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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Sport
Tony Paley with Greg Wood at Longchamp

Horse racing: Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe from Longchamp – live

Arc (Event) Longchamp (Facility) Los Ángeles (Person)
Vertical Blue (far side) gets up close home to win the Prix Marcel Boussac at Longchamp from Zarigana.
Vertical Blue (far side) gets up close home to win the Prix Marcel Boussac at Longchamp from Zarigana. Photograph: Alan Crowhurst/Getty Images

News update: Fantastic Moon WILL run in the Arc de Triomphe. Apparently the owners would be fined £50k if they didn’t give a good enough reason to pull out so they haven’t done so and the horse will run with the Longchamp stewards telling all concerned that “the horse must run on its merits.” That is they will be watching closely in case the horse is given an easy time of it. Bravo!

Updated

The French get their priorities right at the races …

This horse (Batwan geddit) earns the best-turned out horse at Longchamp today!

Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe (3.20pm) preview

The 103rd Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe is, as I may already have mentioned once or twice, a pin-sticker’s delight. I can’t see Haya Zark or Survie playing any kind of a role in the finish, but that leaves 14 to choose from and the ratings suggest that at their best, there is precious little between them. Zarakem, for instance, is a 50-1 shot with the bookies, but he was a close second behind Auguste Rodin in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot just two runs ago, and fellow outsiders like Sevenna’s Knight, Sunway, Continuous andFantastic Moon all have something in their back-catalogue that gives them a squeak. The key pieces of form among the market leaders include the Prix Niel (Sosie beat Delius and Look De Vega), the Irish Champion Stakes – watch Shin Emperor finishing fast into third after struggling for running room with Los Angeles just behind in fourth - and the Grosser Preis von Berlin, which has the recent Arc winners Torquator Tasso and Alpinista on its roll of honour and was won this year by Al Riffa. The Prix Vermeille, where Bluestocking beat Aventure, is also worth a look before coming to any firm decisions, and while I’m happy enough to row in with Al Riffa and Yutaka Take, there is almost no possible outcome that would entirely surprise.

SELECTION: AL RIFFA

Updated

Prix de l’Abbaye (2.05pm) result
1 Makarova 14/1
2 Bradsell 6/4f
3 Believing 7/2

Updated

Prix de l'Abbaye (2.05pm)

This will be a fast and furious race over only five furlongs and the camera angles on the straight track at Longchamp are notoriously difficult to follow so bear with me – this will be a short description!

And they’re off … Bradsell is out quickly early as with Kerdos … Bradsell has a narrow lead as they head for the line … Makarova takes the lead close home and holds on to win. Tom Marquand has beaten his partner Hollie Doyle (Brasell) in this always frantic race. The trainer Ed Walker is very emotional as he relays to Sky Sports Racing that this is his runner’s last race and he has won a major European prize. “It’s great when the little man gets his day!” he says.

Updated

News … Fantastic Moon will not run in the Arc de Triomphe.

Updated

  • Prix de l’Abbaye (2.05pm) betting

  • Bradsell 2/1

  • Believing 4/1

  • Starlust 15/2

  • Kerdos 14/1

  • Grand Grey 16/1

  • Makarova 16/1

  • No Half Measures 18/1

  • Desperate Hero 25/1

  • Washington Heights 25/1

  • BAR 28/1 – 16 Runners

  • Full odds via Oddschecker here

Updated

Prix de l’Abbaye (2.05pm) preview

If there is a Group One race on the Arc weekend schedule that is all but certain to go to an overseas-trained runner, it is undoubtedly this five-furlong sprint, which has gone abroad 13 times in the last 15 years.

The locals, in fact, almost seem to have given up trying, and just three of the 16 runners are from French stables. It will take just under a minute to watch the key race as far as recent form goes, as the first six home in the Flying Five at the Curragh last month – Bradsell, Believing, Makarova, Kerdos, Washington Heights and Desperate Hero – are all in today’s field. Bradsell and Hollie Doyle were convincing winners there but this is a race where a high draw is generally fairly terminal for a runner’s chance and all five of the re-opposers are drawn lower. The main local trial is the Prix du Petit Couvert over track and trip three weeks ago, when the field included another half-dozen of today’s runners, and the one to take out of the race is probably Richard Hughes’s No Half Measures, who was beaten less than half a length in sixth despite being forced wide. She has a difficult draw again though in stall 12. I’ll probably have a few euros on Kerdos from an excellent pitch in stall three, although Desperate Hero, who posted an exceptional time when hosing up in a Hamilton handicap four runs ago, also makes some appeal from six.

SELECTION: KERDOS

Prix Jean-Luc Lagadere (1.30pm) result
1 Camille Pissarro 10/1
2 Rashabar 8/1
3 Misunderstood 11/2

Updated

Prix Jean-Luc Lagadere (1.30pm)

And they’re off … Field Of Gold jumps out well but Misunderstood grabs the lead with Camille Pissarro at the back in the early stages … Rashabar is there … Camille Pissarro comes from the back to lead with Rashabar just second. and holds on at the line in a tight finish.

Updated

  • Prix Jean-Luc Lagadere (1.30pm) betting

  • Henri Matisse 7/4

  • Field of Gold 7/2

  • Misunderstood 13/2

  • Rashabar 13/2

  • Houquetot 12/1

  • Cowardofthecounty 18/1

  • Camille Pissarro 20/1

  • Heybetil 33/1

  • Full betting via Oddschecker here

Prix Jean-Luc Lagadere (1.30pm) preview

Like the preceding race, the juvenile colts’ Group One features an Aidan O’Brien runner on something of a retrieval mission, as Henri Matisse was unbeaten and odds-on for last month’s Group One National Stakes at the Curragh but finished only second behind Scorthy Champ having wandered alarmingly inside the final furlong. There is less obvious opposition from the home-trained contingent, however, as Field Of Gold, John Gosden’s Solario Stakes winner, and Brian Meehan’s Rashabar, the runner-up behind Whistlejacket in the Prix Morny in August, are next best on ratings, with Mario Baratti’s unbeaten Misunderstood, a four-and-a-half length winner of the Group Three Prix des Chenes last time, likely to offer the biggest threat from the locals.

