the arc 2020.

​I chose not to write a piece about the Arc last week as I couldn’t get my head around the race this season. Firstly. there was the ‘would Love turn-up or not?’ conundrum. Then there was the heavy ground issue. Or would the ground dry to something like decent or would it simply get tacky and holding? Then, just as I was beginning to think Serpentine might set off in front at a reasonable gallop and not be caught, the whole Gain horse feed business came along and muddied the waters still further.
And all the time there was my heart wanting Enable to win and my head reminding me that John Gosden was saying that the ground might ultimately prove her undoing. John Gosden is rarely wrong; all punters should remember that when trying to come to a decision regarding a horse he trains.
In the end, come Sunday morning, I came to the conclusion that Andre Fabre is possibly the smartest cookie in the whole of France and if had plumped for upping Persian King, known for being a miler, to a mile and a half and seemingly having not a care about the ground, it would be foolish to ignore the master and his master plan.
Yes, Andre Fabre does get it wrong once in a while and Sunday was the day. But you have to say that on decent ground Persian King looks well up to winning a Group 1 over 12-furlongs or whatever is the metric equivalent and it would be foolish to neglect him if he should go to the Breeders Cup or Japan.
Look, Frankie has won more Arcs than any jockey has a right to expect and to even suggest criticism of the ride he produced on his ‘queen’, especially coming from a sofa-jockey like me, would be extraordinarily crass. So, all I will say is that I was surprised he did not make the running as he has with her on so many occasions, which as she jumped from the stalls with such alacrity seemed his likely tactic. I was mightily surprised when he reined back and allowed Persian King a soft lead, Boudot setting a pace that was to his benefit and certainly not Frankie’s.
Would it have made any difference to the eventual outcome? We will never know, will we? She didn’t win and we were all as heartbroken as Frankie. Will he ever get over it? Females do that to men, don’t they?
He was noticeably kind on the mare once he knew the race was gone from him, not once picking up his whip or even urging her into greater effort. To the last, Frankie’s only consideration was for Enable. It is a love affair we are unlikely to see again on a racecourse for a long time. I hope Prince Khalid retires her now and is not seduced by the beguiling hope that she might finish her career in the winners’ circle, which she doubtless deserves, by running her in the Champion Stakes or the Breeders Cup Turf. It is the decision Charles Englehard came to with Nijinsky, though he had the excuse that he was dying of cancer and knew he wouldn’t see the likes of Nijinsky again; it didn’t have the required outcome then and perhaps it won’t with Enable and that will only prolong the sadness of not achieving immortality at Longchamp. And without crowds to give her the farewell she has earned, what would be the point?
The other slightly disappointing aspect of Sunday is that the winner, as far as Group I horses are concerned, Sottsass is quite an ordinary winner of the Arc, as was Waldgeist last year. In fact, in amongst the great Arc winners – that’s great Arc winners, not necessarily great horses – the race does fall to ‘ordinary’ horses, Gold River, to denigrate just one.
On any other day in the year at Longchamp a female jockey winning a Group 1 would have captured the headlines, especially when the horse came from a lowly beginning and the jockey and trainer are a couple – the trainer referred to the jockey as ‘his wife’, while the jockey did not refer to him as ‘my husband’, it might something they need to discuss. Of course, our Hayley did it first, an achievement that can never be taken from her, yet in winning the Marcel Boussac, Mlle Jessica Marcialis may have broken through an even more indomitable glass ceiling. Female jockeys in France are virtually never represented in Group races of a lesser kind, let alone races at the highest level. We can only hope Tiger Tanaka trains on into a three-year-old capable of being competitive in the French classics next year. Of course, what with the way of the racing world, by this time next week the filly might be the ownership of Godolphin, Coolmore or someone with the many millions that might tempt the present owner to parting with their prize asset. And the romance will be no more and it might be another fifty years before a female jockey wins a Group 1 in France.