This is a story on the RP site - Full Story AN angry Ed Dunlop on Friday expressed dismay at learning a technicality in the French rules of racing will prevent Snow Fairy from running in Sunday's Group 1 Darley Prix Jean Romanet at Deauville. The four-time Group 1-winning filly had been expected to head across the channel after Dunlop scratched her from Wednesday's Yorkshire Oaks due the going. But the trainer was incensed to learn late on Thursday night that she would not be able to run. Dunlop told the Racing Post on Friday: "Somewhat to my surprise I received an email from France Galop yesterday saying that there is a rule in France stating that if horses are declared to run within eight days they are not allowed to run unless there are extraordinary circumstances. "In 22 years of taking entries the IRB's James Fry advised me he has never heard of this rule and was obviously as surprised as I was." Dunlop, who pointed out that Montjeu won the Prix Niel in 1999 having been declared to run in Ireland the previous day said he believes that the French racing authorities were alerted to the fact that Snow Fairy should be prevented from running due to the rule by a trainer based there. He continued: "The fact is that Snow Fairy does not have a race to run in now. This race has only been upgraded to Group 1 status recently and it will now have just four or five runners. We did not know of this rule and were never alerted prior to declaration stage that the rule existed." ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A farce which sees the globetrotting Snow Fairy missing a Group 1 race, who is at fault here? Is it the trainer for not knowing the rules or the French racing authority for having such a rule?
It's not for nothing we spent the best part of a millenium fighting the French. They do have good prize money though, or "plunder" as I believe Sir Mark Prescott called it when he sent Confidential Lady over to win the Prix Diane. The duplicitous gallic officials will continue to pick their noses at us English k-nig-hts, and we'll keep sending our best horses over there to be robbed and insulted. I still hope Pour Moi wins the Arc though.
A stupid rule, serves Dunlop right though for not running yesterday, he did the same in the Pretty Polly aswell, he's to fussy with the ground
Maybe trainers should start to read the rules of racing. I'd be a bit cheesed off to say the least if I owned Snow Fairy and that was another wasted entry fee.
Bit of a joke really her being pulled out so often due to 'ground'. Can understand the Pretty Polly as it was soft and raining that day but was there really much wrong with the ground at York?? Can't stand these horses who get pulled if there's a drop of rain on the grass. If the going begins with 'Good' there's never a reason not to run IMO.
This does look like another case of the rules conveniently materialising when it suits the French. If the rule existed in 1999, perhaps the Prix Niel not being Group 1 exempts it. Or was there some other reason that nobody mentioned Montjeu? Who trained him? I do not see why such a rule should exist anyway. Is this to try and stop a trainer from entering a horse in two or three big races and then opting to run it in the one that throws up the weakest opposition when the final declarations are announced? We know the French are a bunch of deluded socialists, but this does appear to be a one-way street. If Andre Fabre had a horse entered to run at Deauville on Sunday and pulled it, there would be nothing stopping him running it in Britain or Ireland next week. If I were going to Deauville, I would be a little miffed that the field has been reduced to five. Ed Dunlop is probably perfectly correct to assume that the natives have stitched him up. If a horse of the Aga Khan's had been entered in the Darley Yorkshire Oaks and had dropped out to run in the Darley Prix Jean Romanet, nobody would have mentioned it if the horse were trained in France. It would have been interesting if Snow Fairy had been owned by Godolphin, as Sheikh Mohammed would have been stopped from running a horse when he sponsors both races. OddDog, I do not want the Channel Tunnel filled in just yet as I have non-refundable Eurostar tickets for Arc weekend. After that the garlic-crunching surrender monkeys are fair game! Archers Road, the prize money is so good in France because of the State betting monopoly. The rake-off from the PMU funds it, especially the ordinary provincial stuff, like Cagnes-Sur-Mer that the bookies sometimes cover. On a general point, I would think that the full rules of French racing are on the France Galop website, but my French is not good enough to be able to trawl through it and find and translate them. As most of our trainers will use agencies to handle their foreign race entries, it would not be unreasonable to expect them to be 'au fait' with the rules.
It will be interesting to see if the rule is scrapped. One would assume that the rule should be incorporated within the entry declaration. If it isn't I would have thought there was an argument to say that the rule could not be enforced, not having been applied for so many years. If it was incorporated within the entry declaration then someone has been a bit slack and have only themselves to blame. Sounds like a trainer (presumably one with, or connected with, a runner in the race) has squealed, giving the authorities little option. It's also odd that the rule doesn't allow it to be overridden at the discretion of the authorities. Very bizarre.
If one patronises another country it is advisable to understand their rules and customs,even if they don't!!...Dunlop is Henrietta Knight in disguise in that he refuses to run his filly and continually cites the rather threadbare excuse of unsuitable ground...poetic justice one could argue...nice to know the French are so revered on not 606!!
I don't have much sympathy for Dunlop even though I'm no fan of the French either. I'm sick of the amount of times he's pulled Snow Fairy because of the ground. She won the Irish Oaks last year by 8 lengths on softish ground FFS!
In my experience trainers are renowned for not reading the conditions of a race/rules/etc. Hence my little run in a few years ago with a certain jumps trainer
