Hovdey: Prat breaks up ennui with panache

Let’s see who’s been paying attention.

Rafael Bejarano and another rider were at the top of the Del Mar jockey standings at the end of the second week of racing. The Bejarano part is no surprise. He has won the Del Mar championship the last three years and before that in 2008. As for the other guy …

Here’s a hint: His first nine winners have included three stakes, including the Bing Crosby last weekend. He’s not from around here, but he has been in Southern California all year long, and his identity is hardly a secret, even though his name does not appear in the Del Mar media guide. Nor was it included in the first Del Mar condition book, which traditionally lists nearly every available rider and their agents, but at least it was added to the second book, as well as to the Del Mar website.

The point is moot, though, because the party had already started. Flavien Prat – a former champion French apprentice and 22-year-old son of Standardbred trainer Frederic Prat – has lit up the young season like no young rider since Joe Talamo, 17 at the time, rocked the summer of 2007.

With only seven weeks of action, the Del Mar jockey race can be vulnerable to a hot streak from an unexpected rider hooked up with a barn on a roll. But by the end of Week 2, with nine programs in the books, the cream starts to rise, and Prat was no fluke. He had ridden his nine winners for six different trainers, five of them for Hall of Famers Richard Mandella and Jerry Hollendorfer, including the Hollendorfer-trained Wild Dude in the Bing Crosby.

“That was an important win for him, a Grade 1 sprint on dirt,” said Prat’s agent, Derek Lawson. “It’s hard for a European rider to shake the stereotype of only being able to ride on the turf.”

Consider it shaken.

“I’ve only ridden him once at the meet, but I’d love to use him on anything,” said Ben Cecil. “He’s becoming hard to get.”

Prat is from the town of Melun, about 70 miles southeast of Paris on the River Seine. In recent seasons, Prat would be at Deauville right now or off to some French provincial track riding a horse for the Wertheimer brothers or Andre Fabre. Instead, on the dark-day Tuesday morning this week he could be found on the backstretch of Del Mar working horses, including an unstarted 2-year-old for Cecil. The scene was a far cry from the forests of Chantilly, but Prat seemed right at home.

“The biggest difference between here and riding in Europe is the surface,” Prat said. “Left hand, right hand, up and down, at many different distances. You have to change the way you ride every time depending on the track. Here the racing is the same.”

He’s got that right. If nothing else, the American sport is characterized by its tedious repetition of a single, counterclockwise contest over an array of nearly identical ovals. Professional handicappers extol the virtues of such uniformity since their figures become blissfully portable, while praising the variety of nuance within the strict, American-style restraints.

Given that, how tough can it be for a European rider of proven ability to adapt to the one-note nature of American racing? Prat was a quick study, from the moment he briefly dipped a toe in California in 2009 to his full-time return last winter, which has allowed his more subtle attributes of horsemanship to blossom.

“I was ready not to be overly impressed,” said Mandella, who welcomed Prat as part of the Wertheimer racing family. “Then he got on a horse for me, and he just melted into the saddle like wax. It was pretty clear he had something special.”

Prior to the Crosby, Prat’s biggest win came in the 2013 Prix Marcel Boussac for 2-year-old fillies on Arc Day at Longchamp. The Group 1, 1,600-meter grass race around one turn is about as far from six furlongs at Del Mar as possible.

In their previous collaboration, Prat and Wild Dude were a well-beaten third to Masochistic in the Triple Bend at Santa Anita. This time, Prat kept the heavily favored Masochistic and Tyler Baze in his sights and ran them down late to win by just over a length at odds of 11-1.

“On this track, you’ve got more chances to come from off the pace than at Santa Anita,” Prat said. “It looked like there would be a lot of pace in front of us, which is exactly what happened. But Tyler’s horse is a really good horse. You never know if you can catch him.”

There is a rich tradition of French jockeys making the grade in the U.S. Jean Cruguet won a Triple Crown with Seattle Slew. Jean-Luc Samyn won a multitude of major events. Brice Blanc has been a stalwart journeyman in California, winning prizes like the Matriarch, the Del Mar Debutante, and the San Juan Capistrano. More recently, Julien Leparoux won an Eclipse Award and a national championship, while Florent Geroux took a Breeders’ Cup race last year with Eclipse Award winner Work All Week.

Still, there is a stigma that all Europeans must overcome, not the least of which is the idea that they are here on a lark and could bolt for the old country at the drop of a losing streak. With a five-year working visa firmly in place, Prat seems to be anything but homesick.

“My family wants me to be here and do well,” he said. “This is where I want to be.”