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Tuesday, April 20th 2010. “A piece of cake” was how Emmanuel Roussel and his accomplice Gilles Barbarin, having set up the commentary link for Windsor on Monday, April 19th, might have described the enterprise. (How did they get into the country when thousands of returning Brits were camped on the beach at Calais? Did we learn nothing from Dunkirk?)
Last Monday’s Tote/PM “intermingling” at the popular Windsor evening meeting was an experiment which will continue through the summer.
British Tote’s George Primarolo was “very pleased” to put out a French input figure of £412,000 from what was a fairly humdrum Windsor card.
A midweek meeting at Auteuil last Wednesday was equally tranquil. Nothing stirred on a day as warm as we have come to expect for the Grand Steep itself. Even Auteuil Cyrille mouthpiece could hear himself think.
Everything was so low key the meagre attendance could have been borrowed from an English cricket match.
Yet the day was worth recording. French Champion hurdler of two years ago, Oeil Du Maitre could not turn back the clock in the concluding Prix du Vivarais against insignificant rivals. He was arrête opposite the grandstands.
Former crack chaser Louping d’Ainay did far better returning from two years absence to overturn favourite Queen Des Places in the Prix Quo Vadis.
Five years ago Francois Cottin’s grey, now eleven, landed the Prix du President de la Republique, the latest renewal of which took place last Sunday.
The result there was a self confessed “emotional" victory for Nathalie Desoutter aboard Rescato de l’Oust.
Mlle Desoutter could be called France’s Nina Carberry – indeed Carberry could be called Ireland’s Desoutter. Certainly no jockey, male or female could have bettered the French lady rider’s finishing flourish on Dulce Leo in the Prix Philippe Menager.
It woke up the Auteuil faithful – Cyrille, along with the thrushes and starlings, burst into song.
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Frogwatch, by Rolf Johnson 
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