Pressure is on Andre Fabre with Godolphin’s Cloth Of Stars and Talismanic at Paris

The French maestro runs three horses in France’s best race over 2,400 metres restricted to three-year-olds, and in Cloth Of Stars and Talismanic he has two Godolphin-owned horses on a recovery mission, writes Geoffrey Riddle.

Godolphin are in top form at the moment but it is Andre Fabre's arm of the operation that needs to click into top gear ahead of the Grand Prix de Paris at Saint-Cloud on Thursday night.

The French maestro runs three horses in France’s best race over 2,400 metres restricted to three-year-olds, and in Cloth Of Stars and Talismanic he has two Godolphin-owned horses on a recovery mission. Fabre also will saddle the twice-raced dark horse Maniaco for the Wertheimer Brothers.

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Cloth Of Stars, to be ridden by Pierre Charles Boudot, was disappointing in the Derby at Epsom last month when only eighth to Harzand, while stablemate Talismanic, to be partnered by Mickael Barzalona, had no answer to the surging run of Almanzor in the Prix Du Jockey Club, the French equivalent, the next day.

Fabre’s stable was not in the best of form before those disappointments but after seven winners in the past fortnight, including Big Blue at Chantilly yesterday, he expects much better from his Godolphin pair.

“Cloth Of Stars is having his first run since the Derby, so is on a bit of a recovery mission,” Fabre said. “He appears outwardly to have recovered well and his work has been good. This is only his second try over 12 furlongs [2,400 metres] and his last try in the Derby was inconclusive. He goes on any type of ground so should not be inconvenienced if the thunderstorms materialise.”

Prior to the Prix Du Jockey Club, Talismanic won a Listed contest in heavy ground in May and if the course at Saint-Cloud is engulfed by the forecast rain the 27-time champion trainer envisages no problems.

“He is in great form and he should run well,” Fabre said of the son of American sire Medaglia d’Oro.

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