FRENCH DERBY:A CLASSIC weekend that promised so much for Aidan O'Brien's Ballydoyle team eventually fizzled out completely at Chantilly yesterday with the Irish favourite Cape Blanco fading to 10th behind the Andre Fabre-trained French Derby winner Lope De Vega.
It was O’Brien’s other Prix Du Jockey Club contender Viscount Nelson that did best with a running-on fifth but Cape Blanco, the horse that beat the Epsom hero Workforce in last month’s Dante Stakes, disappointed in 10th, losing his unbeaten record in the process.
“Cape Blanco loves fast ground but Johnny (Murtagh) said he didn’t pick up on the ground out there,” said a disappointed O’Brien.
The 100 to 1 outsider At First Sight finished runner-up to Workforce on Saturday while Remember When finished third for Ireland’s champion trainer in Friday’s Oaks. But yesterday’s €1.5 million Classic turned into an all-French affair that, despite a maximum field, turned out to be remarkably straight-forward.
Planteur’s pacemaker Vive Libre set a good tempo but it was the French 2,000 Guineas winner Lope De Vega, the colt with reported stamina doubts, who sat in his slipstream and kicked clear on the turn-in under Maxime Guyon.
It proved to be a fruitless chase up the straight for Planteur with Frankie Dettori’s mount Pain Perdu running on for third.
“I had a doubt about him staying as he is from a Machiavellian family so the question was there,” Fabre said after Lope De Vega also defied a poor draw from stall 20. “I am tempted to drop him back to a mile for the Prix Jacques Le Marois. There is that doubt. It’s better to run over too short than too far. He’s an excitable kind of horse.”
Guyon had a remarkably smooth Classic run and any stamina doubts he might have had were disguised well in a decisive performance.
Dettori, who also finished third at Epsom on Rewilding, was impressed with Lope De Vega.
“That was a fantastic performance as he kicked and the race was over,” the Italian said.
“I thought they would drop him in but the winner was faster than us and kept going.”
Michael Bell completed a career milestone as Allied Powers provided him with his 1,000th training success in the Grand Prix de Chantilly. Some 21 years on from taking out his training licence at Fitzroy House in Newmarket, the former assistant to Paul Cole moved into the four-figure winner league with the Group Two victory.
Allied Powers picked off his four rivals from the back of the pack for a length call under Ioritz Mendizabal.
