No showdown but an Arc to savour as Enable seeks historic third win in gruelling conditions at Longchamp
The setting would not have been more fitting. Paris, the home of the world’s most fabled all-aged contest – today’s Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe (Gr 1, 2400m) – and the beating heart of European romance, as the idyllic backdrop to the clash between Love (Galileo) and the universally loved. The former, Aidan O’Brien’s dual Classic winner and this season’s outstanding three-year-old filly. The latter, Enable (Nathaniel), already a two-time Arc heroine among a top-tier tally that numbers 11 and perhaps, despite a host of legitimate contenders, John Gosden’s magnum opus.
And yet it was not to be. Love, favourite for the Arc for much of the summer, was scratched from the race on Thursday afternoon on account of heavy ground. Quite legitimately, of course – O’Brien has always insisted a sound surface suits her best and she boasts a viable alternative in next month’s Breeders’ Cup Turf (Gr 1, 12f).
Some lustre has certainly been lost, while the absence of fellow top-notch performers Ghaiyyath (Dubawi), Mishriff (Make Believe) and Magical (Galileo) is a blow to the overall spectacle, but the test for the chosen 15 remains formidable. Longchamp has been besieged by Storm Adam this week and today’s ground will be particularly trying. Even more so than 12 months ago, when a clawing surface thwarted Enable’s bid to become the first triple winner of the race, a punishing move at the top of the straight leaving her susceptible to the sustained late thrust of Waldgeist (Galileo).
Kept in training at six, an age whereby many of her ilk would have already foaled down twice, Enable has been tasked with one of the great sporting opportunities by her remarkable owner, Prince Khalid Abdullah, and his breed-shaping operation of over 30 years, Juddmonte Farms. She is favourite to complete the feat following a three-race campaign built around a third success in the King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes (Gr 1, 1m4f) at Ascot in July. But can she be beaten?
In relentless conditions? Of course. But on the balance of evidence? No. Sottsass (Siyouni) and Japan (Galileo) finished third and fourth respectively in 2019 when receiving weight as three-year-olds. They are now a year older and race without an allowance, but the figures suggest they are no better, for all the former returns to a mile and a half for the first time since and has been primed solely with this target in mind.
The latter, whom the Coolmore triumvirate own in partnership with emerging powerhouse Masaaki Matsushima, will be ridden by Japanese folk hero Yutaka Take. Given the long and frustrating association between the Japanese and the Arc, including Orfevre’s (Stay Gold) agonising defeat by Solemia (Poliglote) in similarly gruelling conditions in 2008, a win for the aptly named Japan would certainly be celebrated as vigorously as victory for Enable.
The Mitsuru Hashida-trained Deirdre (Harbinger) will also carry the expectations of the Far East, although this former Nassau Stakes (Gr 1, 1m2f) winner will have to sprout wings if she is to trouble the principles.
Japan joins Sovereign (Galileo), Mogul (Galileo) and Serpentine (Galileo) as O’Brien’s remaining challengers and the quartet are intriguing, if not formidable, contenders. Sovereign was five and a half lengths adrift of Enable in the King George, while Mogul – with his limitations seemingly exposed in various guises throughout the summer – was comfortably ahead of Derby (Gr 1, 1m4f) winner Serpentine in last month’s Grand Prix de Paris (Gr 1, 2400m).
However, the latter was having his first outing since June and ought to improve considerably on the bare form. The merits of his Epsom success continue to be eroded by the subsequent exploits of the beaten horses, but time and sectional analysis of his five and a half-length victory suggest those in behind should not be used as a stick with which to beat the winner. That said, he must improve again to trouble Enable and underfoot conditions are a significant unknown.
More pertinently, the participation of O’Brien’s quartet was placed in jeopardy on Friday evening after O’Brien’s feed supplier – Gain – issued a warning surrounding the potential contamination of their products with Zilpaterol, which is unlicensed in Europe but is used in America and elsewhere to promote weight gain, mainly in cattle. At the time of going to press, the outcome of this potential bombshell is unknown, and the complexion of the race remains in flux.
Flux is a reasonable reflection of the COVID-induced landscape we now occupy and there is a certain thankfulness to have any form of Arc to savour this year. On that note, British-based jockeys are able to cross the Channel to Paris this weekend without completing a mandatory quarantine period on their return, provided they adhere to a strict set of guidelines outlined earlier in the week. However, these changes did not emerge in sufficient time to allow Andrea Atzeni to partner Stradivarius (Sea The Stars), Enable’s diminutive but gutsy stable companion who will lose his regular jockey, Frankie Dettori, to the great mare.
Atzeni rode Stradivarius to Goodwood Cup (Gr 1, 2m) success as a three-year-old, but today’s steering duties fall to Olivier Peslier, a four-time Arc winner and a doyen of the Longchamp weighing room.
Stradivarius’ feats are to be applauded, winning the first and only two renewals of the Stayers’ Million in 2018 and 2019 amid an unbeaten sequence of ten in stamina-sapping contests. In turn, he posted a Racing Post Rating of 125 when capturing the Gold Cup (Gr 1, 2m4f) for the third time at Royal Ascot in June – the highest figure achieved by any of today’s line-up in the current campaign. But for all a steady early tempo proved his undoing in the Prix Foy (Gr 2, 2400m) at this course last month, and he will continue to reach for the line when others have cried enough, he ought to find one or two with too much speed at this trip.
German Derby (Gr 1, 2400m) winner In Swoop (Alderflug), runner-up to Mogul on his last outing, has been the subject of sustained market support this week in light of the deteriorating weather conditions, but he must progress significantly again to play a leading role. So, too, must Prix Vermeille (Gr 1, 2400m) runner-up Raabihah (Sea The Stars), the sole three-year-old filly in the line-up and the representative of a generation, led by the magnificent Treve (Motivator), who have farmed this race with their allowances in recent times.
And not to discount André Fabre, the mastermind behind Waldgeist and the most successful trainer in the history of the race, who will attempt to collect the prize for the ninth time when he saddles Persian King (Kingman). A fine last-start winner of the Prix du Moulin (Gr 1, 1600m), but comfortably held by Sottsass in last year’s Prix du Jockey Club (Gr 1, 2000m), Persian King is a highly doubtful stayer at this trip. But doubting Fabre can prove a perilous exercise.
Doubt, uncertainty, unknown – the buzzwords of our times. The grandstands at Longchamp will unfortunately be empty today, the ground will be more rain-softened than desirable, the field might yet be significantly depleted and Enable will have to go where no thoroughbred has been before if she is to etch her name into the history books. But there will be no doubting the magnitude of her achievement if she passes the post in front.