Qatar Prix Vermeille (Group 1)

ARC Trials Day took place at ParisLongchamp last Sunday and, while the racing was high quality and produced a ground-breaking triumph for Aidan O’Brien, hot takes on participants likely to play major roles in ‘the big one’ in two weekends from now were thin on the ground. The only thing that was hot was the weather.

The Master of Ballydoyle has won almost everything that there is to win during his quarter of a century plus with a flat licence, but the Qatar Prix Vermeille, Sunday’s mile and a half Group 1 feature, had escaped him thus far as top-class contenders such as Tuesday, Snowfall, Magic Wand and Yesterday had all come up short.

The drought was broken by Warm Heart, a filly who merits mention alongside those former stars. She showed her quality to overcome near-disaster at the start to clinch a narrow but convincing success.

A bad stumble leaving the start had jockey James Doyle wondering if the Yorkshire Oaks heroine would remain upright and was immediately forced away from Plan A, which was to gain a prominent pitch in a race where a strong pace was far from guaranteed.

So it proved as Pensee du Jour set a sensible but far from helter-skelter pace, with the second Irish raider, Above The Curve, on her tail and Warm Heart in midfield on the inside, just behind the odds-on favourite, Blue Rose Cen.

Concerned

Aware of his mount’s strong staying ability, Doyle was concerned that she might get trapped in a pocket on the inside, so jemmied a clear passage off the rail and past Blue Rose Cen on the home bend, a manoeuvre that came at the price of a two-day riding ban.

Once out in the open, she quickened into the lead approaching the furlong marker and then, showing her usual tendency to doss in front, held off Melo Melo by short neck. The front two pulled a length and three-quarters clear, the best of the rest finishing in a heap, Sea Silk Road conjuring a withering late burst having been outpaced to grab third with Rue Boissonade also rattling home, my long-priced selection just failing to qualify for the each-way money a short neck back in fourth.

Blue Rose Cen, Above The Curve and Pensee du Jour were close behind in fifth, sixth and seventh.

“We didn’t go all that fast, which meant I was worried as I wasn’t able to get the position that I wanted at the start,” Doyle revealed. “She doesn’t stop when she hits the front but she does seem to wait for the others.”

Arc entry

Warm Heart is not engaged in the Arc and, asked for his thoughts about a possible supplementary entry, Doyle replied: “My feeling is that she needs good ground as she has quite a quick action, and though we have had it fast on Arc Day, you can hardly count on that.”

Quizzed on the same topic after watching on from the Curragh, O’Brien concurred, suggesting the Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf would be a more likely destination.

Indeed, none of the first five home hold Arc entries, and Blue Rose Cen, who was the best fancied in ante-post betting Sunday morning, may not even run again this season, as her trainer Christopher Head felt that her hectic campaign may have started to take its toll. Head did confirm that she will stay in training in 2024.

PROBABLY the day’s best Arc prep came from Feed The Flame in the Prix Niel, but this Group 2 event was actually won by another horse missing from the list of Arc contenders when initial entries for Europe’s premier race were taken in early May.

The colt in question is the Group 1 Deutsches Derby winner Fantastic Moon, who justified his connections’ brave decision to pull out of Germany’s biggest all-aged event, the Group 1 Grosser Preis von Baden, at the very last minute the previous Sunday in the belief that the track at Baden-Baden had been overwatered.

Feed The Flame’s pacemaker, King Of Records, set an uneven gallop, going steady until beyond halfway and then quickening to such an extent that Rene Piechulek, aboard second-placed Fantastic Moon, decided not to try and keep up, allowing the front-runner to go 10 lengths clear.

Unassailable advantage

Instead, Fantastic Moon increased his speed more gradually and, after hitting the front with a furlong and a half to run, soon established an unassailable advantage.

Feed The Flame, who had been dropped out in last by Christophe Soumillon, stayed on strongly to take up the chase inside the final furlong but was not subjected to a hard race and was making no inroads in the closing stages - final winning margin was two and a half lengths.

Piechulek, who is the partner of Fantastic Moon’s trainer Sarah Steinberg, echoed Doyle’s words afterwards, saying: “Because he needs good or faster ground the Arc, which is usually run on soft, has never been an objective.”

Lars-Wilhem Baumgarten, the leading German football agent and principal of winning ownership group Liberty Racing, was less categorical about his Arc participation, saying: “Underfoot conditions were perfect here, as they should be at both the Breeders’ Cup and the Japan Cup, but we’ll discuss it and see how things go with the weather in Paris.”

By contrast, Pascal Bary, whose glittering CV includes victories in most of France’s top races apart from the Arc, was quick to confirm that Feed The Flame will be back and better on October 1st.

“He was obviously less ready than I thought and was blowing really hard afterwards,” Bary said. “But the winner is a very good horse and Feed The Flame will be much more at home on soft ground.”

PLACE Du Carrousel, winner of Sunday’s other Arc trial, the Group 2 Prix Foy, is both entered and an intended runner, in next month’s showpiece.

That said, the horse to take out of the race was the neck runner-up, Iresine, who is not eligible for the Arc as he is a gelding.

Returning from a four-month absence following a training setback and held up in last place off a slow pace over a trip short of his best on ground that is quicker than he prefers, Iresine did incredibly well to get so close to the race-fit winner.

He holds an entry in the Champion Stakes at Ascot, but trainer Jean-Pierre Gauvin is leaning towards sending him off on a Far Eastern adventure instead.

Place Du Carrousel’s trainer Andre Fabre always merits the utmost respect with his Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe runners, yet her participation probably owes a lot to the fact that this Ballylinch Stud-bred four-year-old Lope De Vega filly is owned by race sponsors Al Shaqab.

If the great recent record of females is to continue in this year’s Arc, most likely it will be thanks to the unheralded Japanese raider, Through Seven Seas, who was an unlucky runner-up to the mighty Equinox when last seen in June.

Forget about sea travel, she’ll have to travel through considerably more than seven countries’ airspace when she jets in from Tokyo, yet has a much better chance than current odds of 33/1 suggest.

IT’S hard to find a bit of brain space for jumping at this time of year, but Il Est Francais, a chaser of unlimited potential, made a fabulous fencing debut at Auteuil on Tuesday.

Now beaten just once in six starts over obstacles, the five-year-old could turn out to be something very special and his trainer, Noel George, son of Gloucestershire handler Tom, mentioned afterwards that connections are thinking about taking him to England in the relatively near future, with the Grade 1 Kauto Star Novice Chase at Kempton Park on St Stephen’s Day potentially on his agenda.