Prix de Diane favorites share little in common

The Prix de Diane – the French Oaks – is among the few Group 1 races in Europe that have eluded trainer Aidan O’Brien, and while the O’Brien-trained Happily is the second choice in early betting to capture the Prix de Diane on Sunday at Chantilly, it’s fair to wonder if O’Brien will have to wait at least another year for this prize.

Happily ranked among the best 2-year-olds of either sex in Europe last year when she won four times, including twice at the Group 1 level. It was rare that a 2-year-old filly as accomplished as she would be sent to the Breeders’ Cup, but O’Brien shipped her to Del Mar, where she finished last of 14 in the BC Juvenile Fillies Turf.

The bloom had fallen off Happily’s rose, and two starts into her 3-year-old campaign she has yet to completely regain it. Happily finished third in the English 2000 Guineas and third again in the Irish 2000 Guineas, fine performances by general standards. In Happily’s case, however, they left one wondering if she, like a human who peaks in high school, might be a horse whose early maturation counted for as much as her baseline talent.

It was at Chantilly that Happily scored one of her Group 1 wins last year, beating the high-class colt Olmedo in the Gran Criterium, but Happily has yet to race beyond one mile and will be asked to stretch to 1 3/16 miles on Sunday in the French Oaks.

Lying in wait is a totally different type of filly, Shahnaza, an Aga Khan homebred whose trainer, Alain de Royer-Dupre, last won the French Oaks in 2010 with the excellent Sarafina, another Aga Khan filly. While Happily was racing like crazy last year, Shahnaza had a one-start campaign, finishing second in a race for unstarted maidens at Saint-Cloud.

This is common overseas practice for high-level trainers who believe they have a talented horse not quite ready to stand up to full-bore racing at 2 – get one quiet run to prepare them for their 3-year-old season. Shanazha makes her group stakes debut Sunday, but she has won a pair of lesser races this year in very stylish fashion, the first over the French Oaks’s 1 3/16-mile trip and more recently easily staying 1 3/8 miles at Longchamp. She’s the early-betting favorite in Sunday’s race for good reason.

Laurens has less upside and more accomplishment than Shahnaza. Based in England with trainer Karl Burke, she won the Group 1 Fillies’ Mile in her final start at age 2, and in her most recent race captured the Group 1 Prix Saint-Alary over 1 ¼ miles at Longchamp.

Post for the Diane, one of four group races on the card, is 10:05 a.m. Eastern.