Sainte Lucie (Fr)
3YO Filly
Great Pretender x Sainte Folie (Saint des Saints). 2nd Foal. Dam unraced half-sister to 4 winners including G3 winning chaser Saint Firmin and Listed Hurdle winner Foreign Flower.
Great Pretender 52% SR with progeny over hurdles including G1 (Lossiemouth, Benie Des Dieux, Greaneteen) . Saint des Saints 66% SR with progeny over hurdles, DamSire to multiple G1 winners (El Fabiolo, Douvan, Jonbon, Envoi Allen)
Breeders: JC Campos, N Campos, R Campos, Terrains D'Avilly St Leonard
Transfer Details: Rob Collet > WP Mullins, Mrs S Ricci
Form:
Notes:
NH Bred. Sent off at odds of 17.0 PMU for debut run in the Prix Wild Monarch (Pouliches) at Auteuil. Ground officially described as Collant, which translates as "tacky" and would be somewhere close to "Soft, Heavy in Places" in British terms. Raced prominently throughout, always within 4-lengths of the lead. Winner, Nee En Bleue, hit the front turning for home and was always in command, heading for the rail between the final 2-flights and keeping on well. Sainte Lucie lacked the pace to challenge, not helped by her rider choosing to ignore the stands rail in the closing stages, but kept on well to be beaten 5-lengths. Nee En Bleue was beaten fairly in the G3 Prix Sagan won by Shika du Berlais next time. Vast majority of the field from the Prix Wild Monarch remain lightly raced so hard to form a solid opinion of the form.
Adam's thoughts:
There have been horses with higher profiles joining Willie Mullins this Summer, but I do feel that Sainte Lucie has slipped slightly under the radar. As a daughter of Great Pretender, she is an obvious purchase for her new connections, but although the form from the Prix Wild Monarch (Pouliches) has yet to be fully tested, the fact that the Fillies were able to match the time of the Colts and Geldings race would suggest the form can be trusted. In truth, I can't be sure. The winner and the 4th were soundly beaten in the Prix Sagan next time, whilst the 2nd and 5th have yet to reappear, so there is an element of guesswork involved in assessing her form. However, she shaped like a filly with plenty of ability and in very difficult conditions, I thought she ran a fair race in April.
She has a high knee action and despite jumping soundly, she didn't look entirely comfortable on the tacky ground at any point. Having kept herself in contention, Kevin Nabet's decision to stay in the centre of the track was always going to make things more difficult for her, as there is an obvious advantage gained by coming to the stands rail when the ground is testing at Auteuil. For that reason, I think we can upgrade this run and although it is an educated guess due to the lack of additional data available to test the form, I have her running close to a mark of 114.
I'm in no particular rush to suggest that she is going to prove to be a Grade 1 winning Juvenile, but she has the right pedigree and after a pleasing debut, it is not impossible to imagine that she is going to be running in that company at some point. Joe Chambers, racing manager to the Ricci's was good enough to give me a brief update on her; "She seems a nice filly, being by Great Pretender we hadn't got much choice but to buy her given our luck with Fillies from the Sire and Saint des Saints as a DamSire is never a bad thing. A nice National Hunt family. I'm unsure how good the form is, but perhaps it looks better now that it did at the time".
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