The Group 1 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe (approximately 2400m) in France on Sunday (1:05am Monday morning) will again highlight the best horses in the world over 2400m.
The race is meant to be having one of its down or quieter years, but this year looks like it could be the start of a dynasty for the filly Enable.
I’ll stop short of declaring her – the race is running at Chantilly for the second year while Longchamp is under renovation, and the track is a little tricky, with sharp bends. That can play havoc with big fields and Enable won’t have it all her own way.
There is some rain around and temperatures aren’t hot, so there should be some cut in the track. Early forecasts were for downpours but that has shifted towards only a little rain.
The 18 starters in the weight-for-age conditions.
1. Zarak – Trainer: Alain De Royer Dupre – Jockey: Christophe Soumillon
Has a nice link to the race, being out of the 2008 winner, Zarkava. Hasn’t raced since first Group 1 triumph in the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud in July, after a forget run when last. Was unlucky behind Cloth of Stars in Prix Ganay who’s in this race as well.
Kept reasonably safe in betting but would need to go to another level. Drawn widest in 18 but not such a disadvantage.
2. Doha Dream – Trainer: Andre Fabre, France – Jockey: Gregory Benoist
On last year’s form would be a genuine chance, but finished behind Melbourne Cup hope Tiberian twice in lesser grade races at Deauville than this. Outclassed and would be a big surprise.
3. One Foot In Heaven – Trainer: Alain De Royer Dupre – Jockey: James Doyle
Ran here last year behind Found when sixth, beating his odds. Again long odds and probably fairly so. Was a decent second in a Group 3 at Maisons-Laffitte but Seventh Heaven beat him comfortably earlier in the year at Newmarket and little chance of a turnaround.
4. Ulysses – Trainer: Sir Michael Stoute – Jockey: Jim Crowley
Top chance in the race, and getting better as he goes on. Won the Juddmonte International Stakes, beating Churchill. Enable had the better of him in the King George but that was on soft ground. He seems to be going better than ever so no doubt holds as one of the favourites behind Enable. Draw doesn’t look like it will suit him.
5. Cloth Of Stars – Trainer: Andre Fabre – Jockey: Mickael Barzalona
Beat Zarak in the Prix Ganay at Saint-Cloud by a short neck and given a break from that into the Prix Foy, with a second to German horse Dschingis Secret. Given this race is over this track and distance, would surprise to turn the table on him.
(AAP Image/NEWZULU/FRANCOIS PAULETTO).
6. Silverwave – Trainer: Pascal Bary – Jockey: Pierre-Charles Boudot
Third attempt in the Arc which is quite a special record but hasn’t really been close with a 10th and 13th in succession. Didn’t do enough to say he’ll be better after running behind both Cloth Of Stars and Zarak in the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud. No thanks.
7. Idaho – Trainer: Aidan O’Brien – Jockey: Seamie Heffernan
Australians will remember Aidan O’Brien nearly brought across Idaho, the full brother to Highland Reel, last year for our big races but lost his rider in the St Leger which put everything out of whack.
This year he won the Group 2 Hardwicke Stakes and was a credible third behind Enable and Ulysses in the King George. Dropped away from those highs with a poor run at Saratoga. At his best could place chance.
8. Dschingis Secret – Trainer: Markus Klug – Jockey: Adie de Vries
The main German chance out of the two in the race, and has a nice winning steak behind him, winning five out of his last six including four this year at Group level. Quite fancy his chances to go on with it as a top place chance.
9. Satono Diamond – Trainer: Yasutoshi Ikee (Japan) – Jockey: Christophe-Patrice Lemaire
First of the Japanese raiders who can boast wins in races like the Arima Kinen. Only managed a fourth place in the Prix Foy which offers plenty of formlines here but was first-up. Career best could offer a surprise.
10. Satono Noblesse – Trainer: Yasuotshi Ikee – Jockey: Yuga Kawada
No. Seems like only here as a stablemate companion to Satono Diamond and was a pacemaker in the Prix Foy.
11. Iquitos – Trainer: Hans-Jurgen Groschel – Jockey: Andrasch Starke
Another German horse but wasn’t up to Dschingis Secret at Hamburg in a Group 2. Did win last start in Munich at Group 1 level which was encouraging but would need to go up another level.
