Prix Fourire - Vadinska

It’s very easy to overreact when you see a filly win a maiden by 10-lengths on her debut and I will try to add some context to the performance of Vadinska at Saint-Cloud on Thursday. However, whilst trying to keep a level head, it is very hard not be excited by the latest 3-year-old talent to step on to the track for Francis-Henri Graffard and the Aga Khan Stud. A filly by Kodiac, her dam, Vadsena, was placed at Listed level and is a half-sister to the Prix du Jockey Club and Coral Eclipse winner, Vadeni. Vadinska had clearly been showing the right signs at home and having been supplemented into this race, she was duly sent off as a 1.8 favourite in the PMU pools. Her backers had very few causes for concern as she settled nicely behind the early leaders for Mickael Barzalona before pulling readily clear under a hands ride in the home straight. A winning time of 1:40.27 would be slightly faster than the expected time from my data, but should take into account the ground, which recorded a 3,3 score on the penetrometer, effectively good to firm and that would have allowed her to run a fast time. The only other races to be run over the 1,600m course on Thursday were the Group 2 Prix du Muguet, won by Tribalist (for the 3rd year in a row) and a Class 3 conditions race for the older horses, won by the 39-kilo rated Star of the Night. Vadinska was 2-seconds slower than Tribalist, although interestingly only 0.54s slower over the final 3-furlongs despite being allowed to coast home in the final 100-yards. It is perhaps a little unfair to compare her with an experienced campaigner like Tribalist, who is verging on unbeatable at Saint-Cloud when he is in the mood. Instead, a winning time that was 0.18s faster than Star of the Night is probably the more useful comparison.

What did she beat on Thursday? That’s harder to tell. This was a debutantes race and it is hard to be certain how ready her rivals were. However, the runner-up, Ampola, was a €200,000 yearling (Arqana) and is a half-sister to the Prix Jean Romanet winner Odeliz and the 3rd placed City Babe cost €105,000 as a yearling (Arqana) and is related to Listed winners Marque Royale and Marquix, which would suggest that there was some quality in this field apart from the winner. They were both ridden more patiently in a race run with a finishing speed of 102% and Vadinska was still faster than both of them over the final 2-furlongs.

Until we get a chance to test the form, we won’t know how good this debut was, but visually she appeared to be a pattern class performer and the data from the race would appear to back up that opinion. Francis-Henri Graffard has an enormous array of talent with his 3-year-olds this season, but Vadinska can certainly be included in that bracket for now and it will be fascinating to see how far up the ladder she can climb in the weeks ahead.