RACING:IT IS four years since Christophe Soumillon rode his sole Group One winner to date for Aidan O'Brien but the ex-French champion jockey will hope to bridge that gap on board Zoffany in tomorrow's Prix Maurice De Gheest at Deauville.
Zoffany is one of 13 starters for the €250,000 feature and drops back to six-and-a-half furlongs from two excellent efforts at a mile this season.
Nothing else has got as close to Frankel as Zoffany did in the St James’s Palace Stakes at Royal Ascot, after which he was only just touched off by Mutual Trust in the Prix Jean Prat. O’Brien won the Maurice De Gheest with King Charlemagne 10 years ago but Zoffany faces a big task against a strong field headed by the July Cup winner Dream Ahead. Other Group One winners in the field include Markab, Society Rock, Marchand D’Or and Wotton Bassett.
“I think it will be disappointing if an English horse, or an Irish horse, doesn’t win it,” Dream Ahead’s trainer David Simcock said yesterday.
Christophe Soumillon has won the Maurice De Gheest twice before but his sole top-flight win for Ballydoyle was on Dylan Thomas in the 2007 Prix Ganay.
