8 September 2020
Sunday, September 6, 2020, ParisLongchamp. - By winning the 179th edition of the Prix Gladiateur (Gr3), a 1m7f race for aged horses first run on Champ-de-Mars in Paris in 1807, Called to the Bar (Henrythenavigator) became the first triple winner of the race! Bred and owned by the Klinbergs' Fair Salinia, he's an example of consistency on French soil. The 6-year-old gelding has won eight of his sixteen outings in France, and always finished "in the money", more precisely six times second or third.
He did not miss a single appointment with the race, which pays tribute since 1869 to the first French winner of the Epsom Derby -and of the triple crown, at the same time- , in 1865. Trained by Pia and Joakim Brandt, and always ridden by Maxime Guyon, he travelled in sixth position and came by the leaders in the homestretch to take over the filly Think of Me (So You Think), who had just taken the best on the fading front-runner Get Shirty (Teofilo) and Windstoss (Shirocco). Sublimis (Shamardal) finished well in third place.
Called to the Bar is the second last foal out of Perfect Hedge (Dalakhani), winner of a Prix Pénélope (Gr3), and the only one still in training today.