Eight sand races in Deauville

Deauville, Friday 16 December: Eight races will be run today at the Hippodrome de Deauville-La Touques. Among the better races, in penultimate place, is the Prix Vodkato (7th race/5.30pm/27,000 euros/1900m), a `Classe 2` test with twelve entrants.

Gregolimo (Ioritz Mendizabal) last won on the Fibersand track in Pau against the slightly higher rated Alessandro (Jean-Bernard Eyquem) and fully confirmed the place of honour achieved before in Longchamp. A victory of the stallion trained by Simone Brogi should be possible, but Invincible Light (Stephane Pasquier), who ran very well in Chantilly, also announces first chances. In his third place he was only just beaten for silver, but clearly better than Kenway (Hugo Journiac) and Charlesquint (Gregory Benoist), who was a glaring disappointment when finishing last, but should run better again this time. Hooking (Aurelien Lemaitre) did well to finish third in a `Classe 1` handicap here on 6 November. Irska (Mickael Barzalona) will try it over sand, after she could not convince at list level in Fontainebleau. Before that, the five-year-old finished a good fifth in a Group 3 race.