PRIX WILLIAM ALEXANDRE RUINAT

I was hoping to be able to write a piece about the triumphant return of Horizon Dore at Cagnes-Sur-Mer on Sunday. The winner of the Prix Dollar in 2023 had been off the track since a Listed success at Compiegne in June and is the highest rated horse that we have seen running in France so far this year. He made his return on Sunday in the Prix William Alexandre Ruinat at Cagnes-Sur-Mer and was a well supported 1.8 SP favourite on the PMU. That wasn’t surprising given that he had around 7 kilos in hand on the rest of the field. Spoiler Alert! He didn’t win. The early season races at Cagnes-Sur-Mer can be used as a launch pad for the Flat, especially if there are targets in March and April on the agenda, so it’s not that unusual to see a horse of this ability running on the South coast at this time of year. However, no matter how I try to dress up this performance, it is best summed up as underwhelming.

I’ll heap some praise on to the winner first of all. Always Welcome is a solid performer, especially at Cagnes-Sur-Mer where he has a fantastic record. He came into this on the back of a battling success in the Prix Robert Villeneuve-Bargemon last month and is well worth his official rating of 41.5 kilos. At the age of 9, he is hardly considered to be an improver and he has largely struggled to translate his form elsewhere in France in recent seasons. However, under these conditions he is a very god horse and once brought alongside the leader to challenge in the home straight, Marvin Grandin had very little reason for concern and he ran out a ready winner from Onkel Volli. The runner-up had won a €15,000 Claimer here last week and appeared to run his race once again, repaying some of the €18,000 that his connections spent to defend him last time. However, whilst they are both admirable horses, the French handicapper would say that Horizon Dore is the best part of 10-kilos (22 lbs) better than they are and off level weights, he should have been able to pick them up, even if he was slightly short of match practice.

Cristian Demuro had Horizon Dore settled towards the rear of the field as they headed down the back straight. In a race run with a finishing speed of 108%, that was slightly risky and he did have to try and close without using the stands rail to help. Most of the jockeys seemed to want to head to that rail in the straight, but with several of the later winners coming around runners, it didn’t appear to be an insurmountable obstacle on Sunday. Despite conceding first run, I can’t help but be disappointed that Horizon Dore didn’t manage to get involved in the finish and his closing time of 37.44s from the 600m to the line was slower than both of the horses that finished ahead of him. We won’t really know how fit he was on Sunday and there is of course every possibility that Patrice Cottier was keen to get one of his stable stars through the first run after an injury without too much concern for the result. Even allowing for that, one of the reasons I like Horizon Dore so much is that he would always finish his races strongly. His victory in the Prix Dollar came with a customary late run down the outside of the field and this was a long way from that performance. It was 3 years ago and he may not be the horse that he once was, but as recently as May he was finishing 3rd in the Prix D’Ispahan behind Sosie, beaten less than 4 lengths I might add. He is the first 50+ rated horse that we have seen in 2026, but I can’t help but feel he may not fit into that category for too much longer on this evidence.