12. Order Of St George – Trainer: Aidan O’Brien – Jockey: Donnacha O’Brien
The horse that would’ve set the Melbourne Cup alight was kept in Europe for the Arc, even though we’re sure part-owner Lloyd Williams would’ve been keen to get him down here.
On his form he looks as well as ever. Absolutely bolted in to win the Irish St Leger for the second time by nine lengths and could’ve won by double that. As one of the best stayers in Europe he will need a fast tempo in the Arc which he might actually get. He was third here behind Found on a firm track last year and with some cut in the ground might elevate himself further. Another top-place chance.
13. Seventh Heaven – Trainer: Aidan O’Brien – Jockey: Pat Smullen
Wasn’t good last start first-up, but forgetting that run, won the Jockey Club Stakes at Newmarket in May although that race looks fairly weak. Did beat Found last year but that’s over a year ago now and not going as well?
14. Brametot – Trainer: Jean-Claude Rouget – Jockey: Cristian Demuro
Had put together four straight wins in three-year-old, including two classics but had an issue last start so forget that run. Has a real turn of foot which might suit, but up to the 2400m his price looks unders given he’s rising to his hardest open-class test and distance. I’d have to risk him.
15. Capri – Trainer: Aidan O’Brien- Jockey: Wayne Lordan
Interesting runner having shown something all year long and is tough. Won the Irish Derby and then the English St Leger at Doncaster to come into this race in hot form. No horse has managed the St Leger-Arc double in a single year so it looks hard. Has won on heavy ground.
16. Plumatic – Trainer: Andre Fabre – Jockey: Maxime Guyon
If you said this horse only had a maiden win to his name from four starts you’d be accurate, but marking harshly. Was only beaten a nose in the Prix du Prince d’Orange at Maisons-Laffitte last start, but was thrashed by Brametot the start before. Would be an incredible shock but Fabre is a genius.
17. Enable – Trainer: John Gosden – Jockey: Frankie Dettori
The hot favourite and has put together a heck of a season thus far. Winning this would cap off a world beating run.
She beat the best challenger in Ulysses by a wide margin in the King George VI and the Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot in July. Smashed the fillies in the Yorkshire Oaks last start.
Are there any chinks in her armour? Well, she has been in training since April which is a good stretch, although was freshened into her Oaks win last start. Dettori has said he’d prefer to lead with her and the draw favours her to do this but they might want to not let her.
She has faced the best of the open-class horses and beaten them, but this is the biggest and best field by far. Should be wonderful to find out how good she is. Would prefer a firm track.
18. Winter – Trainer: Aidan O’Brien – Jockey: Ryan Moore
The other flying filly in the race and a dual-Guineas winner. Won four on the trot before a second last start by a head at Leopardstown. The issue for her is that this is 400m further than she has contested before and that will be testing given her pedigree shows her dam was a sprinter. Ryan Moore chose to ride the filly over O’Brien’s other hopes so that is telling, and she is classy.
johnny nevin is a legend
Guest
Phil smith is timeform head handicapper with some contiversal views, apparently believes Sea the Stars was not a great horse because as a 3 year old as he received weight from older horses and never raced as a 4 year old. I think when timeform were sold to betfair they definitely lost some of their purity
kv joef
Roar Guru
You are making my point JLN ... both Timeform and the World Rankings are historical documents that SHOULD be quality reference material for future generations. Phil Bull the handicap innovator and founder of Timeform is a legend. He was able to infuse American speed figures into european style racing. i too used to buy the Timeform Annuals of past years. so TF used to have my respect. When he ran the show, TF numbers were mostly reliable, particularly at an elite level. Good handicappers take pride in their work. what has happened to Timeform numbers over the last couple of years? --- well who knows but a little reverse engineering suggests too much speed emphasis for Euro races particularly when the variants (adjustments between tracks and surfaces) are clumsy. Australia with the world's second biggest racehorse population is very difficult with 3+ strata system but ultimately it can be accurately reduced to a number but to do that would throw our Benchmark system into chaos and since 80% can't understand it anyway, the officials have opted to create speed divisions within benchmark bands that does the job. But once the elite level is reached - 100+ benchmark rating - then worldwide you are talking about 6% of the horse population at a much more manageable level. Comparing them is not as difficult if they are built on solid foundations ... and future open-aged WFA events are predictable within reason. One of the problems both h.styles are running into is letting the race name qualify the ratings of contestants - easy but really sloppy - Phil Bull would have never have done that! if a remember rightly TF were in serve fin.trouble when Betfair brought them and have since on-sold a slab to Paddy Power. i really don't know who is the TF overseeing handicapper now? The invention that is coming out of the U.S over the last few years may very well undermine the whole historical aspect - what odds that two consecutive top rated horses would return the incredibly high mark of OHR 134 when a comparison reveals they had only one race victory in common. Seems to me if Gun Runner beats Arrogate in the Classic he then will have pretensions to 130+ figures and if Arrogate returns to a mark that beats Gun Runner than they U.S get to say 'i told you so' he is 134 rater ... thats what happens when you start from an inflated mark.
