Templegate, Matt Chapman and Phil Thomas give their verdicts on an emotional Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe
ENABLE went to France a queen and came back a queen dethroned. Here are three unmissable takes from the Sun Racing team on an extraordinary Sunday in Paris. PHIL THOMAS SHE was ready, she was willing . . . but, in the end, she was so agonisingly, heart-wrenchingly Unable. The glorious, history-making Arc de Triomphe […]
ENABLE went to France a queen and came back a queen dethroned.
Here are three unmissable takes from the Sun Racing team on an extraordinary Sunday in Paris.
PHIL THOMAS
SHE was ready, she was willing . . . but, in the end, she was so agonisingly, heart-wrenchingly Unable.
The glorious, history-making Arc de Triomphe hat-trick was ultimately bogged down in the rain-sodden Longchamp turf.
Enable, the wonder-mare carrying the hopes of the entire sport, nigh-on the entire nation, just couldn’t quite make it after all.
Waldgeist, a horse she had beaten three times before, gained revenge with the most balloon-pricking victory racing will ever witness.
And talk about the most agonising of deaths. One that seemed to take an age to unfold so painfully.
Two furlongs out Frankie Dettori had kicked for home and 45,000 — around half of them Brits — cheered him forwards.
Just 100 metres more and you knew it wasn’t to be. For once, she hadn’t burnt off the rest.
For once that electric turn of pace wasn’t there. For once her heart wasn’t quite big enough.
She was paddling, while on her outside last year’s fourth was flying. And less than half a furlong from home the roars died in all those throats.
Yet really, in cold, damp hindsight, the writing had been on the wall since the first drops of rain that had soaked Longchamp 24 hours earlier.
It lashed it down overnight and, although it relented yesterday morning, the damage was done.
Dettori knew it, John Gosden knew it and all of a sudden expectation was fast being overtaken by hope.
Gosden is the trainer whose Midas touch, whose patience, whose no-stone-unturned approach, had brought Enable 12 victories on the trot, ten of them Group 1s.
But he admitted he feared the worst as he looked ruefully skywards in the aftermath and said: “I’m sorry we didn’t quite pull it off.
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“But when I walked the track with Frankie and the stick was going in that far, I thought, ‘Houston, we’ve got a problem here!’
“It’s just a pity we got the rain. She has this great turn of foot from the 400 to the finish line, and that’s going to be blunted in the ground, which it was.”
When Enable did return to the winners’ enclosure, it was actually to a greater ovation than the victor.
Talk about being carried out on your shield.
Frankie looked close to tears as he bit his lip, slid from the saddle and planted a smacker on the runner-up’s glistening neck.
Before he headed for the sanctity of the weighing room, he admitted: “She just folded a bit and the winner was too good for me today, but my filly was already tired.
“I passed the 200 mark and I was a spent force then. I think ground had a lot to do with it. It was very sticky and I struggled in the first bit of the race.
“I let her find her feet and she came good to me in the false straight. I waited for the 300 metres but didn’t find as much as thought I she had left.”
It had, given the conditions, been a furious pace from the off, as Ghaiyyath tried to draw the finish from Enable, yet was eventually one of the first beaten.
But this wasn’t a defeat down to tactics. Not for the favourite. It was down to being beaten by a better horse on the day, in conditions that suited the winner far, far more.
Ironically, a winner who himself seemed to be struggling at halfway, only to outstay everything else.
Gosden added: “They went a very, very strong pace, didn’t they, in very testing conditions? Frankie sat off it and when Sottsass came to him, he thought, ‘right, I’ll go now’.
“He looked like he had the race won and was simply beaten by a class horse.
“Stamina gave out with her over that trip in the intensity and pace of the race. It’s as simple as that.
“She has run a blinder — I’m thrilled with her run — but I just knew, when the extra rain came, we’ve lost our most potent weapon.
“She just simply ran out of stamina the last half-furlong, but it was a great run and I’m very proud of her.
