Will it rain? The predictability of this Arc hangs in the balance
The Front Runner is our morning email exclusively for Members' Club Ultimate subscribers, written today by Chris Cook and available here as a free sample.
Subscribers can get more great insight, tips and racing chat from The Front Runner every Monday to Friday. Those who aren't yet signed up for The Front Runner should click here to sign up and start receiving emails immediately!
Not a Members' Club Ultimate subscriber? Click here to join today and also receive our Ultimate Daily emails plus our full range of fantastic website and newspaper content.
Mere days to go and still I can't make up my mind what the ground's going to be for the Qatar Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe. I've seen a couple of surprisingly confident predictions in favour of a drying surface but we all know how the weather can turn at this time of year.
Longchamp took a proper dousing on Thursday, when 17mm of rain fell. We can see the effect on the other racetracks either side of it, as Saint-Cloud raced on Friday while Auteuil staged action on Saturday and the going was officially "collant" on both occasions – it's recorded as heavy on our website, though I think a literal translation would be sticky or holding. Anyway, you get the point – it's testing ground.
Longchamp is officially very soft but there seems to be a general expectation it'll dry up during the week, supported by a forecast with temperatures in the mid-20s and no immediate sign of any more rain. But tracks don't always dry out very well at this time of year and the forecast also shows a lot of cloud-cover for the Paris area, which could help keep the moisture in the ground.
What really matters is whether there's any rain in the last 48 hours before the race and it's still too far away to be sure of that. One forecast I look at thinks there'll be 12mm from Friday night into Saturday morning – but that forecast will probably change five times between now and the weekend.
Why does this matter so much? Because ground conditions make a big difference to the Arc's predictability.
My basic feeling about Flat racing is that form works out nicely on good ground or faster, whereas everything's up for grabs on soft or worse. The softer it gets, the more weird things happen and I think recent Arc history mostly bears this out.
As a punter who likes to spend time truffling for upsets, I prefer testing ground because it's an equalising force which tends to muck things up for most fancied horses. If no rain turns up this week, I'll have to be a bit more restrained, a bit less ambitious in my hopes for any interesting longshots.
To illustrate the point, let's look at the last five Longchamp Arcs run on a decent surface, i.e. the predictable ones, if I'm right.
One other point: the draw matters more on decent ground because you tend to get more runners and it's harder to make up ground from a difficult position.
2018 Enable (Evens)
This was Enable's second Arc win, her first having occurred at Chantilly. It was the race in which she moved classily into the lead halfway up the straight but then had to cling on as Sea Of Class swooped down on her. It looked like a draw-affected result, Enable starting from six while Sea Of Class had a tough passage from 15.
From 19 runners, the first three in the betting finished first, second and fourth. This has been easily the fastest Arc since Longchamp reopened after redevelopment work.
2015 Golden Horn (9-2)
A really classy performance from the Derby winner, who bounded home from a prominent position at the top of the straight. In the final race of her career, Treve stayed on to be fourth, having made her move from further back than the first three.
The top three in the betting finished fourth, first and third.
2014 Treve (11-1)
That's a big price for a horse who'd won the previous year's Arc by five lengths but nothing had gone right for Treve this year and she'd failed to win from three outings. Somehow, Criquette Head got her right for the day that mattered and Treve got a dream run up the inner.
Taghrooda was sent off favourite and ran well to be third from a tough draw in 15.
2011 Danedream (20-1)
That SP is, on the face of it, a blow for the 'predictability' theory and I certainly didn't see Danedream coming. But, with the full benefit of hindsight, I'd say we just made a mess of those odds because she was a great mare who won the King George the next season. She was just another underestimated German raider who already had quality form in the book.
She was helped by a good draw in two, while So You Think did best of the fancied runners to be fourth from stall 14. Sarafina, sent off favourite, was overestimated and was unplaced favourite again in the Breeders' Cup Turf.
2009 Sea The Stars (4-6)
Yikes, an odds-on winner. But what else could Sea The Stars be after five Group 1 wins? A few things went wrong for him but he still won with something in hand.
The top four in the betting all finished in the top six, in a field of 19.
Now let's compare those explicable, good-ground results with the madness that (sometimes) follows a load of rain. Here are the last five Arcs run on what I'd accept as really testing ground:
2022 Alpinista (100-30)
Okay, we're starting with a winning favourite. Alpinista had been a big price in the ante-post market in June but by the time Longchamp came around, her chance was easy to see. She was unbeaten in seven and had form in the mud. The placed horses were also fancied and the only real disappointment was Luxembourg, who sustained injuries during the race.
2021 Torquator Tasso (72-1)
A real shock here, though (as with Danedream) there was a large element of the German raider being underestimated. He had top-class form in the book and proved it was no fluke with some great efforts the following year.
But he wouldn't have beaten Tarnawa on a drier surface.
2020 Sottsass (7.3-1)
We sent Enable off at a shade of odds-on, even though John Gosden had warned: "Defeat is a strong likelihood on this ground." She finished sixth, the only time she ever finished out of the first three.
In an 11-runner field, Stradivarius was another disappointing fancied runner, finishing seventh. Sottsass, third the year before, was possibly a bit lucky to hold off the German Derby winner In Swoop (10-1), who finished strongly and could have done with a stronger pace.
2019 Waldgeist (13-1)
Another testing Arc, another beaten odds-on favourite – although, in a strict sense, the same favourite because it's Enable again. At this point, she hadn't been beaten for two and a half years and she was sent off at 1-2 to make it three Arcs in a row.