johnny nevin is a legend
Guest
Yes some discrepancies between OHR and timeform mid year ratings in particular big difference in Lady Aurelias rating and of course no Enable in TF but only oaks ran by that stage. Personally i prefer Timeform mainly because it has been rating horses for 60 years or so. There's a unbroken link to all the great European horses from Ribot, Sea Bird, Mill Reef, The Brigadier, Dancing Brave, Dubai Millenium, Sea the Stars through to Frankel.
kv joef
Roar Guru
Nice to hear from JNL and Tristan. i'll have to get a facebook page but hey ... what the heck ... JNL --- Timeform and the WFA/Benchmark method used by official Handicappers (and me) start from different marks. Timeform starts from 10st (or used to) where the Benchmark scale starts around 9st 7lbs scale depending of a few factors. This difference accounts for the noted 'higher' Timeform rating compared to official marks. It's just a higher scale. So JNL when you read my or the OHR mark add 4 to 6 to get an equivalent Timeform rating. Currently on the Official World Rankings (going into the Arc) had Enable sitting on a 126, Ulysses on 127 ... Ulysses had beaten the dual 2000g winner, Churchill (OHR 123) by 2 lens (4pts) in the Juddmonte and also repeated his defeat of Barney Boy at G1 level ... so 5 things could account for Ulysses 3L defeat by Enable in the Arc ... Ully really does only like GF ground as Stoute has stated previously or Churchill underperformed at York giving him a false mark, a possibility on his poor run in the Irish Champion or the high Arc race pressure took its toll or he might not see out the 2400m at G1 level now with 3of4 starts=defeats with his only win in a Class1 as you would expect from an animal of his quality or the fav., Enable is a better horse. Let's see what happens when Ully drops back to 2000m? As for Cloth Of Stars, improvement noted - won the Ganay G1 beating a competent field; would have won the Foy if his rider got him to the outside at the 300m and now 2nd in the Arc - seems to be finding his feet lately and it certainly would be hard to give him an OHR mark under 123 with the horses that he beat home in the Arc. he was passing some tried chasers but i liked his effort. we'll see what he does from here. But back to the Timeform ratings ... I don't use Timeform - i have never use Timeform ... too many inexplicable errors. If you don't believe me ... this is their mid year (2017) release ... https://www.timeform.com/horse-racing/features/global-rankings/2017-timeform-global-rankings-2932017 --- notice anything? Well ... anything major? Maybe you might want to compare them with the official world rankings (OHR) that came out a few days later ... http://www.ifhaonline.org/resources/WTRRankings/LWBRR.asp?batch=42 to capture the top horses globally on their own required a spread of 14/15pts = 15pts for Timeform and 14pts for the OHR. basically the same band except there seems to be a few major omissions in Timeform's list that appear in the OHR list leading into July 2017 ... like 4 of the first 5 over the line in the Arc are missing from Timeform? WTF? Also notice that Decorated Knight is on the OHR but not on Timeform's list. anyway, i started developing my own ratings over 4 decades ago after reading a book called 'Winning' written by an australian gambler, Don Scott (i'm not a devotee of Scott. as later i ended up knew him too well ... his book introduced me to George.E Smith who i do look on as a mentor. Smith wrote in his book ... "After the official handicapper has allotted the weights to be carried in a race, it is then that the player is put to the test, and it is his judgment against that of the official handicapper. If he can find a flaw in the official handicapper's work, he will probably find the winner of the race." --- over four decades later i still have his book and still read it occasionally although i could probably recite it to you :-) . i had a strong racing-trade background, starting like a lot of kids the age of 12 mucking out boxes before progressing and was fortunate, by chance, to be around horses of all levels and v.good professional horse-racing people who taught me well about the nuances of the sport. So by the time i got to 'Winning', i had an inkling about finding the 'flaw'. I didn't see any point in re-inventing the wheel. Modern Official handicappers are restrained and restricited by rules and norms - this can be exploited by