€174,000 Léon Rambaud Hurdle: Goa Lil flies away

Sunday, April 23, 2023, Auteuil Racecourse (Paris). - The chase to catch the 17/1 outsider Goa Lil (Samum) in the 2023 edition of the €174,000 Léon Rambaud Hurdle (Gr2) failed by almost three lengths, as the odds-on favourite Thélème (Sidestep) had to settle for second place. The representative of Noel George and Amanda Zetterholm lived on his lead. He had Folsom Prison (No Risk At All) to exit first his comfort zone in the back straight, much sooner than usual for the old-timer earlier than usual. Still, the brave 8-year-old kept a rewarding third place, three lengths from the second and 17 lengths ahead of another fancied runner, AQPS Hermès Baie (Crillon), who ran poorly today.

Bred in the Doubs by Jimmy Detouillon, Goa Lil left France at the end of his 3-year-old year after winning one first flat race, an AQPS event held in Bréhal, for trainer Franck Cheyer. He then passed under the training of Nigel Twiston-Davies, for whom he ran 31 times in the UK before his return to France last September. This was his second victory over French obstacles, his first at Auteuil.

His dam won a race in Maure-de-Bretagne, and his second dam is unraced. After Goa Lil, her first offspring, the dam Unekaina (Lost World) produced a Papal Bull filly who won over the flat and in a hurdle race in the Centre of France, a winner on the Lyon La Soie all-weather, an unraced 3-year-old by Arakan and his 2-year-old brother.