Monday 13th January - Afandy

Welcome back to Prixdelahorse! I said in my last post that a break was needed and that I would return with the Flat season at Cagnes-Sur-Mer and here we are. It’s been a busy 3 months and the new Patreon service profiling the French 3-year-olds (link below) is coming along nicely. However, the need for a break and a reduced workload was obvious and I’m glad I did. Having had some time in New York over Christmas to reflect on the last 5 years and the journey that I have been on with French Racing, I became enthused to get stuck in once again. I’ve never been a fan of Pau. The deep ground and nature of the track have always been an enigma to me, so there won’t be too much focus on the Jumps racing until we return to Auteuil and Compiegne in 6 weeks time. Instead, I’m looking forward to the Flat season, which began with the first European Turf races of 2026 at Cagnes-Sur-Mer on Monday. There were lots of informative races and a couple of interesting debutantes races that will be added to the Patreon service in due course, but the Prix Louis Gautier Vignal is the traditional starting point for he Cagnes-Sur-mer flat season and this year’s renewal looks to have unearthed a very good winner.

PRIX LOUIS GAUTIER VIGNAL

3YO Class 2 - 1,500m - €11,900

The first point to note is that the winning time of 1:31.62 was 1.6s faster than the 2 maiden races run over the same course and distance earlier on the card. Both of those races were for debutantes and as such, the time figure needs to be taken into account when used for comparison, but on ground described as Very Soft (3,9) they certainly weren’t dawdling through the early stages. The 2nd placed Walwood had won a Marseille maiden in December and the 3rd placed Siciliano, who has an official rating of 43.5 kilos, had finished placed in Listed races at Marseille and Saint-Cloud in the autumn. Hugo Boutin did pick up a 2 day ban aboard Walwood for allowing his mount to drift across Testerine (6th) in the closing stages, but the majority of the runners appeared to have the chance to run their race. Kenzel (Ferland) disappointed, but after winning his first 2 starts last Summer his progress has stalled. He had every chance at the top the straight, but faded and was eased down. With nothing reported to the Stewards after the race, it appears to be back to the drawing board with him. However, all of this is largely irrelevant when we examine the winner. Jean-Claude Rouget is no stranger to the Cagnes-Sur-Mer winner’s enclosure with a strike rate of 28.6% at the track, but he won’t have had too many winners here that were as comfortable as AFANDY.

The son of Mehmas had been a comfortable 8 length winner on his racecourse debut at Tarbes in October, but given that the placed horses had both been soundly beaten since and had ratings in the low 30s, it was hard to overly enthusiastic about that form. However, an SP of 3.1 on the PMU suggested that there was a fair degree of confidence about the Al Shaqab 3-year-old and he duly delivered. Slightly keen in Cristian Demuro’s hands, he pulled his way to the front and held the inside line around the bend. Once into the straight, the sectional times provided by McLloyd show that he quickened readily, coming home with splits of 11.91, 11.21 and 11.83s, fully 0.77s faster than anything else over the final 600m of the contest. A top speed of 64.1 km/h was simply too much for this field and he pulled clear to win by over 5 lengths with plenty in hand. Some people may point to the fact that Tipinso closed in 33.62s in the Prix Albert Taton later on the card, but he ran those 600m at the end of a falsely run race with a finishing speed of 117% and so I don’t think the 2 can be compared. This was a dominant display from Afandy and he has already propelled himself forward amongst the French 3-year-olds after such a classy performance.

He is an Al Shaqab homebred out of Jalwa (Shalaa), a winner over a mile for the same connections in 2021. Her Dam won over 10 furlongs and has also produced the 12 furlong winner Ankara (HF Devin). If you go back another generation you will find the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf winner Zagora (2012) and there is certainly enough on his page to think that there is further progression to come from Afandy. However, before you get too excited and start to think this is the horse to follow in 2026, there’s an important point to note; Afandy is a gelding. As Lazzat found after winning at Cagnes-Sur-Mer in 2024, the program book will limit the options for a 3-year-old Gelding in France once we get to April. For now, he has plenty of options a race like the Prix Policeman later in the Cagnes-Sur-Mer season must be on the agenda, but there is a need to acknowledge that however promising he looks, the gelding operation will limit where he can go in the months ahead.

Prixdelahorse on PATREON