Fall is upon us with career-defining races in the Arc and beyond

Wwith the Arc trials at Longchamp on Sunday afternoon to weigh up in addition to four Group Ones on the second day of Ireland’s Festival of Champions at the Curragh, many punters will have had a serious case of information overload as a weekend of top-level action across four countries and on two continents finally came to an end.

Oisin Murphy and William Buick, who both took part in Grade One events at Woodbine in Toronto, Canada on Saturday, before a transatlantic jump to ride in Ireland a few hours later, would probably share the general feeling of exhaustion. Fall is upon us, and with it the career-defining races that will crown the 2024 champions in every generation and division.

The pre-post markets for next year’s 1,000 Guineas, 2,000 Guineas and, more immediately, the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe at Longchamp on October 6 were all subject to significant upheaval on Sunday afternoon, and the looming presence of European racing’s showpiece event means it is the obvious place to start.

Look De Vega entered Sunday’s Group Two Prix Niel as the unbeaten winner of the Prix du Jockey Club (French Derby), and the clear market leader for Arc with British bookmakers at around 7-2. He arrived without either his unblemished record or Arc favoritism having only finished third of the five runners behind André Fabre’s Sosie, who duly replaced him at the top of the betting at around 5-1.

It’s a race that is likely to garner plenty of views on YouTube over the next three weeks, as punters across Europe weigh up the relative merits of French, British and Irish middle distance form. It also raises the distinct possibility of a record ninth Arc victory for the greatest French trainer of all time and, some would argue, the finest Europe has seen too.

Test races like Niel can wax and wane in their importance, but it still feels a little surprising that the last stallion to complete the Niel/Arc double in the same year was the Fabre-trained Rail Link in 2006. Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s century, Niel winners continued to land the Arc with remarkable regularity, including Carnegie (1994), Helissio (1996), Sagamix (1998), Montjeu (1999), Sinndar (2000) and Hurricane Run (2005).

Since the Rail Link years, however, the race has entered a lean period in terms of its relevance to the Arc, which may reflect a growing reluctance among leading trainers to bother with trials at all given the greatly expanded global programme, in the autumn in particular, and the desire to keep their horses fresh.

However, Fabre is old school and in a league of his own when it comes to preparing an easily raced, late-developing three-year-old colt for the Arc.

Sosie finished just over two lengths behind Look De Vega in the Prix du Jockey Club – which has been run over 10 furlongs, rather than the “classic” Derby trip of 12, since 2005 – but improved to win the Grand Prix de Paris, over the Arc course and distance, in July. And unless Fabre has suddenly forgotten everything he’s learned about training horses for Arc in the 40-or-so years since Trempolino – another Niel winner – gave him his first win in 1987, you can be sure that Sosie will to improve before Sunday’s outing. .

The same, of course, goes for Look De Vega, who didn’t see a racetrack until last November and won the Jockey Club in early June on just his third outing. He remains second favorite for the Arc at around 6-1, with Japanese challenger Shin Emperor and Aidan O’Brien’s Los Angeles, the Irish Derby winner, separated by a head when third and fourth respectively in Saturday’s Irish Champions. Bets, next in at 8-1 and 10-1 respectively.

British-trained Arc contenders are a little thin on the ground, although Ralph Beckett’s admirable Bluestocking, who landed another of Sunday’s Arc trials, the Group One Prix Vermeille, certainly deserves his place in the field and can be backed at around 12-1.

O’Brien’s Lake Victoria was the prime mover in next year’s classic markets on Sunday after beating a field that included better-fancied stablemate Bedtime Story in the Group One Moyglare Stud Stakes.

She is now joint favorite for next year’s 1,000 Guineas along with another O’Brien-trained mare, Fairy Godmother, but the stable suffered a surprise reverse in the card’s other two-year-old Group One, as Henri Matisse, the 5-6 favourite, surrendered his unbeaten record behind Joseph O’Brien’s Scorthy Champ (12-1) in the National Stakes.

The pecking order among the youngsters will steadily come into focus over the coming weeks at Longchamp, Newmarket and Del Mar in California, but if there is one prospect that looms ahead of all others after a busy weekend on the track, it is surely the chance that at 78 age, André Fabre could become the first trainer to saddle an Arc winner in five different decades. Longchamp is the next stop on racing’s annual world tour, when Sosie will be at the center of attention.