I’ll deal with it because she’s fine after the race — she looks great.
“You could see a lot of those horses were stopping quite quickly given the pace they went, but I couldn’t be more thrilled with her.
“If the ground had been like last year — good to soft — I would have been very disappointed to have finished second.
“But I literally could see this sucker punch coming and I take nothing away from the winner, who is an absolutely brilliant horse.”
Beaten by a brilliant winner? Probably not, compared to some of this race’s previous heroes. But certainly an absolutely brilliant trainer.
Andre Fabre, 73 but looking at least a decade younger, had targeted the Arc every bit as meticulously as Gosden, ever since Waldgeist was beaten here 12 months ago.
But as he milked the cheers — however muted they were in comparison with the roof-raising had Enable triumphed — he knew he was the ultimate party-pooper.
Indeed, Fabre himself admitted he felt like the man who had just killed Bambi. He said: “I have so much admiration and respect for Enable. I’m proud Waldgeist could beat her.”
ARC SHOCK Waldgeist powers home to shock Enable and Frankie in the Arc
Now, of course, thoughts turn to what now for Enable. Will she race on or, as seems more likely, retire to a lifetime of imparting those magnificent talents on to future champions?
If it is indeed the latter, the queue of would-be suitors will stretch from Nottingham to Newmarket.
But for now that decision can wait. Lord Teddy Grimthorpe, racing manager to owner Khalid Abdullah, insisted there is no rush.
For now they just want to take in all Enable has given them and gather their thoughts. Lord Grimthorpe said: “She’s just been outstayed on sticky ground, but how can we complain?
“We will get her back, see how she is — that’s the most important thing — and then contemplate on what’s been a very special filly.
“She’s been the most fantastic filly, and Prince Khalid has enjoyed every moment of her. He will want to take his time on what happens to her but no decision will be made yet.
“The expectation is always so enormous and the wave of goodwill we had was unbelievable so therefore it’s not quite what we hoped.
“We have to be honest, but how can we complain? She’s an unbelievable filly. We love her to death . . . we don’t love her any the less now.”
That’s a sentiment 40,000 racegoers — and millions more at home — would wholeheartedly agree with.
MATT CHAPMAN
SHE came, she saw, but she failed to conquer.
So it wasn’t to be for Enable in Paris as she wilted into second behind Waldgeist.
Some suggested the ground was too testing. But she had raced on sticky ground before.
Enable was just not good enough on the day — like Treve was not good enough a few years ago.
Not many horses have tried to win three Arcs, because most get retired after one, let alone two.
You wonder how many connections will give it a bash in the future.
Waldgeist is an admirable horse. He’s tough and has shown glimpses of brilliance. But we all know Enable is better.
She destroyed Waldgeist in the King George at Ascot and in the 2018 Arc. Racing is a beautiful game. But it can also be a frustration.
Many think Enable will be retired now and she may well be.
That said, I can’t think of any reason why the mare could not try for a third Arc win in 2020.
The Prince is not getting any younger — he will get a lot more from watching 10-time Group 1 winner
Enable race than producing the odd foal. And so will all of us.
Race on, I say. Race on.
TEMPLEGATE
DON’T go labelling Enable a failure for missing out on three Arcs in a row.
That amazing feat is still racing’s holy grail and may NEVER be done.
It was a brilliant try by Frankie Dettori and his mare of a lifetime.
They didn’t have the best of draws and had to use up plenty of petrol when trapped out wide in the early stages.
She still had the class to sweep to the front but those early exertions in bottomless ground just told when the time came for one final flourish.
With the winning post in sight, Frankie pressed the accelerator again but Enable’s powerful kick was not there. She was running on fumes.
Waldgeist was able to save all his energy for one last lung-bursting run to lower the superstar’s colours. That was the difference.
There is talk this may not be the end of Enable’s racing career after all.
It would be a shame for her to retire on a defeat.
Whatever happens, her place among the racing greats is assured . . . and well deserved.