France: Golden Lilac looks formidable in Prix Rothschild at Deauville

The high-class French filly Golden Lilac skipped the Group 1 Prince of Wales’s Stakes in June at Royal Ascot because of a wet, testing course, but that’s the kind of going she found anyway in the race her connections chose as an alternative, the Falmouth Stakes on July 13 at Newmarket. Golden Lilac struggled home ninth of 10 there but should find conditions that better suit her Sunday at Deauville, where Golden Lilac is part of a select field of five in the Group 1 Prix Rothschild.

A winner in five of her first six starts, 4-year-old Golden Lilac began her 2012 campaign with a win over Cirrus des Aigles in the Prix d’Ispahan. That race was contested at 1 1/8 miles, and in 2011 Golden Lilac won races as long as 1 3/8 miles, but trainer Andre Fabre has the filly back at a one-mile trip Sunday, same as in the Falmouth. Golden Lilac is a perfect 4 for 4 as a miler, and as long as fairly dry conditions prevail, she should be formidable in the Rothschild.

Two fillies could test her. Elusive Kate, from the John Gosden stable, flopped last fall in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf but was a Group 1 winner at 2 (winning two races at Deauville) and began her 3-year-old season with a good closing second in the Falmouth.

Immortal Verse makes her first start since failing to show anything close to her best last November in the Group 1 Mile Championship in Japan. Earlier last year she beat Goldikova in the one-mile Jacque le Marois on the Deauville course before being overwhelmed by Frankel in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes.

◗ Pastorius, who upset the German Derby in his most recent start, heads an eight-horse field in the Group 1 Grosser Dallmayr-Preis Bayerisches Zuchtrennen at Munich on Sunday.