Winning combination of Aidan O'Brien and Ryan Moore pin hopes on Camille Pissarro in French Derby
The official start of summer sees the first of European racing's three main Derby prizes up for grabs, with
Aidan O'Brien
and
Ryan Moore
teaming up to try and land Sunday's Qatar Prix du Jockey Club in Chantilly.
Racing's most potent partnership relies on Camille Pissarro in the €1.5 million French Derby, which this year takes place before next weekend's Epsom action.
Delacroix and The Lion In Winter remain on course for English racing's 'Blue Riband' next Saturday and appear to be O'Brien's two main middle-distance classic hopes this season. The Irish Derby takes place on June 29.
Camille Pissarro will be joined in Sunday's 18-runner field by stable companion Trinity College, the mount of Wayne Lordan.
READ MORE
The 'Jockey Club' has traditionally played second-fiddle to Epsom in Ballydoyle's Derby priorities. There was over 20 years of failure before O'Brien finally won it in 2021 with St Mark's Basilica.
He was just the third ever Irish-trained winner of France's premier classic, decades after the Robert Sangster owned pair Assert and Caerleon won back-to-back in 1982 and 1983.
Moore is also a previous French Derby winner on The Grey Gatsby 11 years ago.
Having guided Henri Matisse to French Guineas glory at Longchamp earlier this month and sluiced up in last weekend's Irish 1000 Guineas on Lake Victoria, Moore is on a classic roll and has already enjoyed some good fortune ahead of Sunday's big race.
The draw around Chantilly's 10½ furlongs is always a major factor but even more so with 18 runners.
Jockey Ryan Moore and trainer Aidan O'Brien after winning The Tattersalls Irish 1,000 Guineas with Lake Victoria. Photograph: Morgan Treacy/Inpho
Traditionally a double-digit wide draw is regarded as a negative. Camille Pissarro is bang on the rail in stall one. Moore might ideally prefer Trinity College's spot in three in terms of options, but it's a lot better than the fancied home pair Nitoi and Parachutiste on the outside.
Camille Pissarro has at least got better luck in the draw than in the French Guineas where he was 15 of 16 around Longchamp's tight mile. He did well to reach third behind his stable companion, after which Christophe Soumillon immediately advised advised O'Brien to consider him for the French Derby.
The Belgian rider landed the Lagardere on Camille Pissarro as a two-year-old but with Moore riding the Irish number one, Soumillon teams up with Detain, one of four English trained hopefuls. He too ran in the 'Poulains' and was sixth to Henri Matisse. The Gosden team, successful with Mishriff in 2020, have another runner in Bowmark.
Nothing was drawn wider in the French Guineas than Luther, who ran on to be fourth. He represents Kieran Shoemark and Charlie Fellowes who lost the 'Pouliches' in the stewards' room after She's Perfect's interference with Zaragina.
The latter's late owner and breeder, the Aga Khan, won the Jockey Club six times. Both Ridari and Azimpour will carry his famous green silks this time. Mickael Barzalona has opted for Ridari, who shapes as relishing the step up to this trip. He is by the stallion Churchill who sired the 2022 winner Vadeni.
Chantilly presents its own kind of Derby challenge and O'Brien commented: 'We feel you need a miler that stays, that's the way the French Derby is now over 10 furlongs.
'Before you'd need a classic middle-distance horse over a mile and a half. Now you need a miler that gets nine furlongs, I think, and might get a bit further.'
He added: 'The Epsom horses, if you have a real good mile-and-a-quarter horse, they might get away with a mile and a half there and then coming to the Curragh, it's a bit more straightforward, but they need to get a mile and a half well.'
Sunday's feature is off at 3.05pm Irish-time and live on Sky Sports Racing. Elsewhere on the Chantilly card, Joseph O'Brien has snapped up Maxime Guyon to ride Midnight Strike in a Listed race after the Derby.
An intense domestic bank holiday programme includes a pair of National Hunt cards on Saturday.
