Qatar Prix de Royallieu (Group 1)
ARC Saturday was very much a day for the visitors, not for the first time in recent years, with British raiders taking the three most valuable races on the card.
The afternoon’s highest quality contest was undoubtedly the Group 1 Qatar Prix de Royallieu, an event which has been picked off by cross-Channel challengers every year but one since its move to a mile and six furlongs and elevation to Group 1 status in 2019.
In a wide-open betting heat, Aidan O’Brien’s Bedtime Story was narrowly favoured at 3/1 but never got competitive before finishing seventh, just behind her much less fancied stablemate, Island Hopping, the pair over 12 lengths adrift of the impressive winner, Consent.
Trained by Sir Mark Prescott, the daughter of Lope De Vega defeated William Haggas’s Santorini Star by four and a half lengths to notch a 1-2 for Newmarket residents.
Doubts
Sent off 12.3/1 on the back of doubts about her ability to act on the rain-affected ground (which was officially ‘very soft’ but was surely no worse than ‘soft’ in Irish terms) and because she had been beaten by two of Saturday’s opponents in each of her last two starts, Consent led with two furlongs to run in a race in which the first three home filled the top three positions throughout.
The front-running Santorini Star, who had just got the better of a prolonged battle with the winner in the Group 2 Park Hill Stakes three weeks earlier, was readily left behind this time around and did well to edge out the French outsider, Rabbit’s Foot, in a tight duel for second.
Rabbit’s Foot ended a hectic day across the road at Saint-Cloud by topping the 23 lots sold at the Arqana Arc Sale when changing hands for €625,000.
Assistant trainer William Butler was left to face the media in the winner’s enclosure as Prescott, who was landing his first pattern race for 13 months, is famously travel-averse and Consent’s owner, Prince A A Faisal, was also absent, watching on nervously from his home in Riyadh.
“The plan is for her to race on next year and I think that the French can expect to see us again in some of their top races,” Butler revealed.
Qatar Prix du Cadran (Group 1)
WHILE Prescott is, after 55 years with a licence, the doyen of Newmarket’s training community, George Scott, a much more youthful member of that fraternity at the age of 37, took the card’s other Group 1, the Qatar Prix du Cadran, thanks to the remarkable Caballo De Mar.
Supplemented into this €300,000 contest at a cost of €21,600 when it was revealed on Tuesday that only three of its original entries had stood their ground, Caballo de Mar sat on the tail of the pace-setting Coltrane throughout most of the two mile four furlongs trip. Having moved past Andrew Balding’s seven-year-old at the furlong and a half marker, Caballo De Mar kept going well to score by a length and three-quarters.
Coltrane, having the 35th and final start of a career that has gleaned over £1 million in prize money, plugged on to ensure another British 1-2, crossing the line a length and a quarter in front of the Aidan O’Brien-trained Queenstown in third.
Rapid ascent
In a story reminiscent of Princess Zoe, who landed this race for Tony Mullins in 2020, Caballo De Mar has made a rapid ascent to this Group 1 pinnacle. Both were once beaten off precisely the same basement handicap mark of 64 before going on a winning spree and rocketing through the ranks.
A first top-level winner for the Irish National Stud stallion Phoenix Of Spain, Caballo De Mar took eight attempts to break his duck, then registered a sequence of eight wins in 11 starts.
An overjoyed Scott exclaimed: “It’s our first Group 1! I don’t often get emotional but this has absolutely floored me. He’s a one-off, a really special horse with a huge heart.
“Tom [Marquand] gave him the perfect ride, positioning him on the hip of the leader, which seems to be his happy place.
“He’s in such good form that he might run again this season, then he will definitely be heading to the Middle East for some of the riches on offer over there early next year.”
JOSEPH O’Brien got Arc weekend off to the perfect start for its strong Irish contingent by producing Tennessee Stud and Emit to fill the first two places in the meeting’s curtain-raiser, the Group 2 Qatar Prix Chaudenay.
The Piltown pair had the race to themselves a long way before it had reached its mile and seven furlong winning post and, having kicked two lengths clear passing the furlong pole, Tennessee Stud was driven out by Dylan Browne McMonagle to hold off his stablemate by a neck. There was a yawning seven and a half length break back to Surabad in third.
Representing O’Brien, Kevin Blake said: “Tennessee Stud has a wonderful relaxed temperament, so we have always felt that this step up in trip would suit.
“He didn’t win by far, but Dylan felt that was because he was getting lonely in front, and he has the profile of an Ascot Gold Cup and Melbourne Cup horse of the future.”
Prix Dollar
George Scott was highly optimistic of completing a double with Bay City Roller in the Group 2 Qatar Prix Dollar, buoyed by his charge racing on rain-softened ground for the first time.
His confidence must have been heightened by a pre-race downpour, but in the end Bay City Roller had to settle for second, a length and a half behind First Look.
A second winner on the day for the Ballylinch Stud-based Lope De Vega, First Look has been transformed by a recent gelding operation and could now target the Breeders’ Cup Turf.
First Look is trained by Andre Fabre, and the home team also managed to keep the invading hordes at bay in the Group 2 Qatar Prix Wildenstein.
Ridari, from the Mikel Delzangles yard, got through on the inside to edge out the Simon and Ed Crisford-trained Quddwah by a short head, with Ed Dunlop’s Skukuza proving a neck too strong for Joseph O’Brien’s Princess Child to take third.
Finally, there was another big pay day for the British raiding party in the two-year-old contests for the €260,000 Arqana Haras de Bouquetot Criterium d’Automne as Cape Orator (Mohaather), from the Ralph Beckett stable, came home a length and a quarter in front of David Menuisier’s Inis Mor.