Prix Vermeille Preview: No easy task ahead for Treve

The only one of Sunday’s three Arc trials with Group 1 status, the Prix Vermeille is an important race for fillies in its own right. But recent runnings have certainly had a significant bearing on events three weeks later, none more so than last year’s contest which Treve took impressively on the way to her brilliant win in the Arc. In 2012, shock Arc winner Solemia had finished third in the Vermeille beforehand, while in 2011 Shareta was placed in both races.

Treve is back again this year, though no longer unbeaten and with a slightly different agenda this time, needing to restore her reputation after odds-on defeats in the Prix Ganay and Prince of Wales’s Stakes. Only third at Royal Ascot behind The Fugue and Magician, Treve was never going with her usual zest. She subsequently lost her position as ante-post favourite for the Arc, though has found herself back at the head of the betting, pretty much by default, after the three-year-olds Taghrooda and Sea The Moon lost their own unbeaten records in recent weeks in the Yorkshire Oaks and at Baden-Baden respectively. A back injury (actually stemming from foot problems, it appears), which seems to explain her performance at Ascot (she moved poorly to post beforehand, too), has reportedly been put right now, and if Treve is anywhere close to her best on Sunday she would take all the beating, now reunited with her Arc-winning partner Thierry Jarnet.

But given her troubled season so far, Treve makes little appeal at cramped odds against some lightly-raced fillies who might have a bit to find on form but could prove progressive enough to take advantage if the favourite underperforms again. This is an unusual Vermeille field in that older fillies easily outnumber their three-year-old counterparts. Of the two younger fillies in the line-up, the Aga Khan’s Dolniya has improved markedly in winning her last three starts and looked a late-maturing type typical of her owner-breeder when landing the Prix de Malleret at Saint-Cloud when last seen at the end of June. Out of a half-sister to Arc winner Dalakhani, a big run on Sunday would see her Arc odds being slashed as she would almost certainly end up as Christophe Soumillon’s Arc ride as a result.

The other biggest potential dangers to Treve look to be fellow four-year-olds Pomology and Sultanina, both of them trained by John Gosden. Unlike their younger stable-companion Taghrooda, neither holds an Arc entry at the moment, but a win on Sunday for one of them could leave connections having to think about supplementing. The pair have very similar profiles, each having run just four times (Sultanina hadn’t run at all before May of this year), with Pomology keeping her unbeaten record at the expense of Sultanina’s when they finished one-two in the Lancashire Oaks at Haydock in July. Sultanina’s subsequent win in the Nassau Stakes at Goodwood boosted the form, while the fifth Silk Sari has won both her subsequent starts, including when bolting up in the Park Hill Stakes at Doncaster on Thursday. Sultanina looks sure to be suited by the return to a mile and a half on Sunday, but Pomology beat her fairly comfortably at Haydock and can be the one to make up for the controversial demotion of her stable’s 2009 Vermeille ‘winner’ Dar Re Mi. Pomology is also the pick of stable-jockey William Buick, with Ryan Moore taking the ride on Sultanina.

The other British-trained filly – also the other three-year-old in the line-up - Musidora winner Madame Chiang, looks to face a stiff task on her first start since finishing down the field in the Oaks. Of the remainder, Baltic Baroness is in better heart now, after a couple of listed wins over the summer, than when finishing behind Treve in the Prix Ganay in the spring. Siljan’s Saga has made steady progress and had Baltic Baroness behind her when winning the Prix Corrida at Saint-Cloud in May, though there’s a suspicion she was flattered a little in finishing a close-up third in the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud last time.

Recommendation:

Back Pomology in the Prix Vermeille

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