English and Irish trained raiders captured eight of 11 Group races at ParisLongchamp’s Arc weekend festival early this month, but there is some serious scope for French-trained horses to get some of their own back on British Champions Day – Great Britain’s brilliant end-of-season bash at Ascot on Saturday (19 October).

Economics (Tom Marquand) and Charyn (Silvestre de Sousa) are the United Kingdom’s pin-up boys in two of the four Group 1 races – the Champion Stakes (2000m) and the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes (1600m) – on the six-race World Pool card. But the former is threatened by Calandagan (Stephane Pasquier) and Iresine (Marie Velon) and the latter by Facteur Cheval (Maxime Guyon) and Metropolitan (Cristian Demuro).

Economics enhanced his already soaring reputation by winning the G1 Irish Champion Stakes (2000m) last month, managing to do what is famously difficult to achieve at Leopardstown, launching his challenge wide on the bend. Reopposing again is Los Angeles (Ryan Moore), one and a quarter lengths behind that day and subsequently a great third in the G1 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe (2400m).

Meanwhile Calandagan – who has had two more starts than Economics in a race in which a historical edge favours experience – had burst onto the landscape with a six-length winning romp in Royal Ascot’s G2 King Edward VII Stakes (2392m) before he was only a length behind City Of Troy in the G1 International Stakes (2051m) at York, a memorable performance against a priceless superstar.

Owned by the Aga Khan, Calandagan worked alongside Goliath – Francis Henri Graffard’s other stable star and runaway winner of Ascot’s G1 King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II Stakes (2392m) – at Chantilly on Monday (14 October). After which the Aga Khan’s French racing manager Nemone Routh said: “They finished upsides and we certainly weren’t trying to find out who was the best horse.”

Routh added of Calandagan: “He is not a big horse but he has strengthened up and seems in a good place.”

The Champion Stakes has been moved to Ascot’s inner track as testing ground is very likely, causing Routh to observe: “Calandagan is a long-striding horse and it is a bit of a concern that he’s competing on the tighter inner track. But we think he will go through the ground and it is just a case of luck in running.”

It is easy to make the case for Charyn in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes. Theoretically, he should have won all his six starts this season as his only two defeats came in luckless circumstances behind front-runners, who were arguably gifted too easy a time up front.

A similar scenario hindered last year's runner-up in this race Facteur Cheval, fellow French raider Big Rock pinching it from the front. Although the ground was not soft when he showed super acceleration to win March's G1 Dubai Turf (1800m) at Meydan the Jerome Reynier-trained gelding has some strong soft ground formlines, a comment that also applies to Metropolitan.

Admittedly, the colt had a lovely run up the rail to grab the money in May's ParisLongchamp Classic – the G1 Poule d'Essai des Poulains (1600m) – two G1 placed efforts since on ground that was faster than ideal prove that as no fluke at all from the Mario Baratti-trained colt.