Lawman wins French Derby
 

Dettori with the hot hand this weekend

Frankie's on fire, but I dont trust the French Derby with its reduction in distance.. Some legends of the game won the French Derby but with the reduction in distance, it seems that out and out milers can lay claim to be Derby winners..

The real Derby is now the GP de Paris. It didn't make sense to have the 12f Jockey Club before a shortened GP de Paris at 10f, so they swapped distances so that 10f came before 12f.

Of course, when the GP de Paris was 3000m (15f, as it was when greats like Nearco won it), the Jockey Club made sense as a 2400m lead-in. They had a logical progression for a 3yo in the spring - the Poule at 1600m, the Lupin at 2000m, the Jockey Club at 2400m and the GP de Paris at 3000m. But after the powers that be axed 1000m off of the GP de Paris, logic was lost. So they dropped the Lupin entirely (history, smistory!), made the Jockey Club into the new Lupin, and the GP de Paris into the new Derby.

Yeah, it's turned into a bit of a shambles really in France. I never like the Lupin because it was essentially a G1 race that was a prep for the French Derby. I have something against recognised preps being G1 races..

Damn.

Retired.