Let’s the B’s begin. The "B races" which comprise the prep races for the prestigious Prix d’Amerique in France begin today when the Prix de Bretagne is contested at the Vincennes racecourse near Paris.
It will be followed by three other international races, all starting with the letter B, before they decide which horses make it to the “A team” to race in the Prix d’Amerique on January 25, 2009. (The other “B races” are the Prix de Bourgogne, Prix de Bourbonnais, and Prix de Belgique.
The Prix de Bretagne is contested over 2,700 metres, same distance as the Prix d’Amerique. Offshore Dream, winner of the last two Prix d’Ameriques, is in the field as is Exploit Caf, winner of last year’s Elitlopp in Sweden.
To that pair you can add Oiseau de Feux, One Du Rib, Magnificent Rodney, Olga Du Biwetz, and Niky and you get a star-studded field of trotters. As with the Prix d’Amerique, the Prix de Bretagne has a field of 18 trotters.
But it’s not likely to be a dress rehearsal for the Prix d’Amerique because so many horses use the prep races as training efforts and thus aren’t used hard.
That’s always a curiosity to me about French trotting; everyone seems to know and accept that some of the horses don’t give 100 percent in these races. But you can be assured that they will give 100 percent when it comes to Prix d’Amerique time. That race is all-out warfare. It’s the greatest prize in European trotting.
Offshore Dream bred mares this spring and didn’t race until starting a comeback in the fall. He finished back in some races for driver Sebastian Ernault, but now his trainer Pierre Levesque will take the reins. I don’t expect him to win the Prix de Bretagne, but I fully expect Levesque to have him fit for the fight in late January.
Exploit Caf, winner of the Elitlopp, races in the Prix de Bretagne, too, and he will be accompanied by stablemate Oiseau De Feux . The latter horse finished second in the Elitlopp to Exploit Caf and both are trained by Fabrice Souloy. The trainer will steer Oiseau De Feux while French sulky magician Jean-Michel Bazire will handle Exploit Caf.
Magnificent Rodney, a French horse that has enjoyed great success in races under saddle and to sulky, is also a contender in the Prix de Bretagne. He’ll be driven by Ulf Nordin, son of the late and legendary horseman Soren Nordin.
I’m guiding a tour to the 2009 Prix d’Amerique for North Americans and I recently spoke to one lady who was interested in making the trip. When I told her there were 18 starters in the race, she said, “You’re kidding me, right?”
No, I wasn’t kidding her then and I wasn’t kidding her when I told her they don’t use a starting gate. Just as I wasn’t kidding her that the track is a little downhill and a little uphill. Or that in France they regularly race trotters under saddle. I’m sure she must have thought I was kidding or that I knew nothing about harness racing.
French trotting is quite different from what we see in North America, but it’s an enormously popular sport there and the Vincennes track near Paris is the epicentre for European harness racing each winter.
Dean Hoffman, one of North America's most prolific harness racing journalists and member of the U.S. Harness Racing Hall of Fame, offers SC website readers his weekly look at international standardbred racing through his eyes.