ENGLISH VERSION beginning of the twenty first Century. In 2001 France Galop in its wisdom decided to abandon the Prix de la Salamandre, run over 1400 metres at Longchamp at the beginning of September and replaced it with the 1600 metre Critérium International to be run at Saint-Cloud at the end of October. At the same time the Grand Critérium, traditionally run at Longchamp over 1600 in mid October was moved back to the Arc weekend, reduced to 1400 metres and a few years later renamed the Prix Jean-Luc Lagardère. The remainder of France’ s two year old Group races were then reorganized to fit in with these new Group 1 races.
The justification for these dramatic changes was that moving the best juvenile races back later in the season would encourage more French based horses to run and win these races. This has proved, beyond any shadow of a doubt, to be the wrong answer to the question of why the best French two year olds races are dominated by horses trained abroad. Even before there were twenty five years of failure as evidence, the justifications started to look hollow. From about the same time at the beginning of the Century two year old racing on all-weather tracks in November and December transformed the program for those French trainers preparing young horses with the following year’ s Classic races in their sights. The problem of alternatives became greater still when the Breeders’ Cup added two year old turf races to its Championship Day program. Looking back twenty five years later, it seems incredible that anybody thought it was a good idea to replace and abandon one of the best two year old races in the world. The Prix de la Salamandre was run nearly always on perfect ground at the first Longchamp meeting of the autumn, and it was regularly won by great Champions from France, but also from England and Ireland. In the last ten years of its existence, it was won by horses of the calibre of Giant’ s Causeway, Pennekamp, Zafonic, Coup de Génie and Arazi. And yet people thought it was a great idea to scrap this and replace it with a race run nine years out of ten on heavy ground two months later at more or less the same time as the Breeders’ Cup Championship weekend in the United States. Fewer of those who remember will still regret the old style Grand Critérium. It was won by some great horses, Blushing Groom, Irish River, Arazi or Kendor among others, but it too was often compromised by very soft ground and in its final years was won by a sequence of ordinary‘ champions’. The Jean-Luc Lagardère is not always an excellent Group 1 but the Arc weekend still attracts runners from all over Europe, and it has produced at least two top stallions in
Siyouni and Wootton Bassett, even if strangely neither were particularly popular when they first retired to stud. The Critérium International got off to a good start with its first three winners being Act One, Dalakhani and Bago, but soon afterwards it began to lose its luster as many of France’ s leading trainers decided not to target the race with their best Classic prospects. André Fabre has not won the Critérium International since 2007, but then in the years 2008-2025 there were only two French trained winners, French Fifteen for Nicolas Clément in 2011 and Ectot for Élie Lellouche in 2013. The Critérium International doesn’ t work as few French trainers wish to run their best three year old prospects in a Group 1 on heavy ground, particularly when, if necessary, they can be brought along by racing on the all weather in Chantilly or Deauville in November or December. It has proved attractive to English and Irish trainers, and in particular to those who have so many prospective Classic horses that they struggle to find enough opportunities closer to home. The Critérium International has also failed to produce any future leading stallions since its earliest years. As things stand there are only two possible solutions, if we rule out continuing to throw money at a race of such limited interest. The best would surely be to bring back the Salamandre and restructure the preparatory races
# 22 – Novembre 2026 170