Listowel kicks off three-days of action with a Mares Hurdle that sees champion jockey Paul Townend travel to the Kingdom for a single ride on Maughreen.
The most high-profile runner on view will be the 2021 Irish St Leger hero Sonnyboyliston who gets a new jumping career off to a start in the following maiden hurdle.
[
Charles Byrnes says no one hurting more than son Philip after 'soft unseat' at Wexford
Opens in new window
]
[
Aidan O'Brien's outstanding stayer Kyprios retired after aggravating old injury
Opens in new window
]
Sonnboyliston is now with Charles Byrnes who ran him in the Vintage Crop Stakes last time. How many of this opposition could get within ten lengths of Kyprios on the flat is debatable.
Victory for the eight-year-old would be a boost for Byrnes and his son Philip, whose controversial unseat from Redwood Queen at Wexford on Wednesday is being investigated by the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board (IHRB).
Redwood Queen, who had drifted in betting for the contest, looked to have a claiming hurdle race won until unshipping her rider.
The incident has generated significant comment including immediately afterwards on Racing TV, where it was described as a 'soft unseat' by one pundit.
Lots of online discussion following the opening race at Wexford earlier, and our team look back at the incident
— Racing TV (@RacingTV)
Although the race-day stewards at Wexford reviewed the unseating, they took no further action. However, the IHRB has subsequently opted to carry out a review of the incident.
Charles Byrnes defended his son on Friday, arguing it is clear what occurred at the final hurdle.
'It's obvious what happened,' said the Co Limerick trainer. 'He was trying to get the mare to go in and pop it, because obviously she had the race won, and she came up out of his hands and blew him out of the saddle. There's no one hurting more than Philip about it.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Times
6 hours ago
- Irish Times
PSG's costly failures entertained Europe for years, but now they could be on the brink of an era of domination
Seventy years ago, the French sports newspaper L'Équipe created the European Cup . Their motivation was to generate content that would help them sell more papers in midweek, but they also no doubt expected French football would take its fair share of ' la gloire'. Instead, after France gave the Cup to Europe, Europe wouldn't let them have it back. Only one French team ever brought the title home, and that was Marseille's tainted vintage of 1993. As L'Équipe's correspondent Vincent Duluc lamented on the morning of Saturday's final, 'We invented the Cup – for others to win.' Not any more. On a sultry Saturday night in Munich, Luis Enrique's brilliant Paris Saint-Germain crushed Inter Milan 5-0 in the most one-sided final in the history of the competition. Nobody has ever nailed a European Cup final performance quite like this . A brutal night for Inter ended on the stroke of 90 minutes, as the referee ignored the usual minimum injury time to blow the whistle and put an end to their suffering. READ MORE As PSG's captain Marquinhos lifted the Cup, Enrique turned and applauded the Inter players who had stood waiting to watch the trophy lift. A gracious gesture from the victorious coach to the men his side had just put through hell. This match was always going to turn on whether PSG, under the pressure of a final their fans and Qatari bosses expected them to win, could reproduce the free and flowing football that had destroyed Manchester City , Liverpool , Aston Villa and Arsenal on the way to Munich. The Premier League teams had all discovered that pressing PSG's midfield was like punching air. Disoriented and intimidated, they ended up retreating into a defensive shell. Simone Inzaghi decided Inter would dispense with the preliminaries and start the game already in the defensive shell. Carefully, the Inter coach laid out his fortifications. Inter wouldn't press Vitinha, instead sitting off and marking the men PSG's playmaker might pass to. Paris Saint-Germain's Vitinha and Joao Neves celebrate in front of supporters on Saturday night in Munich. Photograph: Franck Fife/Getty The apparent hope was that Vitinha, in the biggest game of his life, would freeze