Alpinista climbed every mountain

Jocelyn de Moubray reckons she is up there with the best middle-distance fillies and mares of this century

Photography by Debbie Burt

KIRSTEN RAUSING’S Alpinista won a competitive high-class Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe to confirm that she is a racemare of the highest calibre.

The five-year-old daughter of Frankel won by a half length and a neck from Vadeni and Torquator Tasso, the best three-year-old in Europe and the leading older colt in Europe over the last two years.

The Sir Mark Prescott-trained mare did not win by a wide margin, but she has rarely done so in the past either and it has not stopped her from completing a run of eight consecutive victories and six consecutive Group 1 victories over a span of two years.

A remarkable achievement for all of those involved.

With the exception of her first Group 1 win in Berlin back in August 2021 when she defeated Torquator Tasso by two and three-quarter legnths, Alpinista has won all the others by a margin of less than 2l, while at the same time she has rarely looked like getting beaten.

Her ability to preserve herself is probably one of the reasons she has been able to maintain the highest level of ability for quite so long.

And for those who were looking for signs of brilliance? That came at the top of the straight when Alpinista, after keeping reasonably close to the ridiculously fast pace set by the Japanese champion Titleholder on very soft ground, was swinging along happily on the bridle while all of those behind were struggling to stay in touch with the leaders.

The race turned into a real test of stamina and courage over the final 400m as the pace and the ground took its toll of the runners, but Alpinista was always the strongest and there was only a fleeting moment when it looked as if she might be caught by Torquator Tasso staying on from the rear.

Alpinista may never have recorded a spectacularly high rating, most European handicappers don’t appreciate the quality of middle-distance racing in Germany, but if you look at her record over the last two years only the very best of the century – Enable, Treve or Zarkava – have looked to be better fillies or mares when racing over 1m4f.

The Arc de Triomphe attracted a maximum field of 20, and to get there La Parisienne, placed in the Prix de Diane and the Prix Vermeille, had to be eliminated.

Under France Galop’s rules the horses with the lowest official rating are eliminated and so La Parisienne rated 113 was out before the colt Al Hakeem, rated 114 beforehand. If she had run she would have received 3lb from Al Hakeem and every other colt in the race and so, on her rating, would have finished a length or two in front of Al Hakeem.

France Galop was probably not too disappointed to see the Zarak filly ruin her chance in the Prix de l’Opera by pulling madly and tiring quickly in the straight, but this is surely a rule which needs to be reconsidered.

Twenty high-class horses, all rated 114 or higher, are likely to provide a competitive race but the Arc was immediately turned into a real test as the Japanese trained Titleholder set off at a ridiculously fast pace, and a pace he maintained as the four-yearold was still in the lead with only 400m to go.

He ran the first 2,000m on very soft ground in 2min8.71secs and the first 1,400 metres in 1min29.1secs – this is very fast for any Arc de Triomphe, about five seconds or 25l faster than the last two years on even softer ground.

It was faster, too, than the 1min29.33secs the pacemaker Nelson went in Enable’s Longchamp Arc in 2018.

The only recent Arc with a faster early pace was when Gahaiyyath went through the first 1,400m in 1min27.63secs in Waldgeist’s year in 2019 – by the 600m mark Godolphin’s multiple Group 1 winner was exhausted and passed.

This year the pace and the ground did not set up the race for those waiting behind, many of them struggled and lost all momentum long before the leader’s stride began to go with 400m to run.

Alpinista was the last of the 20 to come off the bridle, but there was just a moment when she looked vulnerable as many of those chasing made ground, however, in the final 200m the only horse travelling faster than the winner was Torquator Tasso, who made up one more length to get within half length and a neck at the line.

The Aga Khan’s Vadeni has looked very good more than once in his career, but the Jean Claude Rouget-trained son of Churchill surpassed himself to finish second on his first try at the distance.

