Aidan O’Brien failed to hit the Group One target at Goodwood this week but is triple-handed in pursuit of a ninth top-flight prize of 2018 at Deauville on Sunday.
The Ballydoyle trio of Fleet Review (Ryan Moore, ) Actress (Wayne Lordan) and Intelligence Cross (Pádraig Beggy) are among a massive field of 20 for the Prix Maurice de Gheest due off at 2.35 Irish-time.
A total nine British-based challengers also take their chance in a wide-open heat including last year’s winner, Brando.
O’Brien has won the prestigious six-and-a-half furlong contest just once before with King Charlemagne in 2001 and his prime hope now looks to be the three-year-old Fleet Review.
In profile terms he has never figured among the top-rank of his generation at Ballydoyle but added to a second in last year’s Middle Park Stakes by running third to US Navy Flag in the July Cup last time.
That puts Fleet Review among the leading three year old contenders along with the prime local hope Wootton who drops back from a mile after finishing third in Royal Ascot’s St James’s Palace Stakes.
The big Irish contender has three parts of a length to make up on Brando from that July Cup as O’Brien focuses on a potential seventh Group One of his career at the renowned Normandy track. The last of them was Roly Poly in last year’s Prix Rothschild.
Shortly after the big race in France, O’Brien has two hopefuls in the final big race pot of this year’s Galway festival, the €100,000 Ahonoora Handicap.
His son Donnacha will be near his lightest weight for Bond Street who tries to go one better than when a fast finishing runner-up to Riven Light in Tuesday’s mile feature. Seamus Heffernan is on another three year old in the race, Full Moon.
