French Derby winner Vadeni takes on older horses in Eclipse
French horses don’t win the Eclipse Stakes – but 3-year-olds do.
So it is that Vadeni, rousing winner of the Prix du Jockey Club, France’s Derby, is the early favorite for the Group 1 Eclipse on Saturday at Sandown Park in England.
The Eclipse marks the first chance for top-class sophomores to match talents with older rivals – something we don’t do in America until October or November – and another 3-year-old, Godolphin’s Native Trail, is second favorite for the Eclipse, contested right-handed over 1 1/4 miles.
No France-based horse in recent history has won the Eclipse, nor has Vadeni’s long-lauded owner-breeder, the Aga Khan. Three-year-olds, however, have landed the Eclipse four time the last seven years, thanks in great part to the fact they get 10 pounds from older rivals.
That could prove especially helpful for Vadeni, a slight, athletic colt trained by Jean-Claude Rouget. From the first crop of the stallion Churchill and getting a strong stamina dose from his broodmare sire, the German horse Monsun, Vadeni was a good 2-year-old and has emerged as France’s leading sophomore on the strength of a five-length Prix du Jockey Club tour de force.
With regular rider Christophe Soumillon aboard, Vadeni traveled strongly tucked just behind the lead quartet in the 1 5/16-mile French Classic, swinging outside for a move at the 400-meter mark that quickly sent him clear and onto an easy win. The going at Chantilly that afternoon was “soft” but Vadeni has run to form over courses rated “good,” Sandown’s designation as of Thursday.
Native Trail, a beast of a colt, was Europe’s leading 2-year-old of 2021, taking the only loss in a seven-start career when beaten three-quarters of a length by his Charlie Appleby-trained stablemate Coroebus in the 2000 Guineas on April 30. Native Trail returned three weeks later to capture the Irish 2000 Guineas over a lesser field and on Saturday tries a distance longer than one mile for the first time.
The other four are older horses, with Bay Bridge the lowest fixed-odds price among them. Trained by Michael Stoute, Bay Bridge had a five-race winning streak snapped June 15 in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot, where victorious State of Rest stole off to an easy lead on a slow pace, Bay Bridge unable to run him down while finishing second. Bay Bridge’s Prince of Wales’s favoritism came on the strength of an eye-catching win in the Brigadier Gerard Stakes, contested over this 1 1/4-mile trip May 26 at Sandown.
The other three – Alenquer from trainer William Haggas and the John and Thady Gosden-trained pair of Mishriff and Lord North – also are plausible winners. Four-year-old Alenquer exits the best race of his career, a game neck victory in the Group 1 Tattersalls Gold Cup, where State of Rest finished third, beaten a half-length.
Lord North was fourth in that race and lost all chance in the Prince of Wales’s when his jockey was trying to remove the horse’s blindfold when the starting gate sprang and the race began. Mishriff, all but forgotten, finished last on dirt in the Saudi Cup, his lone start this year at age 5 but was one of the best 1 1/4-mile horses in the world during 2020 and 2021.
◗ Torquator Tasso, upset winner of the 2021 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, tries to rebound from a poor 2022 debut when he starts Saturday at Hamburg in the Group 2 Grosser Hansa-Preis over 1 1/2 miles.