in the spotlight. Inter's whole plan really depended on this – that PSG would seize up, that the occasion and expectation would unnerve them, that the experience of Inter, whose starting XI was five years older on average than PSG's, would make the difference in the end. Instead, right from the start it was Inter who looked afraid. Their play was strewn with underhit passes, a telltale sign of a team that's nervous and trying to be too careful. Vitinha, allowed space to strut and swagger, transmitted calm, unhurried confidence to his team-mates. The French team swept the ball around with bold and adventurous passes as Inter shuffled and shuttled to cover. It takes patience to be so passive in a final. The risk is you end up looking – and feeling – timid and irrelevant. In Istanbul two years ago Inter's fans outsung Manchester City's, here the noise was all Paris. You couldn't really blame the Inter fans for being subdued. From the opening minutes there was a creeping sense of dread that their team had got themselves into a situation they could not handle. On 12 minutes, PSG proved the point. The Italian defensive perimeter was first pierced by the aggression and daring of Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, dribbling on the left and glancing up at the two covering Inter defenders, Denzel Dumfries and Benjamin Pavard. Dumfries pointed for Pavard to cover the outside, only for Kvaratskhelia to attack a gap the Inter players didn't realise was there – darting suddenly between them and firing a pass through to Fabián Ruiz, who had infiltrated the penalty area unnoticed. Fabián turned, paused, allowed three Inter defenders move towards him, then laid it back to Vitinha, unmarked outside the box. Acerbi, acting automatically according to the ingrained habits of 37 years of Italian defending, rushed forward as Fabián played the backwards pass, trying to push out the offside line. His team-mates never followed him. Federico Dimarco on Inter's left was the deepest, but Alessandro Bastoni, Pavard and Dumfries were all playing Désiré Doué onside as he sneaked into the space Acerbi had left in behind. Doué took Vitinha's pass on the spin and in the same fluid movement stroked it sideways to Achraf Hakimi for the tap in. Achraf Hakimi scores PSG's first goal during the Champions League final. Photograph: Kirill Kudryavtsev/Getty So often scoring a goal can look like the hardest thing in the world, but in this moment PSG didn't just make scoring look easy, they made it look natural, logical, inevitable. The elegant simplicity of the move looked effortless, a demonstration of clear superiority, and the chilling effect on Inter was plain (as flies to wanton boys are we to PSG…). But even a scarily brilliant goal is still just one goal. Inter still had their game plan, and a big part of that game plan was set pieces. Like Arsenal in the semi-final, they had signalled as much by flinging some early long throws into the box. On 20 minutes, Nicolò Barella tried to shepherd a loose ball over the goal line for what he expected to be a valuable corner kick. Willian Pacho surprised him, nicking the ball away to Kvaratskhelia, and though the play was still 100 metres from Inter's goal everyone could see immediately that they were in deep trouble. Kvaratskhelia found Ousmane Dembélé racing away down the left, a lovely curving pass picked out Doué arriving on the far side, and his powerful shot took a deflection off Dimarco that wrong-footed Yann Sommer. The contest was already over. The torture was not. When Inter went in at half-time only 2-0 down, you felt they'd got away with it. The half-time message was clear: score the next goal and who knows what could happen? But when Marcus Thuram won a promising free kick early in the second half, Inter wasted it with a feeble delivery. Another bungle to reinforce the feeling that they just couldn't do anything right. On 63 minutes, Vitinha, Dembélé and Doué combined to score a brilliant third. As PSG celebrated in the corner in front of their fans, the Inter players waited to restart, standing spread out across the pitch in their prescribed 3-2-5 kick-off formation. There was something pathetically dignified in this dutiful observation of the formalities. They knew it would get worse