France: Prix Gold River distance will test Edisa at Deauville

Edisa, who won the Jockey Club Oaks Invitational last September at Belmont Park, makes the second start of her 4-year-old campaign in the listed Prix Gold River Stakes on Thursday at Deauville.

Edisa, a plucky chestnut filly by Kitten’s Joy, ended her 2019 campaign with a respectable fifth in the Group 1 Hong Kong Cup in December, but could only finish fourth March 15, her 4-year-old debut, in the Group 3 Prix Exbury at Saint-Cloud. That race was run over heavy ground Edisa probably didn’t enjoy, but while Thursday’s race is expected to unfold under good-to-soft conditions, Edisa faces a new challenge racing 1 3/4 miles, the longest race of her career.

Her chief rivals appear to be Muette and Think of Me, horses with experience over this staying distance – if not the proven class of Edisa.

The Prix Gold River is the second of 10 races at Deauville, with first post scheduled for 5:10 a.m. Eastern. Many tracks in France were forced, through a governmental order related to a spike in COVID-19 cases, to cease racing as of May 20, but Deauville lies in a prefecture outside the so-called coronavirus red zone.

Racing continues unabated in Germany, however, and Hannover has a 12-race program Thursday. That card, as well as Deauville’s, is available for live-streaming and wagering at DRFBets.com.