Vincennes spring meet ready to go

Twenty days. Vincennes will have closed its doors for twenty days between the end of its winter harness racing meeting on Saturday 4 March and the launch of its spring season next Friday, 24 March.

Its spring sequence will last just over three months until Friday 30 June. Just before that, on Sunday 25 June, the climax of the season will take place with the big meeting of the five Group 1s. The scope of Vincennes’ spring meeting remains the same as last year with a total of 44 major stakes events.

The break is short-lived. The spring meeting offers to enter a particularly dense sporting sequence. At Vincennes, no less than five Group 1s will be contested (all on 25 June), twenty-one Group 2s and eighteen Group 3s. That’s more in proportion than during the winter.

If we now talk about the spring meeting of LeTROT racecourses, with Enghien and Caen, we must add one Group 1 (the Prix de l’Atlantique), four Groups 2 and one Group 3. In short, the trotting spring is a sporting one.

The reform of the 3-, 4- and 5-year-old selection programme was finalized last year. As a result, there is no spectacular change this year in the Vincennes spring programme. The big fixture on 25 June, the Champions’ Day, includes the same five Group 1s as last year (Prix d’Essai, du Président de la République, de Normandie under saddle; Prix Albert Viel and René Ballière harnessed).

Three grand finals under saddle on 25 June Each 3-, 4- and 5-year-old crop has its own Group 1 in the mounted discipline on 25 June. And each programme upstream plays the role of qualification for the major events.

It should be noted that the 3-year-olds are not “marketed” as ‘Etrier’ as are the 4-year-olds (Etrier 4 Ans Qualificatives which lead to the Final, i.e. the Prix du Président de la République) and the 5-year-olds (same logic with the Prix de Normandie as the Etrier 5 Ans Final).

The 2023 Vincennes Spring Meeting in figures Dates: from Friday 24 March to Friday 30 June ■ Number of major stakes: 35 (same as 2022 and 2021) ■ Number of races: 278 (+7 on 2022 and +6 on 2021) ■ Budget: €16,103,000 (+4.0% on 2022).

From LeTrot