French Recruits - Momentum of Love

Willie Mullins and the Ricci’s have enjoyed some fantastic success with daughters of Great Pretender in the recent past (Lossiemouth, Benie des Dieux) and so when Momentum of Love made a winning debut in the Prix Gilbert Gallot at Auteuil, they were the most obvious buyers to swoop in. Racing on heavy ground at Auteuil in May, Momentum of Love ran out a 2.5 length winner under Maxime Behocaray, with a further gap of 20 lengths back to the 3rd. The runner-up, Fleur de Vie (Davide Satalia) is yet to win a race, but she would go on to finish 4th in the G3 Prix Sagan and currently has a rating of 63.5 kg (127). On that basis, Momentum of Love would appear to have shown above average ability to make that winning debut for Dominique Bressou, even if the attritional conditions do need to be taken into account. The obvious concern would be that the heavy ground meant that the field came home at wide margins and there have yet to be any subsequent winners emerge from this race. It felt like a clear case that some of the fillies handled the testing grounds and the majority did not, but that shouldn’t detract from the promising start that Momentum of Love made.

Momentum of Love sat just behind the early leaders and was travelling perfectly within herself at halfway as the filed drifted across to the far side of the course in the back straight. That’s a perfectly standard route for the riders to take in testing conditions at Auteuil and Maxime Behocaray was clearly keen to keep his mount as wide as possible. Once into the home straight, Momentum of Love was asked to go and win her race and she came on terms travelling strongly at the 2nd last. Once across to the stands side rail, the front 2 pulled clear and despite a slow leap over the last flight, Momentum of Love ran on strongly to win by over 2 lengths. This was steadily run race in the conditions, but I was very impressed by the way that Momentum of Love picked up after the last flight and it was no surprise to see that she had her suitors after such a debut.

At this stage, the only thing we can be sure about is that she can handle testing conditions and there aren’t any obvious clues from her pedigree to suggest what she will do on a faster surface. She is a half-sister to Lugubriss who won a couple of hurdle races in the French Provinces, but there weren’t too many clues on her page and having been available for €15,000 at Arqana in 2025 as a 2-year-old, Momentum of Love needed to do her talking on the track. She features prominently in the Triumph hurdle betting, along with a host of other 3-year-olds that have moved to Closutton over the Summer and given her connections, that is fair enough. Personally, I think I would need to see her repeat this performance on better ground before she would be towards the head of that list, but she did everything that could have been asked of her at Auteuil and is one of a number of interesting recruits for the famous Ricci silks.