Saturday, June 19th - Auteuil. The €370,000 Grande Course de Haies d’Auteuil (Gr1-5,100m) is one to remember even though the favourites flopped and the French turfistes booed almost the entire field on his way back to the paddock. It is all an hilarious Christophe Soumillon’s fault. Aboard Mandali (Fr-Sinndar), the Belgian adventurer took the lead, went far ahead of the pack and beat the favourite Questarabad (Fr-AQPS, Astarabad) by “a distance” - official.

The versatile jockey, who regularly drives trotters at Vincennes racetrack, had ridden his first jumper at Auteuil five days before to prepare his tilt at the French Champion Hurdle - which in fact is rather a Stayers’Hurdle with its 3 mile, 1 ½ furlong trip - and finished third.

Trained by Jean-Paul Gallorini for Ecurie Zingaro, co-owned by equestrian artist Bartabas and cinema producer Marin Karmitz, the Princess Zahra Aga Khan-bred Mandali was led away from the field early on and jumped a couple of hurdles awkwardly but Soumillon once again showed great horsemanship as he let his mount go on his own… and take about a hundred yards to the remainder of the field, including the big favourite Questarabad. The latter needs to relax in the rear and his rider Regis Schmidlin wasn’t keen to rally the pack. The fact that almost every other runner was watching exclusively Questarabad vastly explains the jockeys’ poor tactics – That is exactly what they say to puzzled stewards afterwards.

“It was amazing,” declared Soumillon on his way back to the weighing room. "Unbelievable… I was supposed to take care of Questarabad but when I checked the others, I was already gone. I am not used to jump races and feared that I had done too much too early. Hearing the crowd booing, I thought that I had done something wrong, or that the start was void. Eventually, I simply rode according to the horse’s willing.”

It was such an ironic result. Three weeks earlier, Gallorini had been extremely upset after his Grand Steeple favourite Remember Rose unseated Christophe Pieux at the start. The French starter and the stewards let go and the result stood despite the trainer’s and his supporters’ fury.

Twenty days later, the same bunch was meeting the French stewards again but on the winners’ podium with a broad and irrepressible smile on their face.

Mandali, a brother to Opera winner Mandesha (Desert Style) sold €62,000 to Jean-Paul Gallorini at the 2008 Arqana November Sale (click here for catalogue page).

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