But she couldn't quite see out the distance on "very soft" ground and, having been softened up by Sottsass, she was overhauled by Waldgeist. After the race, we all noticed he'd only been two lengths behind her in the King George. The softer ground made the difference.
2012 Solemia (33-1)
The market had faith in Camelot, with Frankie Dettori booked, but he ran one of the worst races of his career in seventh. It looked like a combination of heavy going and a hard race in the Leger three weeks before.
Orfevre lived up to his billing and cruised into the lead but then tired and got collared by Solemia. There are ways to explain her success but it took a lot of imagination to see it in advance. She was bred to stay, loved the ground and got a canny ride from a good draw, 12 stalls to the inside of Orfevre.
So there you have it. Small sample stuff but:
Good ground
Three winners out of five at 9-2 or shorter
Winners at evens and 4-6
Testing ground
Just one winner shorter than 7-1
Two odds-on losers
Who wins this year? I'll have a stab at answering that later in the week. In the meantime, let it rain!
Monday's picks, by Richard Birch
I am adamant Uggy Uggy Uggy, who contests Warwick’s Mary’s 70 Not Out Birthday Celebration Novices’ Handicap Hurdle (2.30), is far better than a seemingly moderate last-time-out effort suggests.
The five-year-old had looked progressive when slamming subsequent scorer Coal Fire by six lengths over 2m2½ at Stratford on good ground in July, and then caught many an eye with his strong-finishing 2m1f Cartmel second to Luttrell Lad from a highly unpromising position.
Still only fourth at the final flight, Uggy Uggy Uggy produced a powerful surge through the heavy going to reduce the deficit to just three and a half lengths at the line.
Both those performances suggested Uggy Uggy Uggy would show further improvement when stepped up in trip, and he was backed down to 10-3 favouritism over 2m5½f at Fontwell last month.
Held up in rear, the market leader was again poorly placed at the end of the back-straight, but made smooth headway around the final turns and looked set to play a major part in the finish until proving one-paced on the run-in.
The fact that he was alongside the winner Watergrange Jack two out, yet was beaten eight and a half lengths into fourth is strongly indicative of a horse who simply failed to stay.
If that proves an accurate assessment of his Fontwell running, the handicapper has taken a chance in dropping him 1lb and shrewd handler Milton Harris seeks to take advantage by bringing the son of Saddler’s Rock back to 2m.
'He can power through the field and pounce late' - Richard Birch shares three Monday fancies
Three things to look out for today
1. Nico de Boinville will be having a close look at how Warwick's groundstaff have set up their hurdles for Monday's action, with particular reference to any spots where a naughty pony might be tempted to duck out to the side. That's because he's on Hands Off (1.55), who was cantering alongside the leaders at Doncaster in January when the chestnut decided he'd rather not tackle the third-last and ran around the edge instead, despite obvious attempts from the saddle to keep him on track. Hands Off missed a couple of possible runs in February and March, meaning he remains a novice for this season, and he now starts off in a winnable-looking contest. He's from a talented family – Gaye Brief, Black Humour and Kingsmark are all in the tree somewhere. But do we trust Hands Off to do what he's told?
2. Speaking of blue-blooded youngsters, Doha is the daughter of two Arc winners, being by Sea The Stars out of Treve. So it's appropriate for her to be out again in this week of weeks, tackling a maiden race for fillies at Leicester (4.25). As we observed in this space when she made her debut 17 days ago, it's not a pedigree that screams precocious speed and naturally she wasn't quite quick enough for a mile round Kempton. But she stayed on nicely into a close third and today's extra quarter-mile on rain-softened turf gives her a big chance.
3. Soft ground is a potential stumbling block for Hercule Du Seuil, a novice chaser with Willie Mullins who has been showing a tonne of ability, including when landing a Grade 3 at Galway in early August, his most recent outing. He was pulled up in the Royal Bond in December on the last occasion he was asked to tackle ground with this much juice in it. But the word from Mark Walsh last time was that he was learning to relax and settle, which improves his chance of seeing out a race on a testing surface. Can he cope better at Roscommon today (4.30)? Solness, runner-up at Galway, is 3lb better off for six and a half lengths, so there's little margin for error from the likely favourite.
Read these next:
Racing Post Members' Club: subscribe for just £9.99
The Front Runner is our unmissable email newsletter available exclusively to Members' Club Ultimate subscribers. Chris Cook, a four-time Racing Reporter of the Year award winner, provides his take on the day's biggest stories and tips for the upcoming racing every morning from Monday to Friday. Not a Members' Club Ultimate subscriber? Click here to join today and also receive our Ultimate Daily emails plus our full range of fantastic website and newspaper content.
Copy- Beware the pacemaker: Audience joins a list of horses who slipped the field in Group 1 races
- The Front Runner: hurray for Fontwell and a century of racing
- Willie Mullins crashes through €10 million prize-money barrier - and it must be a threat to the game's fabric
- What are the clues that can help us spot a Derby outsider who might actually win?
- Racing has a rich history - it's time to breathe a bit of life and vision into highlighting it
- Beware the pacemaker: Audience joins a list of horses who slipped the field in Group 1 races
- The Front Runner: hurray for Fontwell and a century of racing
- Willie Mullins crashes through €10 million prize-money barrier - and it must be a threat to the game's fabric
- What are the clues that can help us spot a Derby outsider who might actually win?
- Racing has a rich history - it's time to breathe a bit of life and vision into highlighting it