PRIX PIRETTE - KOSUMA

There’s perhaps a small case to be made that the French 2-year-old crop has been largely underwhelming at this stage of the year. It’s still only the end of May and it’s fairly rare for the best of the French crop to emerge before the middle of the Summer, but there aren’t too many potential stars that I can think of from the Juvenile form so far. However, KOSUMA did state her case to be considered one of the best we have seen so far as she made it 2 wins from 2 starts in the Prix Pirette at Saint-Cloud on Friday afternoon. This was only a Class 3 event, but she was a giving away weight to her rivals and having beaten Immatin Storm (3rd) by a length over the same course and distance on debut and managed to put nearly 4 lengths between them on Friday afternoon, I think I can make the case from the form that she took a significant step forward on her 2nd start. The form of her debut win was also boosted when the 3rd placed La Belle Isola won at Lyon Parilly last week and whilst I’m sure there are plenty of promising 2-year-olds still to be unleashed by Andre Fabre, Kosuma would look to be the best of his 2-year-olds to have run so far.

Travelling strongly under Maxime Guyon, she was always able to lie up with the pace of the early leader before being asked to go and win her race with 400m to run. A race best 11.25s (courtesy of the McLloyd tracking data) for the penultimate furlong saw her pull clear and from that moment, the race was won. She is a Night of Thunder filly whose dam, Any Time Soon, was a Listed winner for Andre Fabre in 2022. The Grand-Dam, Aquarelliste, won the Prix de Diane, the Prix Vermeille, the Prix Ganay and placed in both the Prix de L’Arc de Triomphe and the Hong Kong Vase. With such a pedigree, it’s quite surprising to see that Kosuma is so precocious, but there is also the obvious expectation that she should improve further when stepping up in trip. Friday’s runner-up, Moondance, had been a 2.5 length winner on debut at Le Mans and yet she was no match for Kosuma. A winning time of 1:13.49 was over a second quicker than the Colts and Geldings in the Prix Prince Chevalier 35 minutes later and with the winner having recorded a finishing speed of 105%, there was enough early pace on to give those that came from further back the opportunity to get into the race. Nudged out by Maxime Guyon, Kosuma would appear to have plenty more improvement to come and although her connections chose not to run her in the Listed Prix La Fleche tomorrow at Chantilly, I am sure she will head into pattern company in the near future after this impressive display, with her entry in the G3 Prix du Bois at the end of next month perhaps the most obvious target.