and they could see thousands of their fans were already leaving, but they'd keep carrying the cross up the hill. Kvaratskhelia scored the fourth, Senny Mayulu the fifth. In the end 5-0 flattered Inter. Such a historic defeat demands scapegoats and Simone Inzaghi, with colossal unfairness, will pay the price. La Gazzetta Sportiva marked his performance at 3/10: the lowest on the Inter side. It doesn't matter that he has assembled this team from players other big teams didn't want, not a single one of whom would make the PSG team. Inzaghi is like a village carpenter who builds a wooden racing car in his workshop out of handcrafted clockwork components. Imagine the infinite care, imagination and ingenuity he has poured into such a labour of love. To general delight, the car wins some local races. Then somebody organises a race between the home-made vehicle and a Formula 1 car. Swept away by the romance of it all, the whole village bets on the clockwork car, but the Inzaghimobile is left in the dust and the neighbours turn mercilessly on the tragic carpenter, now a disgrace to the village. Dejected Inter Milan head coach Simone Inzaghi reacts after his team's heavy Champions League final defeat. Photograph: Stu Forster/Getty Those of us who don't feel the sting of Inter's humiliation as a deeply personal insult can accept an outcome like this was always on the cards. PSG, who have supposedly renounced the superstar culture, have spent €660 million on new players in the last two seasons. Inter are the second-placed club in Serie A, a league where MVP Scott McTominay tramples defences like a war elephant. To allude to the Qatari billions that are the ultimate source of PSG's power is not to deny the brilliance of their performance in the final and indeed in the whole campaign since January. Everyone knows about their financial advantages, but in the autumn few were touting them as likely European champions. Even within the club, important people doubted whether PSG had the tools to do the job. The sporting director, Luis Campos, wanted to sign a new centre forward in the last two transfer windows – but Enrique refused, insisting they would do better with flexible forwards capable of playing anywhere across the front line or just behind. If that decision shows Enrique's football insight, the lunatic intensity in the eyes of Dembélé proved his powers of leadership and motivation. Every time Sommer prepared to play the first pass, Dembélé was crouching a few metres away in a starter's stance, primed to explode after the ball. This was more than mere pressing, it was a performance designed to intimidate. Who before Enrique believed Dembélé had such competitiveness in him? The coach, determined never to appear satisfied, could be seen during the game screaming at Dembélé in apparent frustration, but afterwards he had only praise. 'Everyone always talks about the Ballon d'Or. I would give it to Ousmane Dembélé. Just think about how he defended today. He was a leader, he was humble, he got down and he worked: he deserves it not only for the goals he has scored but also the pressing. He was exceptional in this final,' he said. Was Enrique having fun at the expense of Kylian Mbappé, whom he so often criticised last season for failing to do what he was now praising Dembélé for doing? Maybe it was just the coach in him, unable to resist the opportunity to teach Mbappé one last time, as if to say: 'See? I was right, but don't be downhearted, it's not too late for you to change.' PSG, whose expensive failures in this competition entertained Europe for years, might now stand on the brink of a new era of domination. Later this month they go to the United States to play the Fifa Club World Cup , and it's hard to see who can stop them. Unlike most people in football, Enrique sounded genuinely excited about that tournament as he looked ahead to it on Saturday night. There are always new fans coming to the game, and PSG believe that victory in the US will mean imprinting themselves on the minds of these people as officially the best club in the world. The English were sceptical about the European Cup too. If a newspaper's midweek content generator can grow into the biggest prize in the club game, then maybe there's hope for this Fifa nonsense.
