Bélina Josselyn confirmed herself the queen of French trotting with the king of the sport Jean-Michel Bazire in the sulky when she stormed home late to land the 98th running of the Prix d’Amérique at Vincennes in Paris, thus becoming the first mare since Moni Maker in 1999 to land the ‘holy grail’.
The Group 1 worth 900,000 euros over the classic French distance of 2700 metres featured the best from all over Europe in what looked like being a race where the horses with the best runs would be the ones to catch.
That was exactly how it panned out, especially with the rain affected track, with the 3.1 favourite Bélina Josselyn being perfectly positioned just behind the leaders in the running line throughout before hooking out at the top of the straight.
She led home a quinella for the Bazire stable with Norwegian bred Looking Superb a fantastic second narrowly ahead of defending Swedish champion Readly Express, who was monstrous in defeat after sitting without cover throughout, and long-time leader Davidson du Pont, which means Jean-Michel Bazire prepared the first, second and fourth horses home.
It was a race where if you were worse than midfield you had absolutely no chance and that proved to be the case for Propulsion and Bold Eagle, who both got caught at the back of the 18-runner field early and never got out of trouble from there. Propulsion absolutely stormed home to be a very unlucky fifth with Bold Eagle sixth after being wide and out the back nearly all the way.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=qYPhyhBvOOA
The mile rate was 1:55.3 for the 2700 metres with quarters of 29, 30, 28.9 and 27.6.
Uza Josselyn who led up early was seventh in front of Bird Parker, who was another one of the main players that never got into it and has since been retired by trainer Philippe Allaire.
“Bélina was perfect, we won. I was very confident,” said 47 year-old Jean-Michel Bazire. “At the top of the straight she tried hard to win, it was great.”
Björn Goop, driver of Readly Express, was very happy with the effort of last year’s champion.
“I am very happy with my horse, it is just a shame we got beat right on the line, but it is still great to be in the top three.”
“He did a great race” said trainer Timo Nurmos to Trav365. “It was tough. He was the first one to make a move going up the hill and was in the war the whole way. I give him a 10 out of 10, we were beaten by centimetres and I am very proud of him.”
“We ended up too far back but we will try again,” said Örjan Kihlström driver of Propulsion, who flashed home for a third consecutive top five finish in the race.
Bold Eagle was in trouble from the start, could only finish sixth and never looking likely to play a role in the finish in front of a 40,000-strong crowd.
The Prix de France over 2100 metres from behind the mobile comes up on February 9 where a lot of these rivals will meet again.
