A Day At The Races – the Marx Brothers version, not Queen

Anybody that mentions 9/11 is going on a waterboarding holiday to Tripoli – all expenses paid by me!

My Eurostar to Paris was stopped at Ebbsfleet by a supposed signalling problem. The Old Bill showed up and collared a couple of passengers, which started people murmuring about the date. They refused to identify their luggage and thereafter followed the most shambolic search of the train with everybody required to identify their luggage to do a process of elimination. It would have been quicker to just disembark the whole train and have everyone take their possessions so that whatever was left was that for which they were looking.

Having started out at 08:25 it was 10:10 UK time before we set off again, with two hours still to go. We arrived at Gare Du Nord at 13:15 local time so there was no way to make the 13:30, but I knew Big Mac was on the Eurostar so I thought if I could find him at the taxi rank we could split a taxi, as I had no idea what one would cost but knew it would be expensive.

Unfortunately, I found Mac ten seconds too late. He had asked a taxi driver for Longchamp racecourse in English and got quoted eighty Euros. I knew this was too much (nearly seventy quid) but offered to split the fare. I think the taxi driver had intended to put Mac off and I know he did not even know the way as he called his taxi office on his earpiece mobile and they told him to go to Porte Maillot and then down Allee De Longchamp.

When we got to the track, I asked one of the press guys and he said the fare should have been nearer thirty Euros, so at forty Euros each we got well fleeced. If I had got in first and asked in French, Monsieur Le Taxi would have put the meter on! Instead, I bet he pocketed the whole fare as it was un-metered.

I’ve no idea what won the opener as I only arrived ten minutes before the Prix Foy. Two of the field were Japanese and the usual sparse attendance was bolstered by quite a lot of Japanese. They did have three runners on the card and it was free to get in, so if you are in Paris and you are not a garlic-crunching surrender monkey, why not go? It is no surprise that racing is popular in Japan as the tallest person there must be five foot one. Hayley Turner must be really miffed that she can put weight on by looking at chocolate when this lot can eat it and still need lead in the saddle to do seven stone seven.

I still don’t know why Aidan O’Brien took the pacemaker out of the Prix Foy as that left no guarantee of pace and it was left to one of the Japanese pair to cut out a sedate gallop. This played right into Sarafina’s hands as she lobbed along at the back of the quartet and used her turn of foot to cut down the boys in the last two hundred metres, although Christophe Lemaire did manage to find traffic trouble in a four-runner field.

So what did we actually learn from this exercise? Well not very much. We have no idea how much work the Japanese have left to do in the next three weeks and we already knew that St Nicholas Abbey was a decent two-year-old and not a wonder horse. I don’t think that Lemaire is going to struggle to decide on his Arc ride, but hopefully he’ll manage to get a clear run this year.

After an inconclusive Prix Foy, we might have hoped for something more educational from the Prix Niel. The race was won convincingly by the Prix Du Jockey Club winner Reliable Man, albeit in a slower time than the Prix Foy. Andre Fabre’s Meandre will have two lengths to find on Arc Sunday, but just how wound up was he after his mid-season break? Fabre is a master at bringing his horses to the boil on the occasion, but I still think this was an unsatisfactory showing from the grey given that he beat Reliable Man in the Grand Prix De Paris.

I noted that when John Gosden’s Colombian cantered past it was making a lot of noise like a bad-winded animal that may be in need of a visit to the vet.

Hard to know what to make of Nakayama Knight’s effort as we don’t know anything about the Far Eastern visitor.

I will gloss over the fourth race, the day’s big seven-furlong handicap, other than to say it started raining quite heavily just before the start and continued to do so for the next hour.

The first of the afternoon’s two Group 1 events, the Prix Du Moulin De Longchamp, saw 2000 Guineas runner-up Dubawi Gold facing Poule d’Essai des Poulains winner Tin Horse and two of Frankel’s closest pursuers Zoffany and Excelebration. Although Excelebration ran out the winner, not unexpectedly on reputation, the proximity of Rio De La Plata and Rajsaman, two reliable but not outstanding yardsticks, leaves a question mark over the form.

Will Excelebration have another crack at Frankel or will the new Coolmore co-owners shy away from the prospect?

Six faced the starter for the day’s other Group 1, the Prix Vermeille, and it was Goldikova’s Galileo half-sister Galikova that ran out a decisive winner, albeit in a time much slower than the other two trials (but it had rained substantially). Freddie Head’s filly dispatched Testosterone (funny name for a filly) and Shareta quite readily and should be back on October 2nd to try and keep the big prize in France, even though Vermeille winners have a poor Arc record.

