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Preview: This Weekend at Auteuil.

Auteuil hosts an excellent weekend of jumping action which includes four Grade One events across the two days. The leading four-year-old hurdler and chaser will be crowned alongside the G1 Grand Steeplechase de Paris (6000m). We preview the top-class weekend.

Last year saw the inaugural weekend Spring Festival at Auteuil. Following up this year, the quality of the meeting remains strong with four Grade One races which will be complimented with six Black Type events across the fifteen races.

Saturday's feature will be the running of the Grande Course de Haie d'Auteuil (G1) over 5100m. Irish trainer Willie Mullins has won this race on five occasions and nominated three of the nine runners. They will take on the French Champion mare L'Autonomie who will be seeking a second successive win in the race and eighteenth career victory. For Mullins, his best chance will be Klassical Dream, a last start winner at the Punchestown Festival in Ireland last month. The distance of this race will suit. 

Sunday will be the day when three Grade One Champions will be crowned. The feature race of the season will be run – the G1 Grand Steeplechase de Paris – over 6000m across the testing Auteuil track. No previous winners are engaged. Twelve international horses have won the race, however you have to go back 60 years to find the last victor – Mandarin, trained in the UK by Fulke Walwyn and ridden by Fred Winter. Within the capacity field of sixteen there are five international runners. Irish trainer Willie Mullins has three runners – Franco de Port and Al Boum Photo, a last start third in the G1 Punchestown Gold Cup in April and Burrows Saint who is to be ridden by Rachael Blackmore. Two English trained horses are the supplemented entrants in Screaming Colours prepared by William Durkin and Lord du Mesnil from Richard Hobson.

The local horses will see four from Francois Nicolle's yard and two from the training duo of Hector Laganeste & Guillaume Macaire.

Best chances appear to be Happy Monarch, Feu Follet and Sel Jem. What is clear, is the consistency of many of the contenders having filled placings in the Group lead up races.

This race is always the highlight of the French Jumping Calendar and carries prizemoney totalling €820,000.

Four-year-old feature hurdle the Prix Alain du Breil is run over 3900m and is a contest that invariably discovers a future hurdling star. The horse to beat will be Hawai du Berlais raced by the Estate of the late Magalen Bryant who passed away last year. An American, she had supported French jump racing for twenty years and won multiple Grade One races. She won the Grand Steeplechase de Paris three successive year's with So French (twice) and Milford Thomas. Her horses are being put up for sale and are the featured Lots at the sale to be conducted over this weekend. Hawai du Berlais is part of the offering and come Sunday could be racing for new connections. Hawai du Berlais won the traditional lead-up race, Prix Amadou at G2 level defeating several reopposing rivals.  

Another Grade One race for four-year-olds is the Prix Ferdinand Dufaure, a steeplechase. Francois Nicolle has unearthed the very smart filly, La Manigance who remains undefeated in three steeplechase starts with her most recent being the G2 Prix Jean Stern. Nicolle knows how to prepare a horse for this race having won two of the past five running's including last year.