Perhaps the only sure thing about a bumper weekend racing schedule is that Ireland’s champion jockey Colin Keane knows that only four strikes of the whip are permitted in France.
Keane travels to Longchamp for Sunday evening’s Group One Cygames Grand Prix de Paris where he teams up with New Ground for his Juddmonte employers.
It will be the Irishman’s first spin on the colt who ran fourth to Lambourn in the Epsom Derby despite getting upset in the preliminaries.
France has more stringent whip rules than both Ireland and Britain, to the extent that a horse is immediately disqualified if its jockey has used the whip nine times or more.
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Keane’s new role as Juddmonte’s number one rider in Europe has meant significantly more overseas travel and he broke British regulations when using the whip eight times on Windlord at Sandown last week.
He admitted to riding to Irish rules that permit eight strikes and forgetting that the cross-channel limit is six. As a result, he starts a 14-day suspension later this month which rules him out of the King George at Ascot and the coveted ride on Field Of Gold in Goodwood’s Sussex Stakes.
New Ground is one of six runners in Longchamp’s €600,000 highlight, the feature of French racing’s Bastille Day holiday schedule. It is off at 7.25pm Irish time and is live on Sky Sports.
They also include Aidan O’Brien’s Trinity College who will try to graduate to the top level under Ryan Moore.
Successful in Royal Ascot’s Hampton Court Stakes on his last start, the regally bred Ballydoyle colt tackles a mile and a half for the first time. Prior to Ascot he was fourth to his stable companion Camille Pissarro in the French Derby.
O’Brien has won the Grand Prix de Paris five times, first with Scorpion 20 years ago and later a hat-trick for Kew Gardens (2018), Japan (2019) and Mogul (2020).
Supplemented into the race are the Aga Khan-owned Surabad and Keffard, representing Jean Claude Rouget. Uther and Frankly Good Cen complete the line up.
Keane will also team up with Juddmonte’s unbeaten filly Sunly in the earlier Group Two Prix De Malleret (6.50pm). She completed a hat-trick in a Group Three under Christophe Soumillon on her last start.
Before that Ireland’s six-time champion jockey will have eight rides when racing resumes after a two-month hiatus at Dundalk on Saturday.
The day’s Group One focus, however, is firmly on Newmarket where O’Brien will try to secure a record sixth victory in the Al Basti July Cup.
Widely regarded as Europe’s most prestigious sprint prize, O’Brien has won it with some top speedsters such as Stravinsky and Starspangledbanner. He needs one more success to pass out his Ballydoyle predecessor, Vincent O’Brien.
All but one of his previous winners were three-year-olds and both Whistlejacket and Ides Of March are among a handful from the classic generation taking on their seniors.
The Coolmore pair are joined in the 15-strong line-up by a Godolphin trio that includes last year’s Guineas and Sussex Stakes hero Notable Speech who was supplemented into the contest earlier in the week.
He brings an undoubted class element and is clearly showing enough speed at home to encourage Godolphin he can drop back in trip after 10 career starts at a mile.
That kind of class has proved successful in the July Cup in the past with stellar names such as Green Desert, Chief Singer and more recently Alcohol Free three years ago making light of the drop in trip.
“He’s a horse with loads of speed and if he can adapt to that early pace and be within himself, I think he’ll be there with a very good shot,” Notable Speech’s rider William Buick said.
“It’s a different thing (sprinting) to what he has done. If you go back to the Guineas he won, that was a strongly-run Guineas run at a fast pace throughout and he’s a horse with a high cruising speed, so I hope that he will give himself every chance to travel within himself early in the race, wherever he’s happy,” he added.
That racing’s two superpower operations have new significant competition from the Qatari Wathnan team is underlined by this line-up. Flora Of Bermuda, third to Lazzat at Ascot, is one of a trio of Wathnan hopefuls.
Lazzat was one of four winners for the big-spending ownership at Royal Ascot where Coolmore only beat them to the leading owner title on countback.
The Tipperary team’s main hope this time is Whistlejacket who endured a far from clear passage in Royal Ascot’s Commonwealth Cup and can boast a course and distance success in last year’s July Stakes.
Earlier on the Newmarket card, O’Brien and Moore team up for the Leopardstown winner Italy in the Group Two Superlative Stakes. This was the race in which City Of Troy first burst on the scene two years ago. Italy faces a pair of Godolphin hopes including Shadow Of Light’s half-brother Wild Desert.
A run of domestic double-fixture dates continue this weekend and Little Queenie could repeat her success of last year in Dundalk’s opener. The grey has an inside draw, first-time blinkers, and is on a similar mark to 2024.
Joseph O’Brien’s Angelight will face much quicker conditions than she did at Gowran last time when she drops in trip for a maiden at Limerick.
