Juigné Hurdle : Newcomers face old guard
Photo Prix Renaud du Vivier Hurdle : scoopdyga.com
The first Sunday meeting of the season at Auteuil features the €120,000 Juigné Hurdle (Gr3), run over 2m2f. The next top hurdling events on the Parisian racecourse are the €120,000 Hypothese Hurdle (Gr3), over 2m3½f on March 22, the €155,000 Léon Rambaud Hurdle (Gr2), over 2m4 ½f on April 19, before the championship in the €350,000 Grande Course de Haies d'Auteuil (Gr1), on May 16 over 3m1½f.
Yet this first step looks very promising as the two leading 4yo hurdlers of 2019, the Renaud du Vivier Hurdle (Gr1) winner L'Autonomie (Blue Brazil) and her Cotée Sud (Lord du Sud) will face for the first time the leading all-round hurdler Galop Marin (Black Sam Bellamy), who won last time out a second Grand Prix d'Automne Hurdle (Gr1).
Last year in this Juigné Hurdle, Galop Marin had fallen at the early stages of the race, a first after 28 races, including a few steeple-chases. The Dominique Bressou-trained is now 8 and has finished either 1st, 2nd or 3rd in 9 of his 11 last starts.
The other leaders of the French 2019 hurdling season are either retired, like De Bon Coeur, or on their way to the Cheltenham Festival, like Bénie des Dieux. Third behind these two exceptional mares in the Grande Course de Haies d'Auteuil in 2019, Berjou (Holy Roman Emperor) is also in on Sunday, alongside Highway to Hell (No Risk At All), winner of the Grande Course de Haies de Pau (L), a racecourse where the 7-year-old AQPS Danse avec Jersey (Spanish Moon) has won three times this Winter. He won at Auteuil as a 4-year-old but was pulled up the last two times he went there.
Another leading 4-year-old of 2019 will race for the first time against older foes on Sunday as the Prix Maurice Gillois 4yo Chase (Gr1) winner Figuero (Yeats) faces 8 horses, 6 being older than him in the Jean Doumen Hurdle.