After the unbeaten Arabian Al Tair had collected the Qatar Cup, the stayers did a little over a circuit of the track in the Prix Gladiateur. The form pick was clearly the Aga Khan’s filly Shamanova but she went down in a three-way finish to Godolphin France’s Ley Hunter under Mikael Barzalona and Tac De Boistron. How many of these will be back for the Prix Du Cadran on Arc Sunday?

Just a quick mention of the concluding handicap, which saw a jockey unshipped early in the straight and taken away by ambulance. I didn’t see which horse it was but judging by the colours it may have been Christophe Lemaire.

If the Eurostar had been on time, I would have got a train to the track for the princely sum of Eur2-45. I did get one back as I was in no hurry. I did notice quite a lot of advertising hoardings featuring the slogan “retrouvez nous sur facebook” in the corner. It means “find us on facebook”, but the French establishment will be absolutely livid at the introduction of another English/American word into their language. They won’t have many friends on their facebook page, will they?

 

QuarterMoon, a lovely personal anecdote- top notch!
The only thing I should question is your sanity- why on earth would anyone want to go looking for Big Mac?
Nonetheless a great write-up where the horses are secondary to your experiences.
More like this, please!

 

The only person I knew who sought out Le Big Mac was Karl Espumere. You aren't hiding under an assumed name are you.
International travel is rubbish these days and I'd say the Brits are just about the worse in the 'jobsworth stakes'.

Sorry forgot, an excellent post

 

Annoyingly, no. The rain put me off Excelebration but it still won despite the soft ground. I would not do Sarafina or Galikova as they were both odds-on with the PMU.

Several years ago on a business trip to GEC-Alsthom in the South of Paris, I was with our company’s MD and we got a taxi from Charles De Gaulle airport and it cost nearly £50. Granted that was a greater distance but with inflation I could have seen the fare being as much now.

I know it seems crazy, but having seen him at St Pancras, I knew where he was going and I knew that the taxi was not going to be cheap so finding someone to split the fare with seemed like a good idea. As it turned out financially I would have been better off just getting in one on my own. You live and you learn.

Bustino75, do you not remember Morgan Spurlock seeking out Big Mac?

 

Come on then QM, I can't work it out!

 

QM have you gone off in a huff, you could have made it a minute and a huff and answered my question.

 

Morgan Spurlock did a documentary film a few years ago called “Super Size Me”. It was an experiment where he ate nothing but Big Macs for an extended period of time. Each time he went into one of the vendors’ establishments, if he was offered their Super Size meal, he was compelled to have it.

You may not be surprised to find that this ‘diet’ was not particularly good for his health or his body mass index!

 

Yes I remember now. I was looking for an anagram and a friend of Karl's.

A friend of mine said Macdonalds is like an old girlfriend. You're always putting her down but every now and then you find you need to visit her.

 

They don’t call them old girlfriends where I come from and they cost a lot more than a burger and fries (I’m told). I can see how they might Super Size you! Your friend is not Wayne Rooney referring to Grab-A-Granny night, surely?

 

....."If I have any say in the matter I will never visit that country again, it just isn't worth the hassle"...............

OddDog: Made that decision myself years ago, a bit before I retired even, Never felt comfortable there, especially in the south which is where I usually was on business visits. Extreme right-wing would be an understatement.

 

This has gone off topic and nobody noticed the Groucho quote.

 

The Groucho quote obviously isn’t a very famous one – or at least not famous enough that I can spot it.

As for the anagram Karl Espumere, they had obstacles in those races, but you might have been able to get a tootsie-frootsie ice cream at Longchamp on Sunday as they do a variety of snacks as well as beer at four Euros a tin!

RE: the old girlfriend. Remember men, we’re fighting for this woman’s honour; which is probably more than she ever did.

 

Not 606ers had a good weekend celeb spotting at train stations. I was stood behind Jim Mcgrath in the rank at Doncaster station

 

A memorable trip (mostly for the wrong reasons). Thanks for the warning about the Paris cabbies!!

 

A postscript to correct what I originally reported on this thread:

It transpires that the jockey that was injured in the fall in the last race at Longchamp was the other jockey wearing light blue, Williams Saraiva; not Christophe Lemaire. The race was ‘won’ by the bottom-weight Glasshoughton, whose jockey Christophe Soumillon was handed a fifteen-day ban for dangerous riding causing Saraiva to be unshipped by Arrivederla. Soumillon will now miss the Arc meeting.