Frankie Dettori could be forced to watch the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe from the weighing room on Sunday after Fascinating Rock, the Champion Stakes winner at Ascot last year, was scratched from the Arc field on Tuesday less than 24 hours after Dettori had been booked for the ride.
Dermot Weld, Fascinating Rock’s trainer, took the five-year-old out of the race at Chantilly after he failed to impress in a gallop. Weld still expects to have a runner in the Arc after Harzand, the Derby winner, came through a gallop of his own showing no ill-effects after being bumped when unplaced behind Almanzor in the Irish Champion Stakes this month.
Wednesday will mark the 20th anniversary of the extraordinary afternoon at Ascot when Dettori rode all seven winners on one of the season’s most valuable cards, and he was hoping to celebrate by taking sole ownership of the all-time record for victories in the Arc with a fifth win this weekend.
With jockeys already booked for most of the 19 remaining contenders after the declaration stage on Tuesday, Ray Cochrane, Dettori’s agent, said he is pessimistic about the prospects of finding a ride for the Italian, who bridged a 13-year gap in the Arc with his success on Golden Horn 12 months ago.
“There’s no news, I’m afraid, and I’m not hopeful of a ride,” Cochrane said. “I had a good study this morning and it looks like everybody will be fixed up. If Aidan O’Brien runs three, then Ryan Moore will ride one, Seamie Heffernan will ride another one and I’d imagine Donnacha O’Brien will ride [the Gold Cup winner] Order Of St George, as he’s won on him. I’ll be in touch with him obviously but I don’t think there’ll be a spare ride.”
Dettori rode Found into second place behind Almanzor in the Irish Champion Stakes but was a late booking for the ride after Heffernan suffered a fall in the St Leger at Doncaster earlier in the afternoon. “It was only because Seamie had that bad fall but he’s back in good form now,” Cochrane said. “It looks a lost cause, I’m afraid, but we had a good win in the race last year so we can’t moan about it.”
Harzand will attempt to emulate Golden Horn last year and become the eighth Derby winner to follow up in the Arc four months later.
“Harzand’s in tremendous form, I’m really happy with him,” Pat Smullen, Harzand’s jockey, told At The Races. “I rode him [this morning] and he felt well, it’s all systems go. It looks like the ground is going to be on the quick side but you never know, they might get a drop of rain between now and race day [which would suit Harzand]. Hopefully it’s not an over-big field, you don’t want to be out on the wing.”
Almanzor, who swept past the field in the straight to win an outstanding renewal of the Irish Champion Stakes, is still among the possible runners on Sunday and most British bookmakers have reintroduced him into their ante-post betting at odds between 3-1 and 7-1. Jean-Claude Rouget, Almanzor’s trainer, has insisted the colt will run instead in the Champion Stakes at Ascot on 15 October.
Were his owners to have second thoughts, Christophe Soumillon would be expected to take the ride, which would leave Silverwave – the Prix Foy winner and a horse Dettori has ridden in the past – without a jockey but it seems a very remote possibility. Sylvain Vidal, the racing manager for Almanzor’s part-owner Gerard Augustin-Normand, said the colt had been left in the field as “a precaution” and Ascot remains his principal target.
“I don’t think he’ll be running in the Arc, Jean-Claude wants to go to England with him,” Vidal said. “He has such a turn of foot, as he showed in Ireland, that 10 furlongs suits him better than 12.
“Also, three weeks [since his race in Ireland] would be a bit sharp to run him back. Ascot will be nearly five, which is better. In England, he will be up against mainly the same horses he beat in Ireland so it makes more sense, there’s no point in changing things.”
Almanzor would also be facing several horses he beat at Leopardstown if he lined up at Chantilly, including Found, the 7-1 third-favourite, and New Bay, who finished fourth.
If his connections swerve Chantilly in favour of Ascot, Harzand, who followed up his Epsom win in the Irish Derby, seems likely to be the only winner of a major European Classic in 2016 in this year’s field. Makahiki, who took the Japanese Derby in May, will also represent the three-year-olds in a race that has gone to a member of the Classic generation 17 times in the past 22 years.
The likely favourite is Roger Varian’s five-year-old Postponed, the International Stakes winner and one of two British-trained horses left among the possible runners.
