Five French-trained horses of interest on Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe weekend at Longchamp
John Ingles highlights a handful of interesting home-trained horses in the Group 1 races at Longchamp this weekend.
Double Major
Prix du Cadran, Saturday
Double Major was third behind Sevenna’s Knight in the Prix de Barbeville and Prix Vicomtesse Vigier in the spring but has won both his starts since those defeats, making all in the Prix Maurice de Nieuil at Longchamp in July and doing the same in the following month’s Prix Kergorlay at Deauville. Double Major was the clear form pick at Deauville but could hardly have won more convincingly, dictating a steady pace before storming clear in the straight to win by seven lengths.
He gives the impression that he’s being brought to the boil for the big staying contests at Longchamp this autumn in a repeat of his three-year-old campaign. He won the Prix Chaudenay on Arc weekend last year on good to firm ground (with Sevenna’s Knight back in fourth) but then ploughed through heavy ground when beating older stayers in the Prix Royal-Oak a month later. That latter win bodes well for his staying the extra distance of the Cadran.
Mqse De Sevigne
Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, Sunday
Andre Fabre trains current favourite Sosie in his bid to take his record number of winners in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe to nine. All of Fabre’s Arc winners to date have been male but in an open year he also fields an intriguing contender at much longer odds with the mare Mqse de Sevigne. She has come a long way since finishing only seventh as a 44/1-shot in the Prix de l’Opera on Arc weekend two years ago but remains untried over a mile and a half. However, she hasn’t been out of the first two in all her starts since then from a mile to a mile and a quarter, and her only defeat in her last seven races came at the hands of Inspiral in the Sun Chariot Stakes on the corresponding weekend last year.
For the second year running, Mqse de Sevigne completed the Group 1 double of the Prix Rothschild and Prix Jean Romanet at Deauville in August, and while both of those races are confined to her own sex, she already has a Group 1 win to her name over male rivals this season when a short-head winner of the Prix d’Ispahan from Horizon Dore. It’s not her style to win her races by far but her excellent recent strike rate has come since Alexis Pouchin became her regular jockey. Addressing the issue of Mqse de Sevigne’s stamina, the signs are good as her dam won over a mile and a half and her half-brother Meandre, who ran in the Arc three times himself, was a high-class performer at the trip.
Zarigana
Prix Marcel Boussac, Sunday
The Aga Khan’s top-class filly Zarkava ended her unbeaten seven-race career by winning the Arc in 2008, having also won the Prix Marcel Boussac on the same day 12 months earlier. Now her exciting granddaughter Zarigana has a good chance of following in her footsteps in the latter contest. Out of Zarkava’s listed-winning daughter Zarkamiya, Zarigana has looked something out of the ordinary in winning both her starts for Francis-Henri Graffard.
Zarigana showed a smart turn of foot when beating nine other unraced fillies at Chantilly in July, winning by four lengths, and was then put aside for the Group 3 Prix d’Aumale over the Marcel Boussac course and distance in September. Encountering softer ground than on her debut and stepping up a furlong in trip, Zarigana was no less impressive than first time up, again needing minimal urging to leave her rivals for her dead once asked to quicken. There was substance to that form too, as the runner-up Angeal had won all three of her starts, including the Group 3 Prix Six Perfections. Ballydoyle have a particularly good crop of two-year-old fillies this year but their representative will need to be very smart to trouble a filly who has evidently inherited plenty of her grandam’s ability.
Sparkling Plenty
Prix de l’Opera, Sunday
Three-year-old fillies have won six of the last seven editions of the Prix de l’Opera and Sparkling Plenty will be bidding to become the second consecutive Prix de Diane winner to land the mile and a quarter contest after Blue Rose Cen won the same two races last year. Prior to the Diane, Sparkling Plenty’s biggest win had come a fortnight earlier at Chantilly in the Prix de Sandringham over a mile but she had no problem with the longer trip of the ‘French Oaks’, coming from right out the back to lead in the final 50 yards and win by a head.
It was a close finish between the first four home, but the other fillies who made the frame all went on to win pattern races over the summer, notably the fourth Aventure. Sparkling Plenty has been beaten in both starts since the Diane but has shaped as though still in good form.
Crucially, though, the same tactics which paid off at Chantilly have resulted in her being left with too much to do in the Nassau Stakes at Goodwood and the Prix Vermeille at Longchamp. She was only beaten around a length behind Opera Singer at Goodwood when third but could only run on into sixth in the Vermeille, a place behind Opera Singer, when both fillies were trying a mile and a half for the first time. Sparkling Plenty should be thereabouts if the race is run to suit and she isn’t asked to come from too far back.
Ramatuelle
Prix de la Foret, Sunday
Freddie Head used the Prix de la Foret to prepare Goldikova for three of her Breeders’ Cup Mile bids, winning the Longchamp race on one occasion and being placed twice. Head’s son Christopher is taking the same route with his three-year-old filly Ramatuelle who looks sure to appreciate the drop back from a mile to Longchamp’s seven furlongs which is actually a bit shorter than the advertised distance.
Taking more after her useful sprinting dam Raven’s Lady than her sire Justify, Ramatuelle was a speedy two-year-old whose three wins by mid-summer last year included the Prix Robert Papin. She also went close in the Prix Morny, getting touched off late by Vandeek. Ramatuelle has stretched out to a mile this year, putting up smart efforts to finish third in both the 1000 Guineas and Coronation Stakes but has given the impression the trip is an absolute maximum for her.
She shaped particularly well at Newmarket (replay below), looking all over the winner a furlong out only to get swamped late on by Elmalka and Porta Fortuna, while she looked stretched by the trip again when a creditable third behind Porta Fortuna and Opera Singer at Royal Ascot. There’s nothing sinister, either, in Ramatuelle’s absence since June – it was always the plan to give her a break and take in the Foret on the way to the Breeders’ Cup.
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