With her adoring groom Annabel Willis. She has looked after Alpinista since the grey arrived at Heath House

Alpinista taking it all in her stride to claim her sixth consecutive European Group 1. As we go to press a Japan Cup challenge is on the cards

He appears to have inherited something from his broodmare sire Monsun, not least stamina and the ability to show his best on very soft ground.

His jockey Christophe Soumillon regretted afterwards that he had not been able to take a prominent position immediately, but Vadeni will surely be able to win Group 1s over 1m4f before he retires to stud.

Torquator Tasso retires in 2023 to his Gestüt Auenquelle with a remarkable record of six wins and seven places from 16 starts spread over three years in Germany, France and Britain.

The Marcel Weiss-trained son of Adlerflug needed a run to reach his peak every year, and ran close to his very best on all of his other 13 starts over a 1m3f-1m4f.

He is a very good-looking colt, much the best product of his outstanding sire, and deserves support from every breeder interested in producing middle-distance horses.

Torquator Tasso was drawn 18 of the 20 runners and covered seven metres more than the winner, while leaving the next best of those with double digit draws – Broome from stall 14, some 8l behind him.

My impression watching the race again is that it was not so much the extra distance that hindered those with wide draws as the ground, which looked heavier for those racing wide in the first part of the race when the field climbs up to the little wood at the top of the course.

Kirsten Rausing has had horses with Sir Mark Prescott for over 30 years. In Martin Stevens’s interview with Rausing (International Thoroughbred, February 2022) she said of Alouette’s brood: “They’re good doers and eat well... If you asked Sir Mark Prescott, who knows them as well as anyone, I think he would agree.” On ITV Racing, a week after Alpinista’s victory, Annabel Willis indeed reported that the mare had not left a scrap since Paris

The next two finishers also deserve a mention as Al Hakeem, a three-year-old Siyouni colt out of a Galileo mare trained by Rouget, ran a remarkable race to finish fourth on his first start at the distance and only his second in a Group 1 race.

The Olympic Glory mare Grand Glory finished an excellent fifth and was the only one of those settled behind to make real ground in the final stages.

The Gianluca Bietolini-trained mare ran the fastest 200m of the whole field and the fastest final 600m while running 10m in total further than the winner.

As good as ever after 23 races over four seasons Grand Glory has always enjoyed soft ground but had never shown such stamina before.

Fillies and mares have dominated recent runnings of the Arc winning eight of the last 12 – the only colts to win have been the older horses Sottsass, Torquator Tasso and Waldgeist, with Golden Horn the only three-year-old in 2015.

Fillies and mares had a similar run of success in the race in the 1970s winning seven times in ten years between Allez France in 1974 and All Along in 1983 and the most likely explanation then was the same as today – at the time the top 1m4f races for three-year-olds, and in particular the English and Irish Derbys, were unusually weak races.

Today there is the added complication that since the Jockey-Club was reduced to 2,100m only two French-trained three-year -old colts have won the race – Hurricane Run, who also won the Irish Derby, and Rail Link in 2005 and 2006.

The English and Irish Derbys are uncompetitive and the best French-trained three-year-old colts lack experience as the only Group 1 for them over 1m4f is nearly always run on different ground from the Arc.

Three-year-old fillies have a more suitable programme with the English and Irish Oaks, as well as the Yorkshire Oaks and the Prix Vermeille, all Group 1s over 1m4f run between June and September. maintain the most valuable and prestigious races at 1m4f there is an urgent need to consult and look at the programme of races for middle-distance three-year-olds.

If Europe’s racing authorities wish to maintain the most valuable and prestigious races at 1m4f there is an urgent need to consult and look at the programme

The stallion market has always been the main driver of the bloodstock and racing business, and the problem is that whereas in the US it is still the Kentucky Derby and two-turn Dirt races which create the most valuable stallions, in Europe the English and Irish Derbys no longer play the same role.

