11 minute read
The Arc was Aced
Jean-Claude Rouget’s star performer exceeded expectations, writes Jocelyn de Moubray
ACE IMPACT’s brilliant length and three-quarters victory in the Qatar Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe (G1) was a new spectacle, or at least one we have not seen for years, and the Jean-Claude Rouget-trained son of Cracksman comes from a different type of racehorse to recent winners too.
Ace Impact’s winning time of 2m25.52s was the fourth-fastest Arc of all time, nearly a furlong faster than Alpinista’s slog through the mud last year.
It is also worth pointing out that the four fastest Arc winners – Danedream, Bago, Peintre Celebre and now Ace Impact – all won as three-year-olds, so perhaps there should be a different weight for age once the ground is very soft or heavy?
Serge Stempniak and the Cheboub family’s champion is the first unbeaten colt to win the Arc since Jean Luc Lagardère’s Sagamix won in 1998.
He is the first three-year-old colt to win the race since Golden Horn in 2015 and the first Prix du Jockey-Club winner since Dalakhani in 2003 and, of course, the first since the Jockey-Club was changed to 2100m in 2005, even if Hurricane Run came very close to doing the double – he was beaten only a neck by Shamardal in the first shorter Jockey-Club and he won the Arc the same year.
In that time the Jockey-Club itself has changed beyond recognition – Ace Impact’s winning time at Chantilly was six seconds, or some 30l, faster than that recorded by Shamardal and Hurricane Run on similarly good ground.
Ace Impact, together with the third-placed Onesto, did (according to people such as Simon Rowlands of Attheraces who know these things) put up the fastest final 600m in the Arc which they both ran in 33.06s.
Ace Impact also ran one of the fastest fractions of the day, going from the 400m mark to the 200m in 10.67s at 43.5mph.
Racing at Longchamp on good or firm ground – and on Arc Sunday the ground was definitely firm – is great to watch and provides a wonderful test for top-class horses.
After years in which the Arc has been dominated by fillies, mares and older horses an outstanding three-year-old colt was able to defeat some of the best horses in the world, to the delight of the home crowd.
Ace Impact was not only bred, raised and sold as a yearling in France but he belongs to a family of relative newcomers to the racing world who, together with their extended families and friends, were only too happy to display their thrill and excitement.
Any sport is better to watch when the winners are clearly overcome by emotion. Even Rouget, whose recent record in the best European races puts him among the best French trainers of all time, came close to dancing while watching his protégé on the big screen in the paddock.
And for the French bloodstock world there is the added satisfaction that Ace Impact will stand at the Cheboub family’s Haras de Beaumont.
The Arc has changed since the 1990s when it was dominated by Jockey-Club winners and three-year-old colts, it is a more international and competitive race. The prize-money on offer has increased significantly – in 1998 Sagamix won only €900,000, even Rail Link in 2006 won €1.4 million so only a third and half of the €2.9 million picked up by Ace Impact.
Ace Impact has no real need to race again.
As the Aga Khan, the owner and breeder of the unbeaten Arc winner Zarkava, said for a breeder the purpose of racing is to select the truly superior performers. Once that has been established beyond any doubt the only sensible thing to do is breed from them for the future.
Ace Impact is a superior racehorse. He is unbeaten, he won the Jockey-Club and the Arc in brilliant fashion, he has won on firm ground, heavy ground and even on the All-Weather.
Every time he has raced he has put up exceptional sectional times when using his speed to pass his rivals in the home straight.
Stallion success is impossible to predict, but few horses will retire to stud with a better chance of becoming a top sire than Ace Impact.
All told, it has been an excellent year for French racing and breeding. On the Racing Post’s ratings five of the 12 three-year-old colts and geldings rated 120 or higher were bred and raised in France together with three of the top six three-year-old fillies. There have not been many generations recently when 45 per cent of the best in Europe have been French-breds.
The two Frankel colts who chased Ace Impact home are very attractive stallion prospects, too.
Juddmonte’s Westover sustained a careerending injury in the race and retires with four wins and seven places from 13 career starts. The Ralph Beckett-trained colt was very unlucky in the Derby, won the Irish Derby very easily and has shown top-class form at three and four in England, Ireland, France and Dubai.
The Arc was perhaps the performance of his career as he was the only one of those who had been close to the early pace who was involved in the finish.
He is the type of stallion who would be very popular in Japan – a horse who consistently displayed high class form over a long period of time (Edit update... we know what has happened since this was written).
Onesto is not as versatile as either Ace Impact and Westover, but when he has his conditions, fast ground and a strong pace, the Fabrice Chappet-trained colt has shown that he is one of the best Frankel colts to date.
He won the Grand Prix de Paris, was only narrowly beaten in an excellent Irish Champion finished a close third in the Arc, and he was not beaten far when fourth in the Group 1 Prix Jacques Le Marois over a mile either.
Blue Rose Cen: a clean sweep
Three of France’s other star three-yearolds won at the Arc weekend – Yeguada Centurion’s Blue Rose Cen took the Group 1 Prix de l’Opera, the Werthemier brothers’ Kelina won the Group 1 Prix de La Forêt and the Cheboub family’s Horizon Dore was successful in the Group 2 Prix Dollar.
