Trends buster? The Arc stats that Ace Impact will have to defy if he is to triumph on Sunday

This may be a year when most of the leading contenders for Sunday's Qatar Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe must defy some trend or statistic if they are to emerge triumphant.

Hukum bids to become the first six-year-old to win Europe's greatest race, while he and Westover will have been off the track for 64 days since the King George, a gap bridged in recent times only by Workforce and Lammtarra. And Continuous bids to become the first horse to win the Leger and the Arc in the same year, with only a two-week turnaround to boot.

But Ace Impact has a whole mountain of unusual baggage to jettison, although behind each individual trend he attempts to bust, Jean-Claude Rouget can call on cast-iron logic to explain the addition or subtraction of what would be considered a more conventional preparation.

In common with Feed The Flame, Ace Impact did not race at two, which takes us back to Rail Link, whose career began with an unseat on April 10 of his three-year-old career back in 2006.

The choice of the Prix Guillaume d'Ornano as his sole prep run means Ace Impact will bid to become the first Arc winner since Saumarez in 1990 not to have previously tackled a mile and a half.

A fair few have tried in the last decade and this 'stat' will surely fall by the wayside sooner or later – much as seven-year-olds in the Grand National did – given the commercial imperatives of winning Group 1s at shorter distances for a potential stallion; if enough good horses try, eventually one will escape the stout stayers. At least so the theory goes.

Most striking is Ace Impact's unbeaten record. Very few horses get this far at the top level without at least one blemish and the most recent to have been successful were a pair of brilliant fillies: Zarkava (2008) and Treve (2013).

More recently Avenir Certain tried and failed for Rouget at the end of a thrilling 2014 campaign. She too was untested at 12 furlongs. For all the idiosyncrasies of Ace Impact's road to Longchamp, could it be that, if he stays, he might very well win?

Read these next:

'Fresh horses win the Arc' - Jean-Claude Rouget sweet on unbeaten Ace Impact after favourite comes through final workout 

Ace Impact team show no sign of nerves as Arc favourite goes through his paces at Deauville before big test 

Ace Impact and Hukum among 15 runners left in the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe at first forfeit stage 

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