Jessica Harrington and Shane Foley will try to get off the Group One mark for 2023 when Sounds Of Heaven lines up in Sunday’s top-flight feature in Deauville.
The filly is one of nine lining up in the one-mile Prix Rothschild due off at 3.25 Irish-time.
Third to Tahiyra in Royal Ascot’s Coronation Stakes last month, Sounds Of Heaven had previously scored at Listed level in York. She renews rivalry with the English filly Remarquee, who finished just a head in front of her at Ascot.
Harrington memorably enjoyed Group One success at Deauville in 2018 when Alpha Centauri landed the Prix Jacques Le Marois in devastating style.
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The Co Kildare trainer also struck at the Normandy track last year through Trevaunance, who scored at both Group Two and Group Three level.
Ryan Moore rode both Mother Earth (2021) and Roly Poly (2017) to win the Rothschild for Aidan O’Brien, but this time the jockey teams up with the John and Thady Gosden team for Grande Dame.
She clashes again with another English hope in Rogue Millennium, an 11-4 favourite with some firms, who landed the Duke of Cambridge Stakes at Royal Ascot last month. Sounds Of Heaven is rated a 6-1 chance.
Harrington is also in continental action on Saturday and has booked veteran rider Gérald Mossé for Irish Lullaby, who lines up in a 1½-mile Listed contest at Clairefontaine.
Joseph O’Brien runs both Dancing Tango and Onameridance in the same Prix Luth Enchantée.
Back home, both trainers are represented in Gowran’s Group Three feature on Saturday, with the Darley Rathbride Stakes transferred from last weekend’s cancelled Curragh card.
Testing ground won’t be any problem to O’Brien’s Goldana, winner of the Galdness in April and not far behind Via Sistina in the Pretty Polly earlier this month.
Village Voice looks best of a pair of Harrington runnersm although the Ballydoyle hope Jackie Oh might emerge as the biggest threat to Goldana.
Gowran’s action ends with a conditions event featuring the Group One winner Helvic Dream who should find gruelling conditions near perfect.
Colin Keane’s mount secured a memorable victory in the 2021 Tattersalls Gold Cup when edging out Broome with classic winners Search For A Song and Serpentine further behind.
Noel Meade’s mudlark has had just a single spin to date this season but should relish a heavy-ground test much more than Didn’thavemuchtodo.
Ground conditions also look set to be testing for Monday’s start to the Galway festival.
The going on the flat course in Ballybrit is officially soft while it is yielding on the National Hunt circuit. There is a prospect of heavy rain on Sunday.
An exceptionally wet July has already seen the Curragh cancel a meeting due to waterlogging for the first time in 16 years. No such problems are anticipated at Galway despite seven consecutive days of action that once again includes the staging of flat and jumps races on the same programme.
“None of it is new to Galway. They are used to staging mixed cards and providing ground across the seven days,” an Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board spokesman said.
The Emmet Mullins-trained Teed Up, a triple-course winner at Ballybrit, has been supported into 3-1 favourite for Monday’s €110,000 feature, the Connacht Hotel Handicap. Twice a flat winner at the track for Ken Condon in 2020, Teed Up scored over hurdles at last year’s festival for Mullins.
Lot of Joy, fourth to her stable companion Echoes In Rain a year, ago is a general 6-1 second favourite for perhaps the most coveted amateur rider contest of the year.