Irish Times
6 hours ago
- Irish Times
Two killed killed as PSG's Champions League victory marred by violence
One man died and more than 200 people were injured in clashes in Paris, after celebrations of Paris Saint-Germain's victory in the Champions League final on Saturday were tarnished by violence in the French capital. Authorities arrested 563 people in France , with 491 people detained in Paris, many for causing disorder or possession of fireworks. Fans raided several shops in the Champs-Élysées area and burned cars, with the majority of the disorder happening on the central Parisian avenue after the football match, which took place in Munich, Germany . Police chief Laurent Nuñez said: 'Several thousand people were . . . clearly there to lay into the security services and commit looting and damage. It was clearly their only goal because . . . they weren't even watching the match.' A young man in his 20s died in a road accident, which Nuñez said police believed was linked to the disorder. Interior minister Bruno Retailleau confirmed media reports that another person had been stabbed to death in south-west France but this has yet to be linked to the post-match chaos. READ MORE In total in Paris, 192 civilians were injured, including four serious injuries, Nuñez said. More than 20 members of the security services were injured, including one officer placed in a coma after being hit in the eye by a rocket. The Paris Police Prefecture had organised a police force of more than 5,000 officers in anticipation of violence, after public disorder at previous large sporting events, including after PSG's semi-final victory over Arsenal on May 7. Police deployed water cannons to disperse crowds and Nuñez said 'the majority of cases [of violence] were prevented' by the police presence. He said the operation was 'neither a success nor a failure', adding that his forces were not done with their task, as they prepared to police a parade in the capital on Sunday afternoon. PSG said it condemned the acts of violence 'in the strongest possible terms', adding that they were 'isolated' incidents and did not reflect the 'exemplary behaviour' of the majority of supporters during the season. As with every public celebration, the capital of France becomes a playground for thugs — Jordan Bardella 'This title of European champion should be a moment of collective joy, not of agitation or excesses,' the club said on Sunday. 'Paris Saint-Germain calls on everyone to demonstrate responsibility and respect so that this historic victory remains a moment of pride shared by all.' Offering support to French police, interior minister Retailleau described those involved in the violence as 'barbarians [who] have come down into the streets of Paris to commit crimes and provoke the security services'. Political recriminations over the violence had already begun on Sunday. Jordan Bardella, president of the far-right National Rally, said the threat had been 'underestimated', adding: 'As with every public celebration, the capital of France becomes a playground for thugs'. However, Antoine Léaument, a deputy for the far-left La France Insoumise, criticised the use of tear gas on largely peaceful fans. Supporters began celebrating victory well before the final whistle, letting off flares and fireworks in the streets of Paris as PSG swept aside Italian club Inter Milan in a dominant display in Munich's Allianz Arena. Despite the violence, the majority of fans marked PSG's victory peacefully, in scenes of joy and celebration after the club's first Champions League triumph. Car horns sounded and supporters chanted late into the night. Most Parisians were in a joyous mood despite the violence. On Sunday, Florian Gouyard and his teenage son David travelled to the club's stadium, Parc des Princes, to buy the new PSG jersey, embroidered with a star to mark the Champions League victory. 'There was an hour wait to get into the store, but it was worth it,' said Mr Gouyard. The pair, season ticket holders, said they planned to attend the celebration at the stadium. 'We've been waiting for the victory for years so we're going to enjoy it!' After the parade, French president Emmanuel Macron welcomed players and coaching staff to the Élysée Palace on Sunday. The Élysée Palace said in a statement that the victory 'marks a historic stage for French football on the European stage and crowns the engagement of an entire club and its supporters'. Additional reporting by Josh Noble Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2025
Irish Times
15 hours ago
- Irish Times
Viva Vitinha: how PSG's deep conductor proved Lionel Messi wrong
'Not only are you bad, but you're hurting me.' The words, there, or so it was claimed, of Lionel Messi ; and however you spin it, a fairly tough six-month performance review from the greatest player of all time and your own footballing idol. Back in February 2023 Vitinha was very quick to deny that any such training ground altercation had taken place between himself and Messi at PSG , whatever the reports in the French football press at the time (another version of that conversation has Messi saying: 'Do you see? This is why you're shit.') Vitinha was clear: never happened. All the same this shadow interaction was cast at the time as a glimpse of the wider unease among the aristos, the powdered wigs of that star-system dressingroom. Messi, Neymar and Kylian Mbappé were, it was said, 'disappointed with the quality' of the club's most recent