John Ingles previews an Arc that might be short on quality but not on interest, and why the Irish-trained top-rated would be a big result for Japan.
There’s no such thing as a ‘bad Arc’ – with €5m to be shared out it’s always going to attract some of the best middle-distance performers in Europe, and beyond - but some years are better than others and the 2024 edition looks far from a vintage line-up.
Yes, ten of the sixteen-strong field are Group 1 winners, eight of them successful at that level this season, but Al Riffa, who tops the Timeform weight-adjusted ratings on 134, has a modest figure by historical standards for a top-rated horse going into the race.
That’s a good deal lower than the Timeform top-rated in any of the last ten editions – 8 lb lower than the average top-rated during that period, in fact. So why the lack of quality this year? Europe’s top middle-distance three-year-old City of Troy is waiting for the Breeders’ Cup Classic instead, but more importantly this has been an unusual year in another respect. Calandagan, Goliath, Rebel’s Romance and Iresine have all won Group 1 or Group 2 contests over a mile and a half in Europe this season and would have been worthy entries – the last-named even won one of the Arc trials three weeks ago, the Prix Foy - but as geldings none is eligible to take part.
Either of the high-class Francis-Henri Graffard-trained pair, Calandagan or Goliath, would have topped the Arc ratings otherwise.
But rather than dwell too much on the absentees or lack of top-class entries, a more upbeat way of looking at this year’s Arc is to appreciate how remarkably competitive and open it is. Referring to Timeform ratings again, just 4 lb covers the top ten with the rest not far behind either. France Galop agrees, their ratings having the entire field covered by just three kilos, with no fewer six horses – Al Riffa included – sharing top spot!
Should the French three-year-olds head the betting?
As you'd expect, therefore, the betting is open too but are the right horses at the top of the market?
With French three-year-old colts Sosie and Look de Vega – first and third in another of the Arc trials, the Prix Niel last time – vying for favouritism at the time of writing, that could be taking a higher view of this year’s Prix du Jockey Club form, in which Look de Vega had Sosie back in third on that occasion, than is perhaps warranted.
The unexposed Look de Vega, who lost his unbeaten record in the Niel, is expected to improve for that run, though, while Sosie’s trainer Andre Fabre is a master at bringing forward his Arc contenders from the trials and Sosie will be bidding to become his sixth Niel winner to follow up in the same year’s Arc.
To return to the top-rated, trained by Joseph O’Brien, the French-bred Al Riffa is a son of Wootton Bassett who, on the day Workforce won the Arc in 2010, was successful on the undercard for Richard Fahey and Paul Hanagan in the Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere. Like his sire, Al Riffa was a Group 1 winner at two, in a heavy-ground National Stakes, and while he was seen out only twice last year, he bumped into subsequent Arc winner Ace Impact in the Prix Guillaume d’Ornano and was beaten only three-quarters of a length at Deauville behind last year’s unbeaten and top-class winner.
This year, Al Riffa has had an international campaign with his four starts coming in France, the USA, Britain and Germany. He ran a cracker to finish a close fourth in the Prix Ganay on his reappearance and will meet the surprise winner of that contest, Haya Zark, again on Sunday. He then found the firm ground at Saratoga against him next time but back on softer going came from off the pace to run City of Troy to a length in the Eclipse. Some used the proximity of Al Riffa as a stick to beat City of Troy with after a less than impressive display from the Derby winner but conditions were taxing at Sandown and both the first two have enhanced their reputations since.
Stepping up to a mile and a half next time, Al Riffa was sent to Germany, no doubt in a search of soft ground again, but while he didn’t find it in the Grosser Preis von Berlin, he turned out not to need it either. Al Riffa proved much too good for just smart opposition at Hoppegarten, forging clear to win by five lengths. German form can often be wrongly overlooked when it comes to the Arc but it’s worth noting that two recent Grosser Preis von Berlin winners Torquator Tasso and Alpinista were later successful at Longchamp.
Fairy-tale win at last for Japan?
But victory for Al Riffa would also be the cause for plenty of celebration halfway round the world as well as in County Kilkenny where he’s trained. Japan have their own Arc runner Shin Emperor this year, the brother to 2020 winner Sottsass having finished a very good third in the Irish Champion Stakes on his recent European debut, but Al Riffa would doubtless count as a Japanese winner too in the eyes of a nation still waiting to claim its first Arc.
Al Riffa will be carrying the grey and white checks of Masaaki Matsushima who now owns a half-share in Al Riffa and who, in a recent interview with netkeiba.com, stressed that above all a win for Al Riffa would be a victory for his friend, legendary jockey Yutaka Take.
Al Riffa will be Matsushima’s fourth attempt to provide Take with an Arc-winning ride following unsuccessful bids from the Ballydoyle pair Japan and Broome and his Japanese Derby winner Do Deuce.
The 55-year-old Take has been trying to win the Arc for much longer than that, though, and it was thirty years ago, on the first of his ten rides in the race, that he went close for another Japanese owner, Teruya Yoshida, on the Peter Chapple-Hyam-trained White Muzzle. Finishing very strongly from a long way back to be beaten only a couple of lengths into sixth behind Carnegie after a slow start, Take got a roasting in the British press for that ride which was not wholly unjustified.
But the Arc that got away as far as Take is concerned and which still haunts him, according to Al Riffa’s part-owner, was the 2006 race. The Japanese triple crown winner Deep Impact, who’d been beaten only once on his home turf (by Heart’s Cry, sire of one of this year’s runners Continuous) was cheered on by thousands of his travelling supporters who sent his pari-mutuel odds crashing, but despite turning in a top-class effort, Deep Impact could finish only a close third past the post behind the Stephane Pasquier-ridden Rail Link, the most recent of Fabre’s three-year-old Arc winners.
Pasquier’s mount this year is the Prix Vermeille runner-up Aventure, in the same Wertheimer colours as Sosie and by the same sire too, 2009 Arc winner Sea The Stars.
An Arc win for Al Riffa would also be some achievement for Joseph O’Brien saddling his first runner in the race. Fifth on St Nicholas Abbey in 2011, the first of his four rides in the Arc, was his best placing in the race as a jockey. O’Brien rode the same horse again a year later although his 2000 Guineas and Derby winner Camelot (ridden by Frankie Dettori) was also in the field.
Camelot is responsible for three of Al Riffa’s Arc rivals, with leading contenders Los Angeles, sure to be suited by the return to a mile and a half after finishing fourth in the Irish Champion Stakes, and the supplemented Vermeille winner Bluestocking – second top on Timeform ratings - as well as outsider Sevenna’s Knight.
Published at 1552 BST on 04/10/24
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