The Prix d’Amérique Legend Race, contested this Sunday at Paris-Vincennes, will be the scene of a thrilling duel between Face Time Bourbon, reigning world champion, and runner-up Davidson du Pont, in search of revenge. This is not the first time, in the most coveted trotting race on the planet, that two antagonists have stood out from the crowd, far from it. And harness racing connoisseurs know that it is risky to sum up a race to a match between two trotters … But we have to admit that some fights marked their time, before going down in posterity. We have selected four top rivalries since the early 1980s in the Prix d’Amerique Legend Race. First part dedicated to the confrontation between Ideal du Gazeau and Jorky, at the dawn of the 1980s.
January 25, 1981. 60th Prix d’Amerique Legend Race in history. Jorky is shaping up to be THE horse to beat. The brash trotter, born in purple and just 6 years old, is a winning machine. After winning the 3, 4 & 4yo Criteriums, in addition to the Criterium Continental, the “French trotter of the year 1980” dreams of being a harnessed trotting world champion. Installed favorite (tied), he must cross swords with his eldest, the four-time winner of Criterium Ideal du Gazeau, who is participating in his third Legend Race.
Second in 1979 before falling apart the following year when he was the overwhelming favorite (3/10), “Little guy” is in uncertain form. After a disappointing 6-year-old with the European Championship in Cesena as a consolation prize, Henri Fradin’s pupil has just made his reappearance in the Qualif # 5 Prix de Bourgogne, finishing fourth. But “Idéal” and its XXL-sized track record make punters – who place it second favorite ahead of Classical Way and Ianthin – to be suspicious. And they are right.
In an uncompromising race, where Ideal du Gazeau quickly finds himself at the forefront of the fight, the turning point occurs in the plain, when Club Special takes the lead, hindering Ianthin. There follows a “pile-up” which will play to the detriment of Jorky, walled up in the peloton. Eugène Lefèvre, the mentor of Ideal du Gazeau, asks his champion to step up. Little guy does, drops Club Special halfway up and deploys his battles.
At the intersection of the tracks, Jorky slips out of the peloton and sets off in pursuit of his rival. The knife between his teeth, Leopold Verroken’s champ remakes, meter after meter, its delay like a missile about to reach its target. But brave as hell, Ideal does not bend. Halfway through the straight, Eugène Lefèvre turns his head in the direction of his pursuers, then activates his champion again, who manages to cross the post in the lead, with a head start on Jorky.
The Prix d’Amerique Legend Race was the first act in a long series of duels between Ideal du Gazeau and Jorky. The first will enter a second Legend Race on his record, in 1983, after winning the International Trot three times across the Atlantic as well as a dozen Group I races on the Old Continent. The second will sign a resounding revenge in the Elitloppet then the Copenhagen Cup the same year, but will never manage to win the Grail in the Legend Race, on the sidelines during the two following editions and runnuer-up of an intractable Lurabo, for his last attempt, in 1984. His rivalry with Ideal du Gazeau is immortalized in the Challenge Cup winners with a dead-heat that has remained in the annals.
