Bluestocking bolts up to Arc triumph

PARIS - Bluestocking rewarded her trainer Ralph Beckett for supplementing her this week in winning Europe’s most prestigious race, the €5 million (S$7.2 million) Group 1 Qatar Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe at Longchamp on Oct 6.

The English runner ridden by Irishman Rossa Ryan came home clear of French filly Aventure with Irish runner Los Angeles third.

A four-year-old by Camelot, Bluestocking is the 10th filly or mare to win the Arc since 2000.

She was added to the field only this week with a fee of €120,000 – not a bad investment, with her owners picking up almost €3 million in prize money.

For Arc de Triomphe connoisseurs, the winning colours are very familiar as it is a record seventh time they have been welcomed back to the winner’s enclosure.

The famous green, pink and white colours were previously carried first past the Longchamp winning post in the world’s seventh-richest turf race by Rainbow Quest (1985), Dancing Brave (1986), Rail Link (2006), Workforce (2010) and dual Arc heroine Enable (2017 and 2018).

Saudi Prince Khalid Abdullah may have died but his family have kept the flame burning.

For the 53-year-old Beckett, though, it is a first Arc.

“She’s extraordinary, good horses train themselves,” said Beckett, whose cousin Teddy is the former racing manager to the Abdullah’s Juddmonte racing operation.

Beckett said he was in awe of the stoic nature of his 11-2 winner Bluestocking.

“It’s a tribute to her constitution as much as anything else,” he said.

“It’s extraordinary to have a horse to start in May and dance all those dances and then come here and do that only three weeks after what looked like a tough race in the Vermeille.

“She is an extraordinary beast.

“I think the draw helped. He (Ryan) got her in the right place and everything went to plan and he was able to pull it off.

“What a day. This is our best ever day for sure.”

Beckett said it was a pleasure to train for the Juddmonte outfit.

“The Juddmonte team are an extraordinary outfit to work for in the sense that there is no pressure, ever,” he said.

“You live or die by our own actions but there has never been any pressure.”

For Ryan, too, it is the first taste of what it is like to win an Arc.

“It’s very surreal to be honest with you – my family are here too,” said Ryan, riding in only his second Arc.

He rode a superb race, shadowing Ryan Moore on the pace-setting Los Angeles before launching his challenge about 600 metres out of the 2,400-metre race.

Los Angeles battled for all he was worth but yielded and Aventure (Stephane Pasquier) crept into second – the first two filling the same positions that they did in the Group 1 Prix Vermeille (2,400m) on Sept 15.

Favourite Sosie – sporting the same colours as Aventure of Chanel owners, the Wertheimer brothers – had every chance to give trainer Andre Fabre a record-extending ninth win, but lacked an extra gear to finish fourth for Maxime Guyon.

Japan’s hopes of winning the race they desire above all others ended in further disappointment as the hotly fancied Shin Emperor finished unplaced.

The record of Japanese horses in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe continued, after Shin Emperor failed to end the country’s over 50-year quest to win the European racing showpiece.

Since Speed Symboli’s 11th in 1969, Japan has returned another 21 times without success.

The closest they came was four seconds – El Condor Pasa’s (1999), Nakayama Festa (2010), and perhaps the two more famous misses, Orfevre (2012 and 2013).

There was an unpleasant incident in the middle of the race. Outsider Haya Zark (William Buick) suddenly fell back through the 16 runner-field and pulled up after seriously hampering Mqse De Sevigne (Alexis Pouchin). AFP