Always moving well, he swept down the outside to challenge the runner-up and soon kicked on, only having to be ridden out to score by over a length. He had perhaps a little in reserve at the finish.

This is not one of those years when a high-class three-year-old can win pretty much anything their connections want. There are some seriously good older horses around that are almost certainly better than Australia (e.g. Treve, Cirrus Des Aigles and Just A Way). There is also Prince Gibraltar in France who is probably a better three-year-old. Plus there are a whole slew of really fast French three-year-old fillies who, together with the horses mentioned, make the Arc a very difficult proposition.