Quiet Zain returned to ParisLongchamp where he slipped and fell and injured himself in September 2018. He was scratched from the Quinte handicap that day. Those injuries kept him out of racing for more than a month. During the months that followed, he showed his early 2018 form only once, in Cagnes-sur-Mer.
Today was his second visit back to Longchamp since that fateful day. In May, he ran in a second division handicap here, only to place third as the top-weighted horse. This time, however, everything lined up perfectly in the first division, the Quinte. He had the same jockey as the previous outing, but a lower weight at 55 kg and a good draw in the 15 horse field (there was one non-runner).
With all that in place, Mickael Barzalona took him straight out of his number 9 gate position, and watched things unfold ahead of him. We thought that maybe he may have been too far back in the pack, but Barza didn’t. In the false stretch run at Longchamp, most horses take a breath. The riskier move is to make a break for it. Mickael did just that. He knew that his horse had what it takes to go to the end. Once in the stretch, he took a convincing lead and never looked back.