By Emmanuel Roussel
Brametot (Fr) (Rajsaman {Fr}), the main French sophomore hope for Sunday's G1 Qatar Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, and G1 Qatar Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere fancy and 'TDN Rising Star' Olmedo (Fr) (Declaration Of War) each cantered alongside sparring partners over very soft turf in Deauville on Monday morning.
Interviewed by Equidia after the exercise, trainer Jean-Claude Rouget discussed Brametot's Arc challenge, which comes almost seven weeks after he ran fiffh in the G2 Prix Guillaume d'Ornano at Deauville.
“He won both the French 2,000 Guineas and the Prix du Jockey Club, which is great. He saved our season, really,” said the trainer whose stable was struck by an outbreak of Equine Herpesvirus in the spring. He continued, “Today's piece of work was only routine. He's fit to race but that's not the only issue. He was beaten in the Ornano mostly because of his bad start. He lost five to six lengths there instead of his usual two lengths. Brametot accelerated the way he used to but [jockey] Cristian Demuro didn't want to give him a hard race when he realised that victory was out of reach. Whether or not he'll do well over 12 furlongs is another question mark. This is far from a formality against older horses.”
The next forfeit stage for Sunday's big race is Tuesday, while supplementary entries, at €120,000 apiece, are accepted on Wednesday. Final declarations and draw will take place on Thursday.
Waldgeist (GB) (Galileo {Fr}) and Recoletos (Fr) (Whipper), who were second and third to Brametot in the Prix du Jockey Club, have both been taken out of the Arc entries The former worked at Maisons-Laffitte racecourse on Monday and will be aimed at an “easier target than the Arc sometime in October,” according to trainer Andre Fabre, while G3 Prix du Prince d'Orange winner Recoletos, trained by Carlos Laffon-Parias, is entered in the G2 Prix Dollar on Saturday.
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