French trotter Bold Eagle won the Prix d’Amerique for the second straight year when he stormed to a world record victory Sunday afternoon (Jan. 29) in the $1 million event at Vincennes Racetrack in Paris, France.

The six-year-old son of Ready Cash out of the Love You mare Reethi Rah Jet and driver Franck Nivard won the 2,700-meter race (about 1.7 miles) by two-and-a-half lengths over French mare Belina Josselyn (Jean Michel Bazire) with a mile-rate time of 1:54.3 that lowered the 1:55 mile-rate time Bold Eagle recorded while winning the 2016 Prix d’Amerique. Norwegian trotter Lionel (Matthieu Abrivard), was third. North American bred Propulsion (Ôrjan Kihlström) was fourth. The other North American-bred horses were ninth and last, respectively in the 17-horse field. Treasure Kronos was ninth and Wild Honey went off stride and was disqualified and placed last.

photo: Bold Eagle and his winning connections (from left) trainer Sebastien Guarato (in red, thumbs up), caretaker Hugues Monthule and driver Franck Nivard. | Gerard Forni