the diligent. Over the years, the world's official handicappers (in some countries) have become excellent judges at determining a horse's peak/potential. these days they don't secret any of their methodology and if you are willing to do your research, analyse their ratings ... you'll work it out. mind you, there are only some ratings coming out of a few countries that will surprise ... but that's cool ... as silly ratings will meet reality sooner or later. My silly rating of the moment is Gun Runner 127 (OHR) ... in what universe would that happen? Gun Runner has won 3 straight G1's by a collective of 22.25L. BUT WHO DID HE BEAT? In those 3 consecutive G1's he beat a 2015 G1 winner only. The 3yrold Travers winner Keen Ice managed to beat a genuine G1 horse, Shaman Ghost, in a G2 two starts ago, his only win since the Travers. Gun Runner also collected the scalps of a couple of G1 placegetters (that's all) and about 3 or 4 G2/G3 winners in those three 'big' wins - the rest of the also-rans were handicappers ... WTF? as a comparison, Enable has won 5 straight G1s (2 open-aged) by a collective 22.5L beating high-class G1 fields representing 5 major racing jurisdictions. did you notice Rhododendron, the filly she belted by 5L in the Oaks, win the G1 l'Opera earlier in the day. i don't think i'll be far away from the OHR mark with 129 for Enable. we'll see in a week or so with the next release of OHR rankings. For some of us, handicapping isn't as subjective as Timeform ratings might suggest to the populus ...
Tristan Rayner
Editor
Good discussion. I thought Dschingis Secret tacked on very well from a tough run. Obviously he wouldn't have got close to Enable but he's had an excellent season.
Tristan Rayner
Editor
Yes indeed!
johnny nevin is a legend
Guest
Enable got a timeform rating of 130 for king George run where she bet Ulysses by a 4, 1/2 lengths which was similar to the Arc difference between the 2 horses. Cloth of stars did not come into the race with a high rating so I'm not sure if Enable will get a much higher rating, probably a range of between 130-134
johnny nevin is a legend
Guest
And Irish also..
kv joef
Roar Guru
Enable'd as expected ... probably see her mark move to 129 or thereabouts. Ulysses was great and down a few points on his peak due to the ground. Order of St. George and most of the others back to 9th / 10th where close enough to their mark to confirm this year's quality renewal = excellent. the exception maybe was Cloth of Stars returning a 125 --- his form this year has been really strong, so let's see if he can return a confirmation mark before season's end or maybe this effort becomes just a wet-track rating. japanese sprinter Red Flax double-dosed the J.Sprinters Stks on Sunday. i thought last year he performed much better than his 115 officially given when he won ... he was v.v.impressive on Sunday with an off the bat 118 or so and he wouldn't have looked out of place in the Everest field. shame he failed so badly in HK - gets an invite to the Breeders Cup - interesting :-). the European sprinters musical chairs continued with Battaash towelling a good field in the L'Abbaye turning around a 9L differential from the Nunthorpe. he seems a short course horse who likes wet tracks ... a lot. Not an Everest type :-) .
Tristan Rayner
Editor
Sorry hairy fat man, I meant to say Japanese horses as well!
Tristan Rayner
Editor
Do Australians test themselves out of Australia? Not always! No, Europe isn't just France/Britain though. This race had German horses too. France and England are the principle countries. It's clearly a great performance and I hope we see some numbers and ratings out of it. Winx is heading over and might have to race Enable, who knows. How exciting.
Raimond
Roar Guru
Wow. Do any of these horses test themselves outside of France or Britain? The "best horse race in the world" thing seems like Francophilia.
Tristan Rayner
Editor
Sir John Gosden saying they'll look to contest the Arc again, and go back to the revamped Longchamp for the renewal back on home turf.
Tristan Rayner
Editor
Tristan Rayner
Editor
Order Of St George was fourth, which is another great performance.
Tristan Rayner
Editor
A fifth Arc for Frankie Dettori.
Tristan Rayner
Editor
Wow, what a win for Enable. A superstar and in those famous Frankel colours. She might be one of the best in the world.
Reno
Guest
Nice preview. Enable could stamp herself as a great with a wide here.