ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – Coast to coast, this feels like the summer of Flavien Prat. In May, Prat won the Preakness Stakes on Rombauer. He spent last weekend, Aug. 7 and Aug. 8, riding at Saratoga, winning the Saratoga Oaks Invitational on Con Lima for trainer Todd Pletcher and the Lure Stakes aboard Flavius for trainer Chad Brown. Back at his home base at Del Mar, Prat, despite his sorties out of town, is leading rider. Only Joel Rosario, with 31, has booted home more North American graded stakes winners this year than Prat, who already has 26, two fewer than his career-best annual total. Saturday, Prat will make his only trip this year to Arlington International Racecourse, where he rides North America’s best turf horse Domestic Spending in the Grade 1, $600,000 Mister D. Stakes, formerly the Arlington Million. Prat picked up the mount on Domestic Spending this past May when the gelding’s previous regular rider, Irad Ortiz Jr., chose to ride Colonel Liam in the Old Forester Turf Classic on Derby Day at Churchill Downs. Domestic Spending and Colonel Liam dead-heated for first that afternoon, but Domestic Spending went on to romp in the Grade 1 Manhattan – where Colonel Liam finished eighth – and will be odds-on to win the Mister D. while Colonel Liam has gone to the sidelines for the summer. :: Get Daily Racing Form Past Performances – the exclusive home of Beyer Speed Figures Brown won the last three renewals of the Million and now is entrusting the best horse in his loaded stable to an out-of-town jockey he’d rarely used before 2020. The pair, to say too little, has clicked, their record together 23-10-6-2. In graded turf stakes, the Brown-Prat combo has gone 13-6-2-1. “I’ve been extremely impressed with him,” Brown said. “He seems to fit a lot of our horses. He seems to fit a lot of peoples’ horses.” Prat, 29 and exceedingly level-headed, appears to be taking it all in stride. This is what he has worked for since attending a French jockeys’ school as a teenager, what he might have dared to dream about after moving his tack, following a few years of careful consideration, from France to America late in 2014. “I’m really happy. Since I came in the States, it’s only a good experience. I just want to work harder and still improve because it feels like I’m going in the right direction,” Prat said in a phone interview this week. Prat’s father is a French harness-racing trainer, and his brother works in the family stable. Prat could have gone that direction, but he was the right size to try and become a Thoroughbred jockey. And he succeeded, ranking as France’s top apprentice of 2009, when he was still just a 17-year-old. Prat, though, said he struggled after losing his apprentice allowance. He was riding second call behind Olivier Peslier as a contract rider for the Wertheimer brothers, Alain and Gerard, a top-20 jockey nationwide who won a stakes race here and there. But Prat, self-aware, focused, and driven from a young age, thought he saw where things were headed, that he would hit his ceiling in France without rising as high as he desired. “I didn’t like the way things were going,” Prat said. “I was doing okay, but I just didn’t feel like it was going to be good enough.” So, Prat hatched his American plan. French connections sent him for two winters, starting in 2009, to the Santa Anita barn of trainer Leonard Powell, a French expat. An introduction from the Wertheimers landed Prat with Richard Mandella for two more winters, where his education in American racing accelerated. Prat rode only 31 races from 2009 through 2012, winning only twice but building a foundation for a permanent move to California. “I got a message from the Wertheimer family asking if I’d kind of look after him, let him ride out in the morning, ride him in races if I wanted to. No instructions, really,” said Mandella, a Hall of Fame trainer. “As soon as we put him on a horse, he looked like such a natural. He had great hands, great balance, just looked like a classic rider to me from the start. We couldn’t wait for him to come back.” Prat won 83 races his first full season here in 2015, and while he went 3 for 50 in graded stakes that year, he won 13 graded races in 2016. In 2015, Prat won 43 dirt races and 41 grass races, determined not to get pigeonholed as a European turf rider. “I don’t know that dirt racing was easy for me, but I really worked at it,” Prat said. “I didn’t want to have that tag on me, that he’s from Europe and can only ride the grass. To be very honest, I just love dirt races; there’s something about American dirt races you can’t find on grass.” Prat has 16 graded turf stakes wins in 2021, 10 on dirt. His Preakness win came between a third-place finish on Hot Rod Charlie in the Kentucky Derby and a tough second-place showing on him in the Belmont. Prat finished first on Hot Rod Charlie in the July 17 Haskell Invitational, which turned into a low point of his summer. Hot Rod Charlie was disqualified and placed last after Prat allowed his mount to drift into Midnight Bourbon’s path in the final furlong, causing his rival to badly stumble, unseating jockey Paco Lopez. Prat’s suspension for his action commences after the Del Mar meet in September. “I feel bad for the horse, for his connections. The horse stepped in; that’s just something that happens. You live with it and move on,” Prat said. Most of the moves Prat’s been making have produced far better results. “He’s prepared when he comes to the paddock and I feel like I get good feedback from a race afterward,” Brown said. “Most of all, he gives you a chance to win every race. He’s extremely good at getting position early and then taking it from there. I feel like too many races are lost in the first turn of a two-turn race, and he at least gives you a chance leaving the first turn.” Prat’s ride on Domestic Spending in the Old Forester Turf Classic, the gelding’s 4-year-old debut, was exemplary. He navigated traffic, timed runs to holes perfectly, and would have won that race outright in another jump. On Con Lima last Sunday at Saratoga, he controlled the race on the lead. There’s no set style – Prat now has learned to ride in two countries with entirely different racing dynamics. No rider could take his work more seriously, be more intent upon improving. “I’d say he’s as good as anybody we’ve ever seen at this point,” Mandella said. “I really always thought he had that coming.” Domestic Spending is the best horse at Arlington this weekend. Expect Prat to do whatever the moment requires to let him shine.