Enable v Love: The pros and cons of the leading duo ahead of the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe

Enable: On the cusp of history

Frankie Dettori has been here before. On Sunday, the indefatigable Italian will be riding in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe for the 32nd occasion. He has won six of them, a record, but none of them will mean as much as the seventh, if his mount Enable can win the race for a history-making third time.

The Dettori blueprint to Arc success has been thus; race prominently just off the lead, check where the dangers are on the sweeping turn towards the straight, manoeuvre into position on the turn for home, kick clear on the run-in, hold on or sail home; depending on the ease of the success.

There have been nuances to the tried and tested method: Marienbard’s challenge was delayed as he was pulled off the rail to challenge two out. Golden Horn was kept wide from his outside draw in the first couple of furlongs, the initial brushstrokes of a Dettori masterpiece.

Enable even led for a bit early on the first year she won it, but that was when negotiating the initial left-hand turn at Chantilly.

How Dettori plays it on Sunday will depend on the draw and the early pace. But, in an ideal world, he’ll sit just off the leaders in a prominent position, he’ll be looking over his shoulder to see where Love is on the turn and he’ll try and take a few lengths out of the field at the top of the straight.

From then on, he’s done his job. It’s up to the mare. Kick clear and be a legend. Hold on and go down in history. Get beat, like last year, and remain one of eight horses to have won the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe twice. Hey, it’s not all that bad.

Pros

What she has in her favour is her experience. Class and substance to her form, obviously, but also experience. Three Arcs. She has been there and done it twice before and finished second on the other occasion. She’s been trained for this day for 12 months and things are slightly different this year to last.

Last year she peaked in the summer. She had to, to win a tremendous battle with Crystal Ocean in the King George. Then she fought off Magical from the front in the Yorkshire Oaks and had 45 days to get ready for the Arc after that.

It was very soft ground in Paris, they went very hard up front thanks to Ghaiyyath, and she was outstayed late on by Waldgeist. They were reasonable excuses, but, really, she just didn’t look to be quite at her best. She wasn’t far off it, but wasn’t quite on it. A year on, it remains a fair assessment.

This time around she really did need her comeback run in the Coral-Eclipse. Beaten by Ghaiyyath, she headed to the King George and had a much easier race than in the previous year, sauntering to a five-and-a-half length victory over an out-of-his-depth Sovereign. And then, a 1/14 September Stakes cruise. 29 days to go to the Arc.

She looks well set to go for the third. Versatile ground-wise, the rain in Paris is in her favour - if only because it’s seemingly against her main rival.

Tactically, things could pan out nicely, too.

When Frankie won the Arc on Marienbard he sat just off the pace set by Ballydoyle’s Black Sam Bellamy, a subsequent Group One winner in his own right but at the time better known for being Galileo’s less-talented little brother.

He was setting the pace for High Chaparral, but on the inside Dettori cruised through and he benefitted from chasing the Coolmore metronome. It’s happened more recently, too, when Enable crept into things behind Nelson and Capri, while Dettori also made use of Treve’s pacemaker, Shahah, when sitting just off the shoulder of that horse aboard Golden Horn in 2015.

On Sunday, the pace in the race looks likely to be injected by Aidan O’Brien’s team once again. We’re looking at you, Serpentine, and you, Sovereign, and if a good honest gallop suits Love then it will suit Dettori and Enable, as well.

Cons

The big challenge for Enable, of course, is her advancing years.

She is six, and no horse in the history of the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe has won the race at that age. Motrico, in 1932, when going for his second win having failed at stud, came out of retirement to win the race aged seven, still the oldest winner of the Arc some 88 years on.

There is the age and there is the weight. Three years ago, she was the young upstart getting all the allowances. Two years ago, she clung on by a short neck when giving 7lb to the three-year-old Sea Of Class. Last year, there were no three-year-old fillies in the field, but she lost to a five-year-old horse.

This year, there is Love. And if Enable’s advancing years do prove a barrier to a third Arc triumph, then Love, in receipt of the 7lb weight-for-age allowance, is the one most likely to have taken advantage.

Love: The young pretender

Aidan O’Brien’s first runner in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe was Genghis Khan in 1999. He finished last.

