Vadeni supplemented for mouthwatering clash with Luxembourg

Arc runner-up added to field for Tattersalls Gold Cup.

Vadeni will line up in the Tattersalls Gold Cup at the Curragh on Sunday after being supplemented at a cost of EURO 45,000.

The four-year-old son of Churchill, who is owned and was bred by the Aga Khan, is trained in Pau, France, by Jean-Claude Rouget.

He won the Prix de Guiche, the Prix du Jockey Club and the Coral-Eclipse last season, having also been supplemented for the latter.

The bay was then third to Luxembourg in the Irish Champion Stakes and second by half a length to Alpinista in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, after which he began his season this time around in the Prix Ganay at ParisLongchamp and finished fourth of seven runners.

The Prince of Wales’s Stakes has been mentioned as a target for the first half of the colt’s season and as the Tattersalls Gold Cup falls neatly between the Ganay and the Royal meeting he has been added to the Group One at the Kildare track.

Vadeni (second right) winning the Coral-Eclipse
Vadeni (second right) winning the Coral-Eclipse (Nigel French/PA)

Georges Rimaud, the Aga Khan’s racing and breeding manager in France, said of the timing of the Curragh race: “There’s a logic to going and running in this race, that’s why we’ve chosen this one.

“Hopefully it will make good sense and he will perform well, I hear there’s no rain planned and we’re not really worried about the type of ground he is going to run on anyway. He has, in the past, liked this sort of fast-ish ground so he should be fine.

“The horse is doing well, he has improved from his last race. We are hoping for a good run from him, the ground should suit him.”

Vadeni is likely to face a familiar rival in Aidan O’Brien’s Luxembourg, with Sir Michael Stoute’s Bay Bridge, who finished in front of him in the Ganay, also entered.

“It should be a good race, it often is, but this is Vadeni and he is a Group One horse and should be campaigned at that level,” Rimaud said.

The Prince of Wales’s Stakes remains Vadeni’s target come June, though naturally the Irish trip needs to be considered a success for that plan to be pursued.

Rimaud said: “We’ll go a step at a time, that is part of the plan but each part of the plan needs to go well so we’ll see after the race.”

Vadeni’s entry at the Curragh makes matters easier regarding the next steps of last season’s Prix Daniel Wildenstein winner Erevann, who will go to the Prix d’Ispahan now it is not on the agenda for his stablemate.

Rimaud confirmed: “That is the plan, he’s going to run in the Prix d’Ispahan.”

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