Tashkhan has threatened to be a group 1 winner over staying trips ever since chasing home Trueshan in the 2021 Long Distance Cup, although the weather gods haven’t offered him too many opportunities when the rain has really got into the ground since.
Last season he wasn’t entirely right after finishing a distant third to Kyprios in an attritional Prix du Cadran (G1), but Longchamp once again offers the teak-tough son of Born To Sea his optimum conditions in the final group 1 of the French season, the Prix Royal-Oak.
Lately, trainer Brian Ellison has asked Tashkhan some tough weight-carrying questions in the major staying handicaps and he comes here off an almighty effort when third under a welter burden in the Cesarewitch.
“It was an unbelievable run and he got beaten by two good horses, giving them a stone,” said Ellison. “It was as good a performance in a handicap as you can have. He seems fine but you don’t know until you run them. He is tough and it’s his last run of the year, while the ground is heavy, which is what he wants.”
Ellison added: “The only worry is that it’s only a fortnight after the Cesarewitch and there’s the traveling, it’s eight hours down to Dover and a stop overnight. But he’s 100% and spot on.”
Harry Fry will be making his first visit to Longchamp to saddle Metier, a classy hurdler who has not been seen in either code since landing the Chester Cup under Saffie Osborne.
Fry said: “Ideally, we’d have got a prep run in but he went away to stretch his legs around Salisbury early in the month.”
The Royal-Oak has gone the way of 3-year-olds in five of the last eight seasons and the Christophe Ferland-trained Double Major will be the lone representative of the Classic crop.