His next representatives in the race were Milan and Saddler’s Creek in 2001, the former faring best in fifth. Then it was High Chaparral and Black Sam Bellamy in both 2002 and 2003, the first-named third both years, the last-named unplaced twice. In 2004 Acropolis was fourth under Jamie Spencer. In 2005 Scorpion was 10th. In 2006 he had no runner.

Arc success did not come immediately or easily to O’Brien and even when he won it for the first time, with Dylan Thomas in 2007, he had to wait anxiously for half an hour as the French stewards deliberated over an inquiry.

Since then O’Brien has had 39 runners in the Arc, taking his total number of goes in the race to 52 - and he has won it twice. When he did win for a second time, they all ran well, Found leading home a brilliant Ballydoyle 1-2-3 in the 2016 renewal at Chantilly.

This year he could run four in the race, but, even with a Derby winner in Serpentine to be supplemented, his clear standout chance is the dual-Classic winner, Love.

Pros

The attraction of Love is blindingly obvious; she just has a brilliance about her as her two very different Classic successes demonstrate. She had the pace to win a 1000 Guineas by over four lengths and the stamina to win an Oaks by twice as far.

In her first go against older fillies, although there was only one, Manuela De Vega, in the Yorkshire Oaks, she cruised through the race in second gear, dismissing the sole four-year-old and the horses from her own generation without fuss.

Everything she has done this season has oozed class. She looks way ahead of her contemporaries. And, given the manner and ease of her victories, the obvious conclusion is there is even more to come.

After just three races all year she’s as fresh as a top-class Aidan O’Brien-trained three-year-old filly is ever going to be at this time of the season. The Arc is not an afterthought with her. It has been part of the plan for a long time.

When Dylan Thomas won the Arc, he had two stablemates cut out the running for him as Kieren Fallon held him up towards the rear, Song Of Hiawatha and Yellowstone the pair tasked with forcing the pace with great effectiveness back in 2007.

When Found won the Arc in 2016, Harzand’s pacemaker, Vedevani, made the running, but her Ballydoyle stablemates Order Of St George and Highland Reel were never far away. Ryan Moore held up Found in the midfield, and she stormed through on the inside to head a famous trifecta.

With such history as a precedent and, more importantly, Love’s own patient running style, it’s likely to see the daughter of Galileo ridden with restraint as her stablemates Serpentine and Sovereign ensure a solid gallop up front.

With Enable likely to be stalking that pair throughout, we’re all set up for a thrilling finale. Can Love scythe through and deny the would-be history-maker thanks to that all-important half-stone allowance?

11/4 says she can – bigger odds than looked likely only a few weeks ago.

Cons

There are a few reasons for the uneasiness of Love in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe market and the most pertinent one is the ground.

Currently described as ‘very soft’ after 19mm of rainfall, the forecast is unsettled with more rain likely on its way on Friday, with no warm conditions on the radar to dry things out. It looks like being a real test and certainly the most demanding ground Love will have ever encountered.

“She’s such a beautiful mover,” O’Brien has attested on more than one occasion and the graceful, fluent stride that we saw at Newmarket, Epsom and York could well be inconvenienced now she’s not racing on a firmer surface.

As a juvenile she raced on ground with at least a little bit of yielding or soft in the description on three occasions and she was beaten each time, while she’s from a family that actively disliked the mud.

Her dam, Pikaboo, was a non-runner on soft due to unsuitable ground and Love’s siblings, Lucky Kristale, Peach Tree and Flattering, all preferred faster conditions.

It is obviously a concern, especially when chief rival Enable is so well proven in the soft conditions, but the good thing is unproven does not mean dislikes, yet, which gives hope to the Love team and her backers.

You might also question the worth of Love’s form.

I’m not as sold on this theory, as she really couldn’t have won her three races this season with any more authority, but it’s worth noting, at least, that the form of the 1000 Guineas, Oaks and Yorkshire Oaks doesn’t amount to much.

If you take out Love, the 1000 Guineas has produced three wins from 33 runs, the Oaks has two wins from 16 runs and the Yorkshire Oaks is zero from two.

There is little substance to her form, something you cannot say of Enable in the opposite camp. And if Love does come up short on Sunday, both her ability to go in the conditions and her back form will come under close scrutiny.

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