Niarchos family which was completed later by the aforementioned Senga. The G1 Prix Marcel Boussac winner Denebola (Storm Cat) is the link between both winners, as dam of Ratiocination and grandam of Senga. Both appear to have bright futures and the family's achievements could be amplified later this season by the first runners for Maxios (GB) (Monsun {Ger}), who is one of two Group 1-winning sons of Denebola's half-sister Moonlight's Box (Nureyev).

A number of French trainers have shown their Classic hands in trials over the last two weekends, but the British season will finally lurch into top gear from today, with the start of the Craven meeting at Newmarket, followed on Friday by Newbury's two-day Greenham meeting. The increasing reluctance of trainers to run their best colts and fillies in public prior to the Classics means that the picture will not necessarily become crystal clear but it should at least become less muddy.

Fabre has already intimated that he could bring the highly impressive Al Shaqab colt Al Wukair (Ire) (Dream Ahead) to Newmarket in a bid to win his third 2,000 Guineas. It may be more than 20 years since he last struck in the race with Pennekamp (Bering {GB}) but it was only three years ago that Miss France (Ire) (Dansili {GB}) gave Fabre his most recent Classic victory in England in the 1,000 Guineas. On current form, any raider dispatched by Fabre across the Channel must be treated with the utmost respect, whatever may happen in this week's British trials.