The disappointing news on Saturday morning that Australia, the Derby winner, had been retired to stud after suffering a minor foot injury was followed within a couple of hours by the announcement that Treve, who took her second Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe at Longchamp last Sunday, has had her retirement postponed to attempt an unprecedented third win in the race next October. It is not really a case of one story balancing the other but Flat racing fans do now have the possibility of something historic next year to keep them warm this winter.
There is no such consolation for the organisers of British Champions Day at Ascot next Saturday. Australia was at the very top of the list of stars being assembled for the six-race card, significant not just for his achievements at Epsom, The Curragh and York this year but also because he had been deliberately steered round the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe to line up at Ascot instead. Forced as it is to try to shine amid the shadows cast by Longchamp at the start of October and the Breeders’ Cup in early November, the Champion Stakes needed the Derby winner.
Without Australia it starts to look more like a consolation event for horses that were not quite good enough for the Arc or the United States (or, in the case of the gelding Cirrus Des Aigles, barred from running in Paris through no fault of his own).
Kingston Hill, the Derby runner-up who was fourth home in the Arc, was ruled out of the Ascot race too on Sunday, weakening the probable field still further. Free Eagle, admittedly, looked very good indeed when successful during Ireland’s inaugural Champions Weekend in September and is now the obvious favourite for Britain’s richest race. In form terms, though, he is a Group Three winner, who was thrashed by Australia when the pair met as juveniles last year.
Quite what the weather will do to the fields for the card’s main races over the next few days also remains to be seen. The Grey Gatsby, who beat Australia in the Irish Champion Stakes, is a genuine contender for the Champion Stakes but would struggle to produce his best form on soft ground, while the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes has already lost Kingman, the season’s outstanding miler, to injury, and others could follow if the rain continues. Estimate, who took the Gold Cup for the Queen last year, seems sure to line up for the Long Distance Cup, but while the filly is certainly a draw, it will not say much for the event as a whole if it relies on a Group Two for most of its stardust.
The ground can often come up soft at Longchamp too, of course, but the Arc has nothing to prove to anyone. And if you plan for the Arc, you can run there and still go to the Breeders’ Cup in California. Ascot, stuck in the middle, is an all-or-nothing option.
Perhaps every one of the big-name horses still engaged will turn up. Perhaps the sun will shine all week and the going on Saturday will be good to firm. But it was inevitable when the original decision was made to stage Champions Day in mid-October that, sooner or later, there would be a renewal which would suffer badly from a combination of its squeezed position in the calendar and miserable autumn weather. Six days out, the fourth Champions Day looks as if it might well be the one.
If so, the sport will move on soon enough. There will still be a great deal to look forward to next year and, as it happens, Friday’s Future Champions Day at Newmarket – which will attract a much smaller crowd than Ascot the following afternoon – looks as strong an advertisement for British Flat racing, if not better.
But to stand any hope of even approaching the significance of Arc day or the Breeders’ Cup main card at Santa Anita, the main Champions Day needed to be given every chance to do so. British racing wanted a grand finale but its leaders did not have the vision or backbone to get it into the early September date it needed.
Still, what can you do? Now that many of the same people have allowed Ireland to develop the ideal date into a Champions Weekend of their own, the answer is nothing at all.
