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No need to porter des oeilleres to regard the Investec Derby as being a greater advert for French bloodstock than the next day’s domestic Prix du Jockey Club.
Without a French runner or even a French-bred in the Derby one concluded beforehand that there might have been a lack of Gallic interest in Epsom: nothing could be further from the truth.
Record breaking (timewise) Workforce is a son of Darley’s Haras du Logis-based stallion King’s Best: runner-up At First Sight emerged from the mating of Galileo with Healing Music – her abode is another Calvados breeding establishment, the Haras de Bourgeauville.
And third home Rewilding was of course brought to a peak by Andre Fabre before being whisked off to Newmarket by Fabre’s bosses, Godolphin.
Jan Vermeer, fourth, destroyed his Saint-Cloud Criterium International field last November.
If Jan Vermeer, or any other foreigner, returns he will find France’s new champion Lope de Vega, named for the 16th century playwright, Spain’s Shakespeare, has rewritten the script for the season.
In the Poulains Lope de Vega, like Makfi at Newmarket, had been too strong for the foreign colts.
At Chantilly, Coolmore's Cape Blanco, conqueror of Workforce (who had a legitimate excuse) in the Dante, was thought well capable of handling the French. Instead he was manhandled back to tenth.
Lope de Vega is by Shamardal who won the same pair of Classics – Poulains and Jockey Club - for Godolphin.
And his Gestut Ammerland owners can savour victory where their Hurricane Run narrowly failed. And also recall that soon Hurricane Run went on to greater glory - but under the Coolmore banner.
Whither Lope de Vega? How soon before his sire’s owners come calling?
One meeting that may never happen is the championship match with Workforce. The nearest we are likely to get is the collateral form which places them upsides: Jockey Club second Planteur had beaten Rewilding in the Noailles.
Andre Fabre is saying that the Machiavellian influence on both sides of Lope de Vega’s family may make him too excitable for the mile and a half, which is Workforce’s destiny.
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Frogwatch, by Rolf Johnson 
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