Christophe Soumillon guides Ch’Ezza towards the finish line.
Paris: Abdullah bin Fahad Al Attiyah’s representative Ch’Ezza (FR) (AF Albahar x Cherazade) won the President of the UAE Cup - Coupe de France des Chevaux Arabes (Gr1 PA) beating Wathnan Racing’s representative Abbes (TM Fred Texas), trained by Alban de Mieulle and ridden by Mickael Barzalona, by a neck at Paris Longchamp, France, yesterday.
After being held-up in mid-division along the rails, the François Rohaut-trained and Christophe Soumillon-ridden Ch’Ezza showed courage to go to the lead and land the spoils. The third place went to Al Riffaa (Al Mourtajez), who was further two lengths behind, representing Mohamed bin Fahad Al Attiyah. In common with Ch’Ezza, he is trained by François Rohaut and was ridden by Oisin Murphy on the occasion.
Ch’Ezza was recording his first Gr1 PA win. He won the first three races of his 2022 campaign, but he surrendered his unbeaten record in the French Arabian Breeders’ Challenge Classic (Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan - Gr1 PA) at the end of October at Toulouse, where the classy Moshriff was the only one to beat him.
François Rohaut commented: “We have known for a while that he is a very good horse! He has had a slightly different career pathway, having made a late start to his racing career. Ch’ezzahas had some niggling problems, but nothing serious. He’s improving with every race. Last year he finished a head behind Moshriff. Subsequent to that he’s mastered Abbes on ground and over a distance that clearly doesn’t bother him. Before the race he was a bit fresh. That surprised me. He was probably happy to be going to the races. Ch’Ezza is on a par with my good horses! He’s a horse that goes well when fresh, so we’ll space out his races. He will certainly run at Deauville before heading to the Qatar Arabian World Cup, without any trepidation, at Longchamp.”
