There was a 7-race card over obstacles at Argentan on Sunday and whilst there was probably more value to be gained from studying the weekend cards at Auteuil and Paris Longchamp, everyone else will have already done that and there were far fewer pairs of eyes watching this card. On ground described as soft, this looked to be a relatively low key affair, but there are some horses to take from this and a couple of the 3-year-olds stood out for me. I'll start with a "feel-good" story which came in the Prix France Galop for the older horses. Feu du Bresil missed a lot of time with injury when he was trained by Willie Mullins for the Ricci's, but he has looked more competitive since returning to France with Hugo Merienne and he got his head in front for the first time since April 2023 in this €15,000 contest. In truth, he dominated a relatively weak field and it is hardly form to get overly excited by, but he showed a good attitude in front and effectively galloped his rivals into submission from halfway. His career has never hit the heights that it might have promised to do when he first left these shores, but this was a solid return to reward his new connections faith in his ability.
Now on to the 3-year-olds. I'll begin with the winner of the Fillies race, Let Us Breathe. She was a clear best in the Prix D'Enghien (R1) and whilst the 2nd placed Amarna would probably prefer a sounder surface, the time still compares well with the older horses later on the card and she gave a significant to the Prix Finot run at Auteuil last month, where she finished a creditable 4th. She is a nice daughter of Martinborough and the softer conditions clearly helped her, but this form is not outstanding and now that she has won €14k in prize money, she will be harder to place.
It is a very different story with the winner of the Colts and Geldings race, Le Pere Celeste. He was making his debut for the Delaunay team in the Prix Maurice Bernardet and produced the best performance on the entire card, making all the running before kicking clear after the second last flight to win by 8-lengths. The final circuit time was exceptional when compared to the other races on the card and despite looking green under pressure after the last, which is easily forgiven on his debut run, he looked very professional and ought to prove better than a Class 4 race on a PMH card. This was the first entry on his CV and it is hard to know where he will go next, but he has put 15-lengths between himself and the 3rd placed Let Me Dream, who had run to a fair standard at Nantes on his hurdles debut earlier this month and I would be happy to say that he has run to a mark of 60-kilos on his debut here (120 UK equivalent). He is the horse to look forwards to from this meeting.
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