France: Emoji a heavy favorite in Prix Vanteaux

Trainer Francis Graffard had a nice 3-year-old colt sprint winner Wednesday at Chantilly, where Wooded captured the Group 3 Prix Texanita by 1 1/2 lengths. Thursday at Longchamp, Graffard sends out a nice 3-year-old route filly when Emoji starts in the Group 3 Prix Vanteaux, a prep for the Prix de Diane, France’s version of the Oaks.

Emoji campaigns for Team Valor International and comes into Thursday’s start 2 for 2, with a debut win at Baden Baden in Germany and a gate-to-wire score March 15 at Saint-Cloud in the listed Prix Camargo. Both races came at one mile over heavy ground, while the Vanteaux is contested over 1 1/8 miles on a course listed Wednesday as good to soft.

Emoji relaxed on the lead in March for jockey Pierre-Charles Boudot, who rides her again Thursday, and kept finding more through the race’s final quarter-mile, Boudot only asking for as much as was required. Emoji, bred in Germany, is by Soldier Hollow out of Exotic Rose, by Manduro, a pedigree that strongly suggests she can get distances longer than one mile.

Emoji is one of nine entrants and was the even-money antepost favorite late Wednesday with English bookmakers. Also taking plenty of action, however, was Flighty Lady, a Peter Brant-owned, Jean-Claude Rouget-trained filly making her 3-year-old debut.

Flighty Lady won only once from four starts at age 2, but finished third in her three other races, including the Group 1 Prix Marcel-Boussac, an encouraging enough performance that Brant bought her and turned the filly over to Rouget. Flighty Lady, by Sir Percy out of Airfield, by Dansili, has some early speed and tracked the pacesetter during her seven-furlong maiden win at Chantilly in August. She fought her jockey early in the Group 3 Prix d’Aumale when taken back into midpack, then got into heavy homestretch traffic when trying to make a final run, eventually finishing a nimble third. She relaxed better in the Boussac, diving to the inside for a final run that saw her gaining on the talented filly Marieta for second while no match for victorious Albigna. Flighty Lady might not care for a softer course as much as Emoji, but she has certainly faced stronger competition.

The Group 3 Prix la Force, the companion race to the Vanteaux, and a prep for the Group 1 Prix du Jockey Club, drew a shorter field of just six, with four of them offered at odds between 3-1 and 5-2 late Wednesday. That quartet includes a top-level winner, Mkfancy, who won the Group 1 Criterium de Saint-Cloud last fall, a 1 1/4-mile race run over heavy ground that required a different skill set than the on that might be required in the 1 1/8-mile Prix la Force. Mkfancy made a start March 4 at Chantilly, finishing second in a listed race over 1 1/8 miles before coronavirus halted French racing.

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The other Prix la Force principals are Oceans Atlantique, an American Pharoah colt trained by Andre Fabre for Coolmore who romped in a heavy-ground, one-mile maiden race when last seeing action in October; Another Sky, a George Strawbridge homebred who impressed making a winning career debut over Polytrack in March at Chantilly; and Pao Alto, who won twice over a mile last fall and makes his 3-year-old bow Thursday.

There are a couple other horses of interest racing Thursday in Paris. Wonderment, whose most recent race produced a second-place finish to Edisa in the Jockey Club Oaks Invitational last September at Belmont Park, starts in the listed Prix Zarkava. Raabihah, a Hamdan al Maktoum homebred, showed vast potential winning her career debut in January over the Polytrack at Cagnes-Sur-Mer, and she’s an odds-on favorite in the listed Prix de la Seine, an 11-furlong test for 3-year-old fillies.

The Prix de la Seine starts the 10-race Longchamp card at 5:10 a.m. Eastern, and all the races are available for live-streaming and wagering at DRFBets.com. The same platform also hosts a 10-race card at Angers that starts at 10:40 a.m. Eastern.