The French have been knocking on the door this week but Ramatuelle can finally open it for them by winning the Coronation Stakes. 

Christopher Head’s filly has a lot going for her other than the fact, notwithstanding France is a republic, that her trainer is fifth generation French racing royalty. But he relentlessly refused to trade on that and, ploughing his own furrow, has made a big impact in a short time.

Ramatuelle was, for all except the last three strides, the best filly in the 1,000 Guineas. She was sent on by jockey Aurelean Lemaitre and set up to be shot at. Only in the last few yards was she was closed down by two of today’s rivals, Elmalka and Porta Fortuna.

She was the only filly to have raced prominently that day to have finished in the money and even Fallen Angel, who went on to win the Irish equivalent, could not hack that pace.

Today, Head has replaced Lemaitre with Oisin Murphy who has been on fire this week – three winners so far – and has been riding, talking and behaving with a maturity he lacked in his wilder, younger pre-14 month Covid breach ban, something he might regard one day as the best thing that ever happened to him. He might yet make the replacement for Frankie Dettori that racing craves. 

It is a deep race though. Elmalka and Porta Fortuna will have their fans, Ramatuelle’s countryman Rouhiya was a surprise winner of the French Guineas and is clearly good but this is her first start on anything without soft in the going description.

Like Ramatuelle, Aidan O’Brien’s Opera Singer is by Justify, and should come on a ton for her Irish Guineas third if she follows the pattern set by a lot of her stablemates this spring. Back on quicker ground, Falgaria, an also-ran in the French Guineas after beating Elmalka in the Fred Darling, might be worth a second glance even in this company.  

When Rosallion won the St James’s Palace on Tuesday his owner-breeder Sheikh Mohammed Obaid implied that the colt Richard Hannon described as the best he had had around his place might not even be the best horse running in his distinctive yellow-and-black spotted silks at Ascot this week; the rival for that distinction, he said, was Inisherin, the colt he also bred which he supplemented for today’s Commonwealth Cup.

That may not be literally from the horse’s mouth but the Sheikh, who bred and owned supersire Dubawi, knows his onions and his trainer Kevin Ryan is definitely not given to flights of fancy. Inisherin dotted up in the Sandy Lane and his biggest danger could be another Yorkshire-trained colt in the same ownership, Elite Status.

He is in a similar bracket to Clive Cox’s Jasour, a quick two-year-old whose form tailed off in the autumn before bouncing back on their one start of the season so far.