PRIX FREDERIC DE LAGRANGE - MAZZALA

The Vichy Summer Festival got underway on Monday afternoon and the Listed Prix Frederic de Lagrange produced a thrilling finish to get the action underway. A winning margin of a short-head and just 0.01s doesn’t really tell the whole story and whilst the winner will take the headlines, on another day this result may well have been the other way around. MAZZALA remains unbeaten having won all 3 starts to date for Yann Barberot and the Wertheimer’s and has confirmed the strength of his earlier form from Lyon Parilly. He is yet to win by anything more than a quarter of a length and appears to do just enough, but I also think a case can be made that he has been very well placed and at some point, he is going to have to run into a stronger class of rival who may well test his resolve under pressure. In a steadily run race, Mazzala was ideally placed by Maxime Guyon and had the benefit of both a clear run in the home straight and the inside rail to keep him moving forwards. Having hit the front with 400m to run, a case can perhaps be made that he hit the front too soon, but having seen off Carcagny (3rd) and then changed his lead legs, he seemed to be searching for the line in the last 50m.

The runner-up, Zulu Chant, has just a Lyon Parilly maiden win on his 7 race CV and an official rating of 39.5 kg from the French handicapper. On the bare form, beating him by a short-head on level weights would suggest that Mazzala may not have run much beyond a mark of 40 kilos to win this and if anything, his earlier form with Gentlemanlike in a Class 1 at Lyon Parilly in late May is probably stronger form. All of that appears to make sense, but the son of Frankel remains unbeaten and with horses who only do just enough to win, it can be quite hard to get a handle on how much improvement they could potentially find against better horses. He is a Wertheimer homebred by Frankel and his connections have enjoyed pattern class success with both Martel and Blush from his immediate family. As a gelding, his earlier options were slightly limited but as we move into the 2nd half of the season, there will be further races like this for him and it is hard to be overly critical about a horse whose career record reads 1,1,1. However, we know quite a lot about Zulu Chant and despite taking time to get his feet organised when he was asked for maximum effort by Pierre Charles Boudot, he lunged at the line with a race best 11.22s for the final furlong. (Source: McLloyd). That was enough to make me put a question mark next to this form in my notebook and whilst Mazzala may improve against better horses next time out, he may well be a shorter price than he should be because of the series of 1s next to his name.