A deserved Group 1 for Sea La Rosa: the Sea The Stars four-year-old filly added to the Group 3 and two Group 2s wins collected this summer

Fillies Group 1s: typical French-run races

There are now two Group 1s for fillies and mares over the Arc weekend and both were traditional French type races run at a slow pace with a finishing sprint.

The leaders – Ottilien in the 2,800m Royallieu and Nashwa in the 2,000m Opera, looked for a long time as if they had stolen the race from the front but both were caught close home by horses coming from behind.

The William Haggas-trained Sea The Stars filly Sea La Rosa was a narrow if slightly comfortable winner of the Royallieu from Jannah Flower, who came from even further behind to be second just ahead of Ottilien.

Sea La Rosa has won four of her five starts as a four-year-old and is a full-sister to the Group-winning three-year-old colt Deauville Legend bred by Guy Heald from his Hernando mare Soho Rose.

Al Shaqab’s three-year-old Lope De Vega filly Place Du Carrousel was a revelation in the Opera, flying home from a seemingly impossible position to catch the Diane winner Nashwa and win by three-quarters of a length with Above the Curve third. My Astra looked unlucky in fourth when coming from too far off the slow pace.

The finish of the Opera was contested by fillies coming from high draws suggesting again that it was the ground in the first 400m, which hindered those drawn wide in the Arc.

Place Du Carrousel, who like Sea La Rosa, was sold as a yearling at the Arqana August Sale, had looked very good when winning her Group 3 at the beginning of the year and had finished second behind Above The Curve in the Group 1 Prix Saint Alary.

Place Du Carrousel’s trainer André Fabre gave her a long break after the Diane and she returned to put up the best performance of her career to date.

The two-year-old races at the Arc weekend have not attracted the best two-year-olds from England and Ireland in recent years, even if the 7f Prix Jean Luc Lagardère is still a race which produces stallions – those who have won or placed in the race recently include, of course, Wootton Bassett and Siyouni as well as Galileo Gold, Territories and Gleneagles.

Sumbe’s homebred Showcasing colt Belbek led home a trio of French-trained colts in this year’s race, just finishing better than the Wertheimers’ Lope De Vega colt Gamestop to win by a neck with Breizh Sky a neck behind in third.

Belbek has always been a good-looking strong colt and had looked like a top prospect when winning a Group 3 in June.

After two subsequent disappointing runs at 6f he improved for this step up in trip and gave his owner-breeder Nurlan Bizakov another Classic prospect for 2023.

Bizakov is about the biggest new investor in French bloodstock having purchased two major stud farms in recent years and has this colt and the very promising Wootton Bassett colt Padishakh to carry his colours in the best races in 2023.

Place Du Carrousel: the Lope De Vega filly put in her best performance to date, winning the Prix de l’Opera. Her win and the pedigree update helped her Kingman yearling half-sister achieve a 1,050,000gns sale price at Tattersalls

Another major new investor in France, Leopoldo Fernandez Pujais, who came into the sport after decades breeding dressage horses of the highest international level, won his first Group 1 as an owner and breeder when his Churchill filly Blue Rose Cen took the Marcel Boussac by 5l from the Irish challengers Gan Teorainn and Never Ending Story.

This was also a first Group 1 win for her young trainer Christopher Head, who is the principle trainer for Pujais whose horses race in the name of Yeguada Centurion.

Blue Rose Can has won four of her last five starts and was the easiest winner of the weekend, she is surely the best of her age and sex in France.

Her dam Queen Blossom was a Group winner in Ireland and the US.

The French-trained horses have often struggled to compete in the best races recently and so the Arc weekend was in this respect a triumph with French trainers winning the two-year-old races, as well as the Prix de l’Opera and having three of the first five home in the Arc itself.

Sumbe and Yeguada Centurion are likely to play as prominent a part in the future of French racing and breeding as the Aga Khan Studs and Al Shaqab.

A week after Belbek won the Lagardere (below), Nurlan Bizakov enjoyed a Criterium de Maisons-Laffitte (G2) victory with Charyn (Dark Angel)