Why we all need to start paying a bit more attention to German racing

There are lots of different ways to reflect on Sunday's Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe result but one that makes some appeal to me is how it underlines the importance and influence of Group 1 form. The first seven horses to finish had all been previously successful at the highest level in their home countries, and elsewhere in some cases; the seven who followed them home had not, with the sole exception of Broome, a Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud winner who faded away into 11th.

We have too many Group 1 races in Europe these days and the standard has been slightly lowered as a result but winning at that level still counts for a great deal in almost all cases. As a punter, I'm often prepared to give a horse a chance to do something it has not done before but it's a risk that needs to be compensated for by the odds available, as this result shows.

Along with others, I made a case for Alenquer. Some fancied Raabihah, some saw possibilities in Deep Bond. But they hadn't won at the highest level before and they still haven't.

Meanwhile, very few of us gave Torquator Tasso the time of day but he had two Group 1 wins to his name, last year's Grosser Preis von Berlin and last month's Grosser Preis Von Baden. The last-named race was also won by Danedream on her way to Arc glory in 2011, meaning the Grosser Preis Von Baden has a better record at identifying the Arc winner over that span than Ascot's King George.

While we're talking up the German race, it's worth remembering that Best Solution went straight from winning it in 2018 to following up in the fabulously valuable Caulfield Cup at 11-1. Perhaps we all need to start paying a bit more attention to German racing.

German breeding has long been a byword for imparting stamina and that showed in the way Torquator Tasso was pulling away from the undoubtedly classy placed horses in the final strides. That he was able to do that is all the more remarkable when you look back at the early stages of the race and watch him failing to settle, having been drawn wide and proving unable to find immediate cover.

He raced wide the whole way. For much of he race, he was alongside Hurricane Lane and Tarnawa, who would finish as his nearest pursuers, and went unpunished for having to cover more ground than them. He was not the fastest in this race, as the sectional times show but he was the best at that distance, on that ground, and it looks as though he was value for more than the winning margin.

Arc ace Torquator Tasso (yellow) sweeps by Tarnawa (green) and Hurricane Lane (centre)Credit: Christophe Archambault (AFP Getty Images)

Connections said they would take time to consider his future and fair enough. They appeared stunned to find themselves conducting a press conference in three languages. It would have been the wrong time to start forming important decisions.

But Torquator Tasso did not look like a flukey winner, whatever his odds might suggest. So hopefully they will not react as if they fear he will be unable to back up that performance and rush him off to stud. This horse has more to offer in time. It would be great to see him at Ascot for the King George, for example. Danedream was able to win it. Rain in England in summer is not totally unknown.

Now that we know what Torquator Tasso is, surely we should be having a look at some of those who have been running against him in Germany and thinking about what they might achieve. The bonny chestnut Sisfahan was an eyecatching third to Alpinista at Cologne last week, when not getting a great run through the Preis von Europa. He travelled like the best horse for much of the Baden-Baden race last month but conceded first run to Torquator Tasso and went down by a length.

Anyway, it was a thrilling Arc, even if the winner was not one we expected. Of course, with the ground so testing, a shock result was, in a way, quite widely anticipated. But the obvious horses came to the fore, other than the winner. It looks like we just underestimated him.

The crowd was said to be 15,000, a quarter of the usual Arc crowd, with the number of visitors from Britain and Ireland understandably well down on a normal year. The hope must be that we are all feeling a lot more outgoing by the first weekend in October next year.

Olivier Delloye, chief executive of France-Galop, told the Front Runner he saw this as "a first step towards a more normal Arc. The attendance is what we could reasonably expect, knowing the drop in sales of tickets in the UK ahead of the event. Gambling figures are excellent, though, with a rise of 11 per cent compared to 2019 figures."

He also reports huge interest in the race in Japan, which had two runners. That country's quest to win an Arc has been going for decades and surely they will make it happen some day. But they may require a year in which the early autumn is dry. The deluges of the past fortnight have been what we might now call German weather.

'He might have won had the pace been stronger' – Arc performances analysed