recruits. Given those new arrivals included Vitinha and Fabián Ruiz, two-thirds of the Champions League -winning midfield, that disappointment has now presumably been served up very, very cold at Sunday's victory buffet in Munich. READ MORE But whatever the extent of those tensions there is no doubt Vitinha was still idling on the runway at that point: 23 years old and still all promise, a mix of obvious weak spots – slow, physically slight – and obvious super-strengths, most notably the strangely intimate and tender relationship with the ball. Fast forward to Saturday night and the evisceration of Inter Milan in Munich has confirmed his altered status. Vitinha is now the most effective central midfielder in the world, a Champions League-winning fulcrum and the key lubricant in Luis Enrique's treble-winning team. Everyone likes this kind of story, the late bloomer who offers an on-this-day angle at each fresh note of triumph. Let's do it then. Four years ago Vitinha was coming on as a late sub for Wolves in a 1-0 defeat at Everton, his last loan appearance before Wolves passed up on a low-cost option to buy him. The year before, he spent the fag-end of his first spell at Porto repeatedly coming on between the 72nd- and 77th-minute mark. Even his squad number was 77. He was basically that 77th-minute guy, generically high technique, an avatar of promising-Velcro-touch Portuguese midfielder. Wolves had quite a few of these in their sights at the time. Who do you take the gamble on? Who can make the leap up here? For all the data, the smell test, the eye test, the gut test, nobody in football really knows about other elements like pressure points, will, chemistry, the ability to produce moments of clarity when the air is thinnest, as Vitinha did to make PSG's first goal on Saturday night. The key pass to Désiré Doué was clipped hard, raising the tempo perfectly, hitting just the right spot on Doué's foot. It was a moment that will slip between the headline numbers, but which changed the game decisively. Paris Saint-Germain's midfielder Vitinha in action against and Inter Milan's Lautaro Martinez during the Champions League final in Munich. Photograph: Franck Fife/AFP via Getty Images For Vitinha there was an assist in the second half, a through pass to Doué, who ran on to make it 3-0 and chloroform Inter into a final state of submission. It seemed fitting PSG's deep conductor should assert himself in this way on this stage, if only because Vitinha has been utterly key to the more nuts-and-bolts transformation of the team. First as an element of control in the classic modern style, brilliant at taking the ball and funnelling it on, a footballer who will simply wear you down and make you chase, killing you softly, flooding your calves with lactic acid. Vitinha completed more passes than any other player in this season's Champions League, and ended up second on kilometres covered, just behind his maniacal co-pivot João Neves. But this is not your basic ball-hog. Vitinha has something else, an ability to drive the game as well as control it, hot as well as cold possession. Against Inter his most telling stat was 44 of 46 medium-range passes completed, and it was notable how often that longer pass was the source of a shift of gear or a sudden transition. It is a quality of command that didn't seem to come easily. It is perhaps a little overlooked, but it takes an extraordinary degree of confidence, even a kind of arrogance to run a game like this, to be the passing fulcrum in a possession-heavy team. For Vitinha the point of ignition came after his return to Porto from Wolves. Manchester United, Arsenal and Barcelona were soon being posited as likely destinations, unsurprisingly given the GDP of Portugal is basically 35 per cent transfer rumours, 25 per cent hidden agents' fees. PSG, for whom no signing is ever really a gamble, were willing to pay the €41.5 million release clause. Still there was a sense of something slightly blocked in his progress. By the time of the ghost falling-out with Messi, L'Équipe was already putting Vitinha at the heart of internal disappointment around the 2022 rebuild. A club insider was quoted as saying: 'It's the weakest since I've been at the club. They don't understand why PSG let [Leandro] Paredes, Idrissa Gueye and even Julian Draxler go to recruit Vitinha, Fabián Ruiz and Carlos Soler, even if the latter is a little better regarded than the other two.' Even by debauchery-era PSG standards, always a farrago of leaks and bitchiness, it looks like a wonderful line now. Luis Enrique deserves most credit for the way Vitinha has flowered, encouraging him to act as an autonomous passing unit, a roving brain. How far can this go? There is a sense with Vitinha in this PSG team of a cog hitting its mark, of the perfect part for a highly engineered team, like installing exactly the right replacement reverse flange-torque transponder in a luxury German saloon car. Wolves may have failed to see the endgame with this slow-burn child of Xavi but it is also significant that English football still doesn't produce this type of player, the pure passing technician. There is no doubt Vitinha, or even half a Vitinha, would have seriously upgraded any of the trophy-curious England teams of the last few years. As he has with Paris, who have a chance now to rule the world at the grisly but hugely lucrative Club World Cup. Who knows, along the way Vitinha 2.0 might even get a chance to make Messi look bad again. – Guardian
