Cracksman dazzles on his return in Prix Ganay at ParisLongchamp
By Geoffrey Riddle
Last Updated: Tue 5 Dec 2023
Watch a full replay of how Cracksman made a winning return in the Prix Ganay at ParisLongchamp on Sunday and read Geoffrey Riddle's report from the track.
By Geoffrey Riddle at ParisLongchamp
The only blip in a near-flawless performance by Cracksman in the Prix Ganay here on Sunday was when the emphatic winner stood on Frankie Dettori’s toes during the post-race celebrations.
Wet weather did its best to spoil ParisLongchamp’s official inauguration but Cracksman put on a show worthy of the official opening of the revamped racecourse.
Drizzle and wind scared off potential racegoers in their thousands ahead of the opening European Group One of the season, but it suited Anthony Oppenheimer’s four-year-old son of Frankel down to the ground and he put four lengths on 80-1 chance Wren’s Day.
That Cloth Of Stars, last year’s winner and race fit from two outings already this season, was another three-quarters of a length behind in third lent some credence to the form.
With Aidan O'Brien's Rhododendron the same distance back in fourth, winning jockey Frankie Dettori dared to dream of a stellar campaign.
"I gave him a flick – you have to give him a smack to get into top gear,” Dettori said, after blowing kisses to those in the shiny new grandstand and performing his customary flying dismount.
Flying machine: Cracksman, all feet off the ground, in full flow during the closing stages of the Prix Ganay (Racingfotos)
“This horse stays a mile and a half and I didn’t want it to turn in to a sprint. I was surprised at the pacemaker – it took me a furlong to get past him.
“I have great expectations but until he did it you don’t know what might happen. It is more relief and there is a fantastic season ahead.
“He is getting stronger now, he just wasn’t strong enough to carry that big frame of his.
“He stood on my toe. Three of them!
“I cannot be any more impressed. It was a great performance.”
Cracksman had not raced since blitzing a high-class field by seven lengths in the Qipco Champion Stakes at Ascot in October, but had been given a racecourse gallop along the Rowley Mile at Newmarket during the Craven meeting.
Following that workout John Gosden had suggested that boy had grown in to man, and it was a common theme in the post-race shakedowns.
Cracksman and his connections savour victory (Racingfotos)
Most impressed was Oppenheimer, who went with Gosden’s mantra all last season that his pride and joy would be a better four-year-old.
Cracksman is now no bigger than 7-4 for the Prince Of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot in June and could well take in the Tattersalls Gold Cup at the Curragh over an extended ten furlongs next month along the way.
However, it is his first clash with stablemate Enable, who Cracksman pipped to the post as last season’s highest-rated racehorse in Europe, which we all want to see. Gosden has suggested that may occur in the King George at Ascot in July.
From there it will be all systems go towards the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe back here on the first Sunday in October, for which Cracksman trails the champion filly in the betting markets at 4-1 to 3-1.
Oppenheimer is well aware what it takes to win the Arc, having struck in 2015 with Golden Horn, but it is clear from the emotion he showed that Cracksman could well supplant him in the diamond dealer’s heart.
“We think this new Longchamp is a great place and I look forward to coming back here,” the octogenarian owner-breeder said.
“It took my breath away. I was so excited. It was what we dreamt about but I wasn’t sure. It looked quite nice, didn’t it?
“I am more emotional than then (Golden Horn’s Arc). We kept him in training and this has proved that we have got another good horse who can hopefully go through the season. It has already been worth it.”
Godolphin’s Cloth Of Stars had run keenly when third to Hawksbill in the Dubai Sheema Classic at Meydan last month and the operation ran Wren’s Day as a pacemaker.
Pierre-Charles Boudot set decent fractions out in front, while Dettori stalked the pace with old sparring partner Finche and Vincent Cheminaud on his outside.
Cracksman was a little fresh and soon shrugged off Finche, and Dettori anchored his mount to the tail of the long-time leader.
At the top of the straight Dettori pressed the button and went for home and it took almost a furlong and a half before the pair had subdued the rank outsider. From there Cracksman cruised home in a time of 2min 09.44sec.
“It was a good pace so it was a truly-run race,” Gosden said. “Frankie always knew he would get him balanced in the straight and I like how he reached low, stretched out and went through the line. He was very professional.
“He has put up a good performance and there were some gorgeous horses behind him in Cloth Of Stars and Rhododendron and the plan is to come back here to this elegant grandstand with Enable and race them both together.
“He has improved, like a lot of us chaps he has improved with age. He has got stronger and wiser and conserves his energy better. He has grown up a lot – he was cool before and after the race.
Mr Oppenheimer is keen to look at the Prince Of Wales with him, he really is. You have the Tattersalls Gold Cup at the Curragh and the Prince of Wales’s beautifully spaced. You then head in to July, and then you know what’s at Ascot then.
“This horse has got quicker as he got older. I wish we all did the same.”
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