French racing authorities prevent Snow Fairy from running in the Prix Jean Romanet, leaving Ed Dunlop furious
The 4-year-old Ed Dunlop trained filly, Snow Fairy, will not be running in the Group 1 Darley Prix Jean Romanet at Deauville because the trainer Ed Dunlop learned about the technicalities surrounding the French racing rules which do not allow the filly to
run the race.
The globetrotting Snow Fairy, who has gone on to win Group 1 races four times in her 3-year racing career, was expected to go to France and head the field at Deauville on 21 August, 2011, after she was scratched earlier from the Darley Yorkshire Oaks on
16 August.
Trainer Ed Dunlop was informed about her filly being ruled out of the Deauville feature race on the evening of 18 August, which left the trainer fuming about the fact that his filly has no race to run in now.
Dunlop said, "Somewhat to my surprise I received an email from France Galop yesterday saying that there is a rule in France stating that if horses are declared to run within eight days they are not allowed to run unless there are extraordinary circumstances".
"In 22 years of taking entries the IRB's James Fry advised me he has never heard of this rule and was obviously as surprised as I was".
Dunlop then wisely pointed out the fact that the Michael Tabor owned Montjeu, back in the year 1999, went on to win the Prix Niel when the runner was given the green signal to run in a race in Ireland.
In accordance with the fact, he further said that the French authorities knew that the 4-year-old filly will not be running because of a certain rule by a trainer in France.
Group 1 Darley Prix Jean Romanet has recently been granted the group 1 stature and the fact of the matter is that the daughter of Intikhab has no race to run now. The race will now only consist of a few runners, four to five to be precise.
Ed Dunlop still is adamant on his stance, that the connections of Snow Fairy were never aware of the rule, and that they were never alerted before the stage where the declaration came that any rule of that sort existed.
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