Pulborough trainer Amanda Perrett will never forget Sunday, September 3, 2000.

With her first runner overseas in three years of training, Amanda won her first Group One race with her Coombelands Stable star Indian Lodge at Longchamp, where her father Guy scored the most notable of many Group race successes with Dancing Brave in the 1986 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe.

She said: "I couldn't believe how well Indian Lodge was travelling in the straight. Mick Kinane, who had won races on him earlier on, told me there was a Group One race to be won with the horse, but Indian Lodge did it so easily and has come out of the race so well I can hardly believe it."

Although the favourite for the Emirates-sponsored Prix de Moulin, Sendawar was declared a non-runner just half- an-hour before the race, Indian Lodge's two-length success was so fluent I believe he would have won anyway.

The four-year-old has scored on good ground but is at his best when there is significant cut and, after walking the last six furlongs of the Longchamp turf before the race, Amanda had no doubts that the going would suit her horse.

The quietly spoken 30-year-old trainer was still at school when Dancing Brave, the best horse of the Eighties, won the Arc at the French course.

She said: "I watched the race on television and in fact last Sunday was the first time I had actually been to Longchamp. It was bad luck for the fans that Sendawar didn't run and who knows what the result would have been if he had, but Diktat's pacemaker did a great job for us and Cash Asmussen gave our horse a super ride to win."

South Dakota-born Cash, seven times champion jockey in France, had never ridden for Amanda before, but he had ridden winners for Seymour Cohn, who has more than 100 horses in training in the USA and is in partnership in Indian Lodge with Sir Eric Parker, best known for winning the Grand National with Seagram in 1991.

Cash said: "We left them for dead. I had a quick chat with Guy Harwood night before the race and Amanda filled me in about the horse in the parade ring and believe me he is a serious race horse."

Bought as a foal by Sir Eric, Indian Lodge failed to make his reserve when offered at the yearling sales and it was then that Cohn bought a half share.

The horse has improved with age and, with relatively little mileage on the clock, he won four of his eight races last year before giving the Perretts their first Group race successes at Newmarket and Sandown in the spring.

Mark Perrett, with several hundred winners to his credit as a jockey, rides Indian Lodge in all his work and I asked him to compare the horse with the great Dancing Brave.

He said: "They are quite different in character. This one is very lazy and he'll never beat his work mate by more than a length. Dancing Brave was always keen to get on with it and he stood out a mile at home while Indian Lodge saves his best efforts for the race course."

The colt had an easy time as a two-year-old but has improved steadily over the past 18 months, something that does not surprise Guy Harwood who trained his dam Repetitious to win the Stewards Cup at Goodwood among other races 20 years ago.

The future for Indian Lodge depends upon the underfoot conditions in the short term and whether there is an offer made for him as a stallion next season. Ground conditions permitting, the Group One Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot in a fortnight is the obvious race.

Mark said: "He might stay the one-and-a-quarter miles of the Champion Stakes at Newmarket, but Mick Kinane has pointed out that he is so good at a mile that there is little point in going further with him."

With Kinane on a suspension and Michael Roberts, who has also won on Indian Lodge, booked to ride at Baden-Baden, Cash Asmussen was an obvious choice of rider last Sunday.

Cash is a hard man to beat at Longchamp when he is on a horse with half a chance and he has ridden four of the last 15 pre-Moulin winners.

As for Indian Lodge, he is pleased to be back home in Sussex, mainly because he is in love with Mossy Moor, a three-year-old filly who runs at Doncaster tomorrow.

Mark said: "Although we obviously keep the colts and fillies apart from each other, he spots her a mile away and always knows where she is. Mossy Moor is his girlfriend and perhaps that's why he always does so well on the race course, trying to create a good impression so that he can tell her all about it when he gets home."