The draw has made things interesting all right. Sea Moon in 16, Masterstroke in 17, erstwhile favourite Orfevre in 18. The stalls don’t go any higher than 18, and the stats say that things aren’t going to be easy for any of those three.
Every renewal of the Arc, since Dalakhani won the race in 2003 from stall 14, has been won by a horse drawn eight or lower. Also, only two horses in the last 19 years – Sakhee and Dalakhani – have won the race from a double-figure stall.
It’s a compelling statistic, it’s up there with the 15-of-the-last-18-winners-were-three-year-olds one, but it is not an insurmountable one. It doesn’t mean that a horse drawn wide can’t win the Arc given the correct set of circumstances, just as the 15-of-the-last-18 stat doesn’t mean that an older horse can’t win it, again, given the correct set of circumstances.
The draw at Longchamp is important. If you are drawn wide in the Arc, you have to decide if you are going to use your horse up in the early stages to go forward and get in close to the rail and close to the front, or take your time, settle back in the field and try to tuck in, or sit mid-division and sacrifice ground by going wide. None of the three options are very palatable.
Interestingly, those two renewals, the Sakhee and the Dalakhani renewals, in 2001 and 2003 respectively, were run on holding ground, and the draw may not be as important on easy or holding ground as it is on fast ground. There is plenty of rain around Paris these days, and the likelihood is that the ground will be at best on the easy side of good on Sunday, possibly even a little softer than that.
Also, there is plenty of early pace in the race. Aidan O’Brien has four horses in the race, and two of them, Robin Hood and Ernest Hemingway, will surely go forward early. Orfevre’s trainer, Yasutoshi Ikee, is also running Aventino, who took them through the early stages in Orfevre’s Prix Foy, although not, apparently, at a pace that was as fast as Christophe Soumillon on Orfevre wanted to go. (Hence the shouting.)
The Aga Khan’s horse, Kesampour, led all the way when he won a listed race at Saint-Cloud in April, and he took them along early in the Prix Niel, so it is probable that he will be up there early as well, which probably won’t do the Aga Khan’s filly Shareta any harm.
So it is reasonable to assume that, unlike one or two of the Arcs that have been run in recent years, there will be a decent early pace on. That should stretch the field out early, and should make it easier for those drawn wide to get in close to the inside rail before they have to turn than it would be in a bunching field. Combine that with the probable slow ground, and riders will probably be able to take their time a little more at the start than would have been the case on fast ground. All of that into the mix, fast pace and slow ground, and the negative impact of a wide draw may be reduced significantly. The draw may not be the crucial factor this year that it often is in the Arc.
Now that the rains have come, I think that the value of the race lies with Sea Moon at 12 and Masterstroke at 17. Sea Moon is the forgotten horse of the race. If he hadn’t run in the King George, if he had gone straight to Longchamp after blowing his rivals away in the Hardwicke Stakes, he would be among the favourites for tomorrow’s race.
And there were excuses for his run in the King George. He was probably too far back in the field given how the race was run, he met traffic problems up the home straight when he was trying to make his ground, and Ryan Moore said afterwards that the horse didn’t give him the feel that he usually gives him through a race. And even at that, he was only beaten just over two lengths by Danedream and Nathaniel, both of whom would have been in the top three or four in the betting for tomorrow’s race if they hadn’t been ruled out.
Sea Moon hasn’t run since then, but I wouldn’t worry too much about that. He goes well fresh, and the fact that Sir Michael Stoute and Prince Khalid Abdullah are happy to allow him take his chance in the Arc speaks volumes. It was a similar story with the same connections’ Workforce, who, like Sea Moon, finished fifth in the King George in 2010, then won the Arc on his next run. And the fact that Ryan Moore is back in action on time is massive.
Masterstroke is a little more of a leap of faith, but he is a three-year-old (ref the 15-of-18 stat above), he gets 8lb from his elders, and he is trained by Andre Fabre, who has trained more Arc de Triomphe winners than any other person ever.
Masterstroke won the Group 2 Grand Prix de Deauville on his most recent run, thus becoming one of only a handful of members of what is almost certainly a sub-standard crop of three-year-olds to beat the older horses in a Group 1 or Group 2 race in Europe this season. He needed every yard of that 12-and-a-half-furlong trip to get up and beat Gatepost, he is more stamina than speed, so the rain and the prospect of a fast pace in the race are both in his favour.
Of course, a short neck defeat of Gatepost is not Arc-winning form, useful performer though Gatepost is, but Masterstroke has massive potential for progression. That was just his sixth run ever, he should come on significantly for it, and you know that he will have been trained by Fabre to peak in the autumn. He will have to improve if he is to be involved tomorrow, and that is the leap of faith, but, given his profile and his trainer, and the fact that said trainer is happy to allow him take his chance in the race, it is one that you can make easily enough at the price.
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