Sunday’s G1 Prix Jean Romanet (2000m) at Deauville has proved a successful incentive for older fillies and mares though it has also proved a happy hunting ground for raiders from the UK who have won it in six of the last seven years.

That list includes last year’s winner Audarya who will be back to defend her crown and the James Fanshawe-trained five-year-old will be joined by Lady Bowthorpe, another Newmarket-based G1 winning five-year-old mare.

Best of the home team could be the Aga Khan’s Ebaiyra. Her trainer Alain de Royer Dupre won this with Pride back in 2005, and that mare ended her career in a blaze of glory when winning Sha Tin’s Hong Kong Cup the following year.

Audarya responded to continued pressure to land a shock victory in this last year, proving that to be no fluke when capturing the G1 Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf (1900m) at Keeneland last November.

However supporters will have to ignore her way-below-par 7 3/4L fifth to Lady Bowthorpe in Goodwood’s G1 Nassau Stakes (1979m) last month. Of that episode Fanshawe says: “I was very disappointed. She just didn’t fire.”

Lady Bowthorpe certainly did fire that day, skipping past rivals and providing trainer William Jarvis with his first G1 winner for 27 years. A big emotional contrast to her previous fast finishing fourth after being imprisoned as she tried to move forward in Newmarket’s G1 Falmouth Stakes (1600m), an outcome that famously left Jarvis tearful with frustration.

“I had been dying to try a mile and a quarter with her but events transpired against her and there just weren’t the races. Anyhow she now proved that she is better over ten (furlongs) than she was at a mile” Jarvis says of Lady Bowthorpe’s Nassau win and as he looks foward to Sunday’s Prix Jean Romanet adventure with the mare who will again be ridden by Kieran Shoemark.

Ebaiyra’s trainer thinks the Jean Romanet is the ideal target for the filly, winner of a French G3 and G2 in May,  – Longchamp’s Prix Allez France (2000m) and Saint-Cloud’s Prix Corrida (2100m). A close second in the G1 Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud (2400m) last month, de Royer Dupre says: “She didn’t have a hard race there, the jockey never used his stick and she is in great form. I think the Jean Romanet distance is her ideal trip.”

British contenders also have a good record in the other G1 on the card, the Prix Morny (1200m) which invariably features some of Europe’s leading two-year-olds. The Richard Fahey-trained Perfect Power who showed some blinding late speed to win the G2 Norfolk Stakes at Royal Ascot in June is one of the intended runners.