MAGNIFICENT MID DANCER

MID DANCER (43) stretched his unbeaten record in France to an amazing fourteen races when cruising home in the Group 2 Prix George Courtois at Auteuil. As ever he clocked a remarkably fast time and beat the brilliant mare KARIO DE SORMAIN (42) into second.

It's a shame Mid Dancer lost over a hopelessly inadequate two miles in the Arkle and that he needed the run when second to Monet's Garden in his only other UK start. But this does have the advantage of creating a totally different reputation for the horse on either side of the Channel. In France his big win was greeted with the headline 'Mid Dancer remains the king of France' in Paris Turf. But in Britain and Ireland Mid Dancer is widely regarded as just another vaguely decent French jumper that wasn't good enough to beat horses outside of his home country.

The problem for Mid Dancer now is that he's really a proper three mile chaser and there just aren't any races for him in France over that distance for about six months. This being so I find it hard to believe that owner Sean Mulryan won't be shipping him over to Ireland sooner rather than later. There are far more opportunities for him over here.

Kario De Sormain demonstrated once again that she can set a seriously fast pace, jump like a stag and keep on running all the way to the line. Her ideal distance seems to be the 2m 6f of this race, but she's got the ability to win a Grade 1 chase in Britain or Ireland at two and a half miles or more likely an easy three.

PASSAGE OF TIME HARD TO ASSESS

Over the last decade or so a steadily decreasing percentage of France's top horses have run as two year olds. In the old days we'd see French champion two year olds like Arazi strut their stuff in a whole strong of races from early in the season. Now good two year olds are so thin on the ground in France that few races for them are even run in the first half of the year, and the vast majority of them are claiming contests.

I suspect the incredibly generous government incentives paid to the owners of French-bred horses which win French races is the cause of the trend. It has motivated French stud farms to hang on to a lot of their better bred horses and race them for themselves. The stud farms are naturally keen to ensure their horses retain their stud value, so they are shy of running them in two year old races over inadequate distances where they could look bad. That's my theory anyhow.

These days French Group 1 juvenile races are invariably a soft touch for British, Irish and even the occasional German raider like the filly Paita who took the Criterium de Saint-Cloud back in 2004.

This year it was the turn of a British-trained filly, PASSAGE OF TIME (31) to win the Criterium de Saint-Cloud from the Coolmore colt SOLDIER OF FORTUNE (30). Just how good either of them are is hard for me to say as the race was not run at a strong enough pace to produce a good final time. My suspicion is that time will show this to be a weak Group 1.

French Champion two year old SPIRIT ONE (28) needs a test of stamina. So his jockey probably did the sensible thing by kicking on into the lead after a couple of furlongs. But the clock suggests he didn't go fast enough to make use of Spirit One's stamina, so it's not that surprising the horse got outkicked in the sprint finish.

Spirit One has twice earned proper Group 1 speed ratings from me and I'll be surprised if he doesn't turn out to be much the best of the horses that ran in this race.