Blue Rose Cen has never achieved an extravagant rating, even if she is beyond any doubt the best of what is not the strongest generation of three-year-old fillies.
However, there is no doubt that she is a great and unusual champion. The Opera has been a Group 1 since 2000 and the daughter of Churchill is only the second Prix de Diane winner to complete the double, 20 years after Bright Sky in 2002.
Blue Rose Cen is the first to complete a clean sweep of France’s best races for fillies and mares – the Marcel Boussac, Poule d’Essai des Pouliches and Opera (Zarkava won the Arc itself instead).
The only other filly to come close was Divine Proportions, who won the first three races but did not run again after August as a three-year-old.
Any filly who can only be compared to Zarkava is clearly a champion in her own right and, of course, her career is a remarkable achievement for her owner breeder and trainer Christopher Head. Blue Rose Cen may find it more difficult at four when she will have to compete with colts and a younger generation, but she is such a professional fighter that anything is still possible.
The Wertheimers’ Frankel filly Kelina has always been highly regarded by her trainer Carlos Laffon-Parias and was well beaten by Blue Rose Cen on very soft ground in both the Marcel Boussac, for which she started favourite, and the Poule d’Essai.
It turns out that, like many if not all Frankels, Kelina is better on fast ground and on her first ever start over less than 1500m she showed more than enough speed to win the Forêt.
The race was run at a strong pace from the beginning and was one of the few all weekend in which nobody was finishing fast.
Kelina and Kinross ran the final 200m three per cent slower than their race average, but it was Kelina’s tactical speed which took her into a winning position while Kinross struggled to get a clear run.
Kelina is the third foal of the Oasis Dream mare Inchahoots, whom the Wertheimers purchased from her breeder George Strawbridge.
Frankel has covered a lot of Oasis Dream mares and Kelina is the first Group 1 winner on this cross, even if Eternal Pearl looked good last year in staying races. Kelina was herself already faster than her siblings, who include the Frankel gelding Call The Wind, winner of the Prix du Cadran, and the Opera winner We Are.
Kelina is the first of Frankel’s 30 Group 1 winners to win her top-level race over less than a mile as a three-year-old or older horse.
Originally this was a Wertheimer family as Kelina’s third dam Bellarida won the Prix du Royaumont in the family’s colours.
Inchahoots has a Frankel yearling colt and a Frankel colt foal.
Horizon Dore is the second top three-year-old running in the colours of the Cheboub family, who bought into the Dabirsim gelding after he had won his two juvenile starts in the south of France without coming off the bridle.
The Patrice Cottier-trained gelding has looked better and better with each start while winning four Group races in a row after running only respectably on soft ground at the beginning of the year. Horizon Dore won the Group 2 Prix Dollar over 1950m comfortably showing real speed to come from behind.
He ran the final 600m in 32.69s, some 2l faster than Ace Impact’s run up the straight the following day and 13 per cent faster than his race average, hitting a top speed of 45mph.
Horizon Dore comes from an old French-produced family – his third dam is a halfsister to the Group 2 winner Robore, and is himself a half-brother to five other winners, including Cavale Dore who won the Prix du Calvados.
He has a full-brother foal called Safran Dore. Horizon Dore will surely win Group 1 races sooner or later, even if it may turn out he is better on good or firm ground.
British dominated the juvenile races
The French-trained two-year-olds were not able to match the overseas challengers in the Group 1s even if several ran with great credit.
Sheikh Obaid’s Rosallion became the first Group 1 winner for his sire Blue Point coming from behind to win the 1400m Prix Jean Luc Lagardère in a new race record time of 1m18.23s.
The other winners of this race with a winning time below 1m20s include Oratorio, Holy Roman Emperor and Siyouni.
Rosallion was chased home by the French -bred, Aidan O’Brien-trained Wootton Bassett colt Unquestionable with Beauvatier third beaten a total of over 2l. The son of Lope De Vega was unsuited to such a fast run race on Longchamp’s fast 7f track, said by some to be in reality a 6.75f, and finished well putting up the fastest sectional of 10.56s from the 400m mark to the 200m.
The Prix Marcel Boussac over a mile was turned into a procession by the Coolmore partnership’s Justify filly Opera Singer, who raced clear to win unchallenged by 5l from Rose Bloom and Les Pavots.
The American Triple Crown winner’s first crop proved to be ok, but his second crop of two-year-olds looks to be a great deal better as it already has five stakes winners headed by the Turf performers Opera Singer and City Of Troy – the first out of a Sadler’s Wells mare and the second a Galileo mare.
Rose Bloom, who won Arqana’s race for unraced fillies in August, confirmed her quality and is another high class two-year-old prospect for her sire Lope De Vega.
It is more than likely that the best French-trained two-year-old ran and won on the Friday before the Arc weekend as Edouard de Rothschild’s Alcantor, a son of New Bay trained by Andre Fabré, came from behind the win the mile Group 3 Prix Thomas Bryon with the greatest of ease.
Taken out of the prep race for the Lagardère because of the unseasonably hot weather he would have had a good chance in the Group 1 and will do in the International Criterium if his trainer decides to run.
Alcantor has won three of his four races very easily and was unsuited to dropping back to 1200m in between.
