Europe’s greatest all-aged race isn’t always won by the best horse but it would put an apt seal on 2016 for Aidan O’Brien should his top-rated star, Found,
shed her bridesmaid tag in Sunday's €5 million Qatar Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe.
As ironies go, it’s hardly particularly cruel that the world’s most powerful stallion producing operation has enjoyed a hugely successful Group 1 year with fillies.
Today, Alice Springs is set to start a hot favourite for the Ballydoyle/Coolmore team in Newmarket’s Sun Chariot Stakes. If she wins, it will be a 17th top-flight success of the season for her trainer, and the 10th with a filly.
Alice Springs has already secured two, Seventh Heaven has done the same and Minding has four. Despite that, older stable companion Found is currently rated the best runner O’Brien trains, yet goes into the Arc on a run of five seconds in a row.
On the back of four runner-up placings last year, it has led to one firm offering just 5-1 about Found missing out yet again in Paris for a race in which her ninth to Golden Horn a year ago is the only time she has ever finished out of the first three.
What could prove significant though is that Found goes into this Arc on the back of an Irish Champion Stakes performance that has been officially rated the best of her career.
Almanzor, the best horse in Europe according to the International Authorities Federation, beat Found at Leopardstown but he skips the Arc, which leaves the English star Postponed as favourite to complete an unbeaten season.
The Arc’s autumn date lends itself to shock results. Form can fluctuate at the end of a busy season, as shown by Solemia’s 41-1 victory in 2012 and Star Appeal’s 118-1 shock in 1975.
Worries about a busy campaign are unavoidable with Ireland’s star three-year-old colt, Harzand. Dermot Weld’s admirable star began his season at Cork in March, overcame a foot problem to win the Derby, recovered from it to land the Irish Derby and will now have to bounce back from being struck into in the Irish Champion. As tough as he is, it’s still a big ask.
What he has in his favour is a good draw in box six of the 16 runners. The usual Arc draw concerns could be even more pronounced now the Arc is at its temporary home in Chantilly. Postponed is next to Harzand, but the Japanese Derby hero Makhiki has been done no favours in 14.
Worst of all is Aidan O’Brien’s Gold Cup star Order of St George, who is parked on the far outside, and Found has hardly been done any favours either with stall 12. That’s a concern but it could be negated by the memory of how she thrived last autumn, ultimately reversing Arc form with Golden Horn in the Breeders’ Cup.
She has been trained with the Arc as a priority all season and the handicappers reckon she’s getting better. That could be enough to see her become O’Brien’s second Arc winner.
Best chance
O’Brien’s other best chance on the programme could be another filly, Promise To Be True, on a rehabilitation mission after a lack-lustre Moyglare effort in the Prix Marcel Boussac.
He also has Whitecliffsofdvoer and Utah in the Lagadere, and Jim Bolger gives last year's 1,000 Guineas heroine, Pleascach, a belated first start of the season in the Prix de l'Opera.
