France: Dabirsim starts season in Prix de Fontainebleau at Longchamp

Dabirsim, the multiple Group 1 winner who captured all five of starts last year at age 2, is set to make his 3-year-old debut in the Group 3 Prix de Fontainebleau on Sunday at Longchamp.

The co-top-rated juvenile in Europe last year, Dabirsim will have five rivals in the one-mile race, expected to be contested over good-to-soft going. The Hat Trick colt, who will be ridden for the first time by Christophe Soumillon and who races beyond seven furlongs for the first time, emerged last season from the relative obscurity of Bordeaux-La Teste, where he won two minor races to start his career, to capture back-to-back Group 1’s, the Prix Morny and the Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere.

Among Dabirsim’s rivals Sunday is Sofast, the Freddie Head-trained colt who came within three-quarters of a length of Dabirsim in the Lagardere after finishing a troubled fourth behind him in the Morny.

Two more horses in the Fontainebleau, Dragon Pulse and Historic Find, bear watching. Dragon Pulse wound up his 2-year-old season with a second to the Aidan O’Brien-trained Power in the Group 1 National Stakes in Ireland. Historic Find, owned by Sheikh Mohammed and trained by Andre Fabre, had a light 2-year-old campaign, starting twice and winning a maiden race last November at Saint-Cloud.

The Longchamp card also features another Group 3, the Prix de la Grotte for 3-year-old fillies. The card at Leopardstown in Ireland includes three Group 3 races: Guineas trials for both males and females, as well as the Ballysax Stakes.