Facteur Cheval on course for third Champions Day appearance

Jerome Reynier’s immediate focus may be on Lazzat’s Sprint Cup quest at Haydock on Saturday, but another of his stable stars, Facteur Cheval, is being prepared to make it third time lucky at British Champions Day next month.

The consistent six-year-old has been a regular visitor to Britain throughout his career and has twice fallen short in Ascot’s showpiece Queen Elizabeth II Stakes, finishing second to compatriot Big Rock in 2023 before chasing home Roger Varian’s Charyn 12 months ago.

Last seen in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot, he will now try to get his head in front for the first time on British soil, with connections seeing his freshness as a positive ahead of the October 18 contest.

“We’re going to wait for the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes again and he’s placed in it a few times and always runs well in it, so we’re looking forward to it,” said Barry Irwin, CEO of Team Valor International, who own the horse in partnership with Gary Barber.

“Jerome had to send him off for a month R and R after his run at Royal Ascot as he lost some weight and didn’t look as well as he should. He’s got him back and he looks fine but he’s been unable to do enough with him to race in the Prix du Moulin this weekend, so Ascot is the plan.

“I hope he can run well again at Ascot, he likes the course and it will all depend how the ground comes up. He does want some cut in the ground and if it’s a bog he can handle that too and as long as it’s not really firm I think he can do it.

“He does run well fresh and has shown that before.”

Connections are targeting a second win the Dubai Turf next year, willing to forego other valuable events in the Middle East early in 2026 to focus solely on peaking at Meydan on Dubai World Cup night, as they did in 2024.

“Next year we’re going to pinpoint the Dubai Turf again and I think we’ll take him over and run him in that race cold turkey,” continued Irwin.

“We’ll have Jerome do what he did when we went there and won the first time and give him a little afternoon trial at the local racecourse and then show up for the race. That’s a tried and tested plan which a lot of Europeans take and has worked well for this horse before.

“All things considered, he’s still fairly lightly raced and we haven’t hammered him. The biggest campaign he had was earlier this year in the Middle East where we got a little ambitious and ran him on the dirt a few times and I don’t think we’ll be doing that next year.”