Wimbledon Hawkeye

PRIX GONTAUT-BIRON HKJC

Deauville - 15th August 2026

Following Wimbledon Hawkeye hasn’t always been easy. Since winning the Royal Lodge as a 2-year-old there have been plenty of highs, quite a few lows and a lot of near misses. However, the team at Victorious Forever have become very adept at understanding the European racing program and they clearly saw plenty of potential in the 4-year-old son of Kameko when they recruited him from James Owen and the Gredley Family earlier this Summer. That investment almost produced an immediate return when he finished a “never-nearer” 3rd in the G1 Grosser Dallmayr-Preis in Munich in July. The tighter nature of the track in Munich probably didn’t play to his strengths and he was given quite a lot to do by Oisin Murphy, but the signs were good and having had another month in the care of George Scott, he made no mistake on his 2nd start in these colours.

Christophe Soumillon would look to be an ideal jockey booking for Wimbledon Hawkeye, who needs to be given time to get himself settled, but the pair were always ideally placed in Saturday’s Prix Gontaut-Biron. As the field turned for home, they were spread across the track, but it soon became clear that Wimbledon Hawkeye was going best of all. Once shaken up by Soumillon, he responded well to get himself to the front and then held on nicely to hold the closing Map of Stars, who made solid late progress under James Doyle. Map of Stars won the Wolferton Stakes at Royal Ascot in June and looks to be a reformed character for Francis-Henri Graffard and the Wathnan team after putting a couple of solid performances together in recent months. The faster ground would look to be the key to him and the McLloyd data does show that he was the fastest finisher over the last 600m on Saturday, but that really only adds to the case that this was an above average performance by Wimbledon Hawkeye. The pair pulled nicely clear of the rest and repelling an in-form Map of Stars has got to be close to a career best effort. If nothing else, it is close to his peak juvenile form and the overall time compares well with some of the recent renewals of this race. Having been less than a second slower than the Prix Guillaume D’Ornano winner Baroud, I think this form can be trusted though quite how Baroud found the improvement to win that race is currently beyond me.

There have been a few false dawns for Wimbledon Hawkeye supporters, most notably when he won in the US around this time last year, but I really think he has now turned the corner and matured into the horse he always threatened to be. Whatever George Scott and the Victorious Forever team are doing, it is working and given the way he finished on Saturday, I’d have to be of the opinion that he could yet make his mark at the highest level.