Racing: Tree blossoms to give Jarnet Cup success at second bite: Greg Wood surveys the major cross-Channel exchanges on a weekend of outstanding international competition

WITH PATIENCE, racing's wheel of fortune will generally turn full circle, as Thierry Jarnet discovered yesterday. Jarnet, the French champion jockey, left Epsom after the Coronation Cup two years ago spitting Gallic curses at the British riders who he believed had ganged up to ruin the chance of his mount, Subotica. Yesterday, he was in a more convivial mood after steering Apple Tree to success in the same race.

The Coronation Cup, the season's first Group One contest for older horses, is sometimes simply a consolation event for animals thought unworthy of immediate stud duty. Not so yesterday, however, when the 11-runner field included Urban Sea, last year's Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe winner, White Muzzle, the runner-up in that contest, and Intrepidity, last year's Oaks winner.

Also in the line-up was Monsun, the best horse in Germany (a description which is no longer the veiled insult it once was), prompting some observers to describe the contest as a 'mini-Arc'.

Indeed, Monsun was one of just four runners to start at single-figure odds, and the 9-1 chance set out to make the running under Pat Eddery. He held the advantage almost to the furlong pole, when White Muzzle, Urban Sea and the rank outsider Environment Friend made their challenge, but Apple Tree, with Jarnet steering well clear of his rivals down the middle of the course, finished best of all.

He beat Environment Friend by a length, with another two back to Blush Rambler and Intrepidity, the 5-2 favourite, many lengths adrift in last place after a thoroughly lifeless display. Both first and last are trained at Chantilly by Andre Fabre.

As for the winner, Emmanuel de Seroux, racing manager to Prince Sultan al Kabeer, Apple Tree's owner, unsurprisingly nominated the King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot in July and the Arc as likely targets. The rewards for Environment Friend, who alternates a racing career with sessions at stud, were more immediate. He returned home last night to cover a mare called Dame Margot.

Whether Apple Tree will be suited by the rough-and- tumble of Longchamp in October must be open to doubt, though. 'He's a very genuine horse but he doesn't like being tightened up between other horses and prefers to run his own race,' Jarnet said, adding: 'I wasn't here to get revenge, I rode the horse because of his ability.'

Willie Carson, who rewrote the rules on steering around Epsom on Wednesday, did not have a ride in yesterday's feature event. This afternoon he partners Bulaxie, the favourite, in the Oaks, and success would make Carson and John Dunlop, the filly's trainer, the first to complete the Epsom Classic double since Henry Cecil and Steve Cauthen (with Slip Anchor and Oh So Sharp) in 1985.

With just nine rivals today, traffic problems are unlikely to stop Carson. The ground, however, could, since Bulaxie has demonstrated a preference for cut, and with a fierce wind gusting across the Downs yesterday, the course was drying quickly. The official going forecast for today is good-to-firm, and despite her impressive trial performance, it is hard to describe Bulaxie as a value bet at current odds of 7-4.

Fabre is represented by Bonash, the mount of Pat Eddery, while John Hills, whose Broadway Flyer ran so disappointingly when second favourite for the Derby, looks for consolation with Wind In Her Hair. The best price on offer, though, is probably the 16-1 about Hawajiss, the Musidora Stakes winner.

The weekend's second Classic is the Prix du Jockey Club (French Derby) at Chantilly tomorrow, in which British trainers mount an unusually strong challenge. Cicerao (Henry Cecil), Alriffa (Richard Hannon) and Hawker's News (Michael Stoute) are, it will be recalled, the colts whose absence from the Derby was Exhibit A in the case to have the Classic declared sub-standard.

Connections and supporters of Erhaab, though, will be hoping that Moonlight Dance puts them in their place. The only filly in the field, she is another from the Fabre production line.

(Photograph omitted)