SELECTION: FIELD OF GOLD

Prix Marcel Boussac (12.55pm) result
1 Vertical Blue 100-1
2 Zarigana 4/7 f
3 Exactly 7/1

Updated

Prix Marcel Boussac (12.55pm)

And they’re off … Simmering is out quickly with Exactly … hot favourite Zarigna is in midfield … Exactly leads as they turn for home … Zarigana finishes fast with Vertical Blue down the centre of the track and it’s a photo finish! Vertical Blue HAS got up close home and won at the amazing odds of 100-1!

Updated

Fantastic Moon is now a doubtful runner in the Arc de Triomphe at 3.20pm after so much rain in the period running up to the race today, the Racing Post are reporting.

Updated

  • Prix Marcel Boussac (12.55pm) betting

  • Zarigana 4/5

  • Bedtime Story 11/4

  • Simmering 9/1

  • Exactly 9/1

  • Lhakpa 28/1

  • La Guapisima 80/1

  • Vertical Blue 100/1

  • Inhebhaa 300/1

  • La Ferretcapienne 300/1

  • Full beting here via Oddschecker

Your non-runners today … cross this lot off your list of horses due to line up because they’e not going to.

12.55 No 5: Longchamp Rose Salve
1.30 No 5: Revolutionairre
4.40 No 16: Flora Of Bermuda

Prix Marcel Boussac (12.55pm) preview

A fascinating contest between three hugely-promising two-year-old fillies to open the Group One action on Arc day. Francis Graffard’s Zarigana, a grand-daughter of the brilliant, unbeaten Arc winner Zarkava, is the likely favourite, having won her first two startsby a combined seven lengths, but she faces stern opposition from Aidan O’Brien’s Bedtime Story, whose unbeaten record went west when she finished fifth and last in the Moyglare Stud Stakes last time. She was subsequently found to be lame, however, and had set off at odds-on in a race that was won by her stable companion, Lake Victoria, the easy winner of last week’s Group One Cheveley Park Stakes. Ollie Sangster’s Simmering, meanwhile, also deserves close consideration, having finished a length-and-a-quarter behind Lake Victoria in the same event.

SELECTION: ZARIGANA

“Punters are increasingly happy to take on those at the front of the betting”, the BestofBets.com folk remind me in their press release which has just landed. “In the last 24 hours, we’ve seen support for outsiders who ran in the ace last year like Continuous and Fantastic Moon, both of which are now 25-1.”

One very fascinating aspects of this year’s Arc is that it is genuinely wide-open. Sky Sports Racing presenter Alex Hammond just asked who will go off favourite and answered her own question by saying: “We still don’t know”. Sosie and Los Angeles are current market leaders at 9-2 and the betting reads like a sprint handicap rather than a Group One contest of this calibre with a mature betting market.

Good morning all. It’s still a bit damp and drizzly in Paris but the Arc de Triomphe has been a glittering day in the European racing calendar since it became the target for the greatest horses on the continent and beyond in the post-War era. The forecast is for the precipitation to stop and we’re in for a fabulous day’s action on the track this afternoon.

Preamble

Hello from Longchamp in the Bois de Boulogne, where the 16 runners in the 103rd running of the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe are due to set off at 4.20 local time, or 3.20 BST. Unlike 12 months ago, when many unprepared racegoers from Britain and Ireland had lobster-pink necks by lunchtime, it is a damp and chilly day here, although there is little sign of any significant rain at present.

The going is therefore likely to remain soft throughout the afternoon, which is arguably not ideal for the Japanese-trained challenger, Shin Emperor, but he remains prominent in the big-race betting at around 6-1 with British bookies.

This is an unusually open running of the Arc on paper, with four three-year-olds – Los Angeles, Sosie, Look De Vega and Shin Emperor - at the top of the lists – but no certainty as yet about which of them will set off as favourite. Look De Vega, though, has taken a brisk trot in the betting this morning, and the French Derby winner, who was shading 4-1 favouritism from Sosie two days ago, is all the way out to 17-2 with one firm at present.

The fact that Aidan O’Brien reeled off a four-timer on the card here on Saturday, including two Group One wins, can only add to the confidence behind the trainer’s main hope Los Angeles, while his second Group One winner yesterday was a big outsider ridden by Christophe Soumillon – just like his second-string in today’s Arc, the 2023 St Leger winner, Continuous.

Al Riffa, trained in Ireland by Joseph O’Brien but due to be ridden this afternoon by Japan’s veteran superstar jockey, Yutaka Take, is currently the only older horse at a single-figure price, but you could make some sort of case for at least a dozen of the runners. Bluestocking and Sunway, the only contenders from British stables, are definitely in that dozen, although in terms of both numbers and likely odds, this is the weakest British challenge for the Arc for some time.

There are plenty of live contenders from British yards on the undercard, though, and in the Prix de l’Abbaye in particular, where Bradsell and Hollie Doyle head the market as they go in search of their third Group One win in a row, and their fourth in all.

Ralph Beckett’s Kinross, the Prix de la Foret winner two years ago and the runner-up last year, is back for another tussle with the 2023 winner, Kelina, at 4.40, while the card kicks off with two Group Ones for juveniles.

With six Group Ones for all ages, genders and at all distances up to a mile-and-a-half, there is something on the card for everyone and you can, as always, follow all the action live here on the blog from the first hoof-fall to the last.

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