Mariacci. Alec Head commented that if anyone had told him in August that Val de l'Orne would finish second in the Grand Critérium he would have thought them "crazy". 1975: three-year-old season Val de l'Orne began his three-year-old season in the Prix Noailles over 2100 metres at Longchamp on 27 April. Starting at odds of 1.6/1 in a seven-runner field he defeated the odds-on favourite Top Gear by three-quarters of a length without Head having to use his whip. Two weeks later, started 11/10 favourite for the Prix Hocquart against eight opponent including Top Gear and Easy Regent. Racing on soft ground he won "effortlessly" by two lengths from Top Gear who was in turn two and a half lengths clear of the remainder. On 8 June, Val de l'Orne started 4/5 favourite for the Grand Prix du Jockey Club over 2400 metres at Chantilly Racecourse. His eleven opponents included Mariacci, Top Gear, Easy Regent from France as well as Patch, an ex-Italian colt who had been transferred to England and won the Lingfield Derby Trial by ten lengths. Head settled the colt towards the rear of the field before moving up to dispute third place early in the straight. Patch had taken the lead and looked the likely winner but Val de l'Orne began to make rapid progress and was only a length behind 200 metres out. In the closing stages Val de l'Orne gradually wore down the British challenger and won by a head. It was subsequently revealed that the winner had sustained a serious shoulder injury, which Freddy Head believed had occurred before the turn into the straight. The injury did not respond to treatment and Val de l'Orne did not race again. Assessment There was no International Classification of European two-year-olds in 1974: the official handicappers of Britain, Ireland and France compiled separate rankings for horses which competed in those countries. In the French Free Handicap, Val de l'Orne was rated the fourth best two-year-old of the year, behind Mariacci, Green Dancer and the filly Broadway Dancer. The independent Timeform organisation awarded him a rating of 129, five pounds inferior to their top-rated two-year-old colt Grundy. In the following year he was rated 130 by Timeform, seven pounds behind their Horse of Year Grundy. In their annual Racehorses of 1975 the organisation commented that Val de l'Orne's early retirement, and the fact that he had never