Sosie draw gives legendary trainer Fabre boost for Arc
PARIS - Sosie’s chances of giving trainer Andre Fabre a record ninth win in Europe’s most prestigious race, the €5 million (S$7.1 million) Group 1 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe (2,400m), were boosted on Oct 4 with a favourable draw.
The 16-strong field has attracted runners from Ireland, England, Germany and Japan, whose hopes of winning the race they regard as the Holy Grail of racing lie with Shin Emperor.
Sosie earned his favourite’s tag when he won the Arc trial, the Group 2 Prix Niel (2,400m) in September, inflicting the first defeat of Group 1 Prix du Jockey Club (French Derby, 2,100m) winner Look De Vega’s career.
He is drawn in stall 5 for the Longchamp showpiece, from where two winners have emerged including the legendary Sea Bird, who won the 1965 Arc by a staggering six lengths.
Fabre, who turns 79 in December, may have had eight wins in the Arc but he has only visited the winner’s enclosure once in the past 18 years, with Waldgeist in 2019.
But, the media-shy French handler – whose other runner Mqse de Sevigne has drawn the worst in 16 – will be heartened that his Rail Link was the last horse to achieve the Niel/Arc double in 2006.
Shin Emperor is among the favourites after running third in the Group 1 Irish Champion Stakes (2,000m) in September.
His draw of 11 is not ideal. Just one Arc winner, Sassafras, came from that stall when he upset the great Nijinsky in 1970.
Look De Vega – in the colours of sponsor Sheikh Joaan al-Thani who part-owns him after he won the Derby in June – will start from stall 8.
Three Arc champions have won from that draw, including – in what could be a good omen – 2023 winner Ace Impact, who like Look De Vega, also won the French Derby.
Irish champion trainer Aidan O’Brien, who has just two Arc wins to his name, has surprisingly decided to aim his superstar City Of Troy at the Grade 1 Breeder’s Cup Classic (2,000m) in November.
O’Brien has two runners in the race, the classy Los Angeles and 2023 English St Leger (2,900m) winner Continuous.
Los Angeles, also a Group 1 Irish Derby (2,400m) winner, starts from stall 10, a far from impossible task as four Arc winners have sprung from there.
However, one has to go back to 1999 and Montjeu, who carried the colours of one of Los Angeles’ part-owners Michael Tabor, for the last horse to return to the winner’s enclosure from that stall.
Continuous, though, faces a mighty challenge to improve on his fifth in the 2023 race after drawing stall 14. AFP
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