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Lope de Vega completes French classic double

PARIS - Lope de Vega ridden by Maxime Guyon won the Prix du Jockey Club (French Derby) at Chantilly racecourse on Sunday to complete the Guineas/Derby double last achieved by Shamardal in 2005.

Lope de Vega - a 10/1 chance and giving trainer Andre Fabre only his second success in the race - beat home the hotly-fancied 5/1 shot Planteur, who handed trainer Elie Lellouche his third runners-up spot in France’s premier colts classic.

The 16/1 chance Pain Perdu was third, rewarding trainer Nicolas Clement’s bold gamble to supplement him - Behkabad under last year’s winning jockey Christophe Lemaire was fourth and the Aidan O’Brien-trained Viscount Nelson was fifth at 86/1.

The major disappointment of the race was O’Brien’s other runner and hot favourite Cape Blanco, who looked to be a certainty on the formbook having easily beaten Saturday’s recordbreaking Epsom Derby winner Workforce in his previous outing.

However, despite taking close order early on and being given every chance in the straight he failed to quicken under Johnny Murtagh and faded leaving the 40-year-old trainer still without a winner in the race.

Lellouche, though, will be cursing his fortune or rather lack of it in the race as the 58-year-old Tunisian-born handler yet again came up just short.

Planteur, who had been specially laid out for this race, was close up from the start racing in third behind his pacemaker Vivre Libre and Lope de Vega with jockey Anthony Crastus keeping a watchful eye on Guyon.

However, as Vivre Libre ceded his frontrunning role on entering the straight it was Guyon who stole first march on the field and stormed clear while Crastus sought desperately to reel him in.

Crastus, still seeking his first Group One win in France, had the whip out and tried to engineer an increasingly desperate last burst out of Planteur while Ice Blue briefly threatened to give owner Prince Khalid Abdullah his second Derby of the weekend and trainer Pascal Bary his sixth French Derby.

However, Ice Blue - under Epsom Oaks and Dwerby winning rider Ryan Moore - too gave up the ghost and it was Pain Perdu who stayed on under Frankie Dettori having also been well up to the front throughout the race.

Guyon, though, had the luxury of easing his mount up well ebfore the line and taking a cheeky look behind him as he collected his fourth Group One race in his so far short career.

For the German owners Gestut Amerland and especially their patriarch 68-year-old publisher and former commercial lawyer and dressage specialist Dietrich Boetticher it was a sweet moment.

Five years ago Boetticher had to sit and watch the agony of his hot favourite Hurricane Run being turned over in the race by one ...Shamardal. On Sunday his new stable star more than made up for that disappointment.