By Emma Berry
One of the quickest juveniles out of the blocks in Europe this season has been The Fixer (Ire), who is trained in Chantilly by Francis Graffard and is now en route for Royal Ascot. Whether or not the young son of No Nay Never appears there in the same colours in which he won Sunday's Listed Prix La Flèche remains to be seen, however, as he will first go under the hammer at the Goffs London Sale on the eve of the royal meeting.
The Fixer is out of the Group 3-placed Kodiac (GB) mare Fixette (Ire) (Kodiac {GB}), who was herself fast and early, winning on her 900m debut at Saint-Cloud in April. Her son has followed suit, and has already made four starts, winning twice after being runner-up on debut on March 23. It is a family with which Graffard is already very familiar.
“I trained his dam, and she was very sharp and precocious, and then I had the brother, and he was the same,” he says.
The brother in question is Faro De San Juan (Ire), who became the first winner for his sire Almanzor (Fr) two years ago.
Graffard continues, “It's a very sharp family, and we don't breed horses like that very much in France, so it is hard to find horses of this profile.
“Another aspect is that the [French] premiums are very high on two-year-olds. A lot of people are looking for horses with premiums. On one hand we don't breed this type of horse and on the other hand everybody is looking for premiums. So the early sprint races can be easy for owners to win.”
After failing to reach his reserve in the ring at Arqana's August Sale, The Fixer was bought privately by Graffard and his wife Lisa-Jane for €95,000 and now races for a syndicate which includes the couple under their Stamford Bloodstock banner. The group of fellow owners features Guillaume de Saint-Seine, who is enjoying a particularly good year so far as he is also the part-owner of Angers (Fr) (Seabhac), the recent winner of the German 2,000 Guineas.
Graffard says, “At the sales with Lisa I always to try to find this type of horse. The Fixer ticked a lot of boxes but he didn't have the premiums, and that makes a huge difference, but we took the risk, and at some stage you need to go for the right horse, not for the premiums only. But if you buy horses on spec without premiums it is always harder.”
The Fixer set about making things easier when, in mid-April, he posted an eight-length victory at Saint-Cloud on his second start. However, things didn't go so smoothly the next time he ventured to Paris.
“My plan was to aim him towards Ascot, so I organised the programme around that and he ran in a conditions race at Longchamp and was very hot favourite,” Graffard explains. “He knocked himself down in the stalls and shouldn't have run. But they opened the gates, and he completely wasn't in the race. He's usually very sharp and this time he couldn't do it. He finished fourth, and I was very down, but when he came in he had scrapes everywhere, on his knees and all around his head, so there was a reason that he ran so poorly.
“I had the plan to run in the Listed race and fortunately we managed, with the team, to get him right in time for this. We saw the real The Fixer at Chantilly.”
With a trip to Ascot for the G2 Norfolk S. now very much back on the agenda, the decision was taken this week to enter The Fixer for Goffs' boutique auction a week on Monday.
“Everybody was happy again at Chantilly, but after Longchamp, and the experience of how high it can go and how low it can go, we said there was nothing to lose to go to the sales,” says the trainer. “If he is sold, we are happy, and if he is not sold we are happy because we run on Thursday in the Norfolk.”
He adds, “For a French horse to have had four runs already at this time of the year is quite unusual. At Chantilly, we beat those who came to challenge us, but there are very few five-furlong races in the French programme so we have to travel now.”
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