Third time unlucky
Enable’s brave bid fails as she loses Arc thriller
BEFORE the Qatar Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, Andre Fabre had joked that he ‘did not want to be the man who kicks Bambi’. But sentiment is a weak currency in sport and the most decorated trainer in France broke British hearts as his colt Waldgeist thwarted Enable, cutting down the mare just 50 yards from a historic third win in Europe’s biggest Flat race.
The consensus in the Enable team was that the very soft Longchamp ground had blunted her biggest acceleration threat while aiding a stoutly bred rival.
If Enable, the 1- 2 favourite, losing out to a rival she had met and beaten three times before was hard to swallow, there was at least a scintilla of consolation in that the man who had trained his sights on the British heroine was the 29-time French champion trainer whose record of now winning the Arc eight times is unrivalled.
Appropriately, given his father was a diplomat, Fabre, 73, said: ‘I have so much respect and admiration for Enable that I am proud Waldgeist could beat her.’
But all around the Bois de Boulogne, a corner of Paris planted with Union Jacks on an Arc weekend when over half the 45,000 Longchamp crowd were British, there was a feeling of deflation.
At least Enable won the clapo-meter contest. The cheer for the conquered runner-up as she returned to be unsaddled was louder than the reception for the length- and- threequarters winner and his jockey Pierre- Charles Boudot.
Hopes were raised when Frankie Dettori struck for home two furlongs out but soon after eyes were drawn to Waldgeist wider out on the course charging home. The Italian conceded he felt in trouble long before the knock-out blow was struck.
‘The ground was very sticky and I struggled in the first bit of the race,’ said Dettori. ‘I let her find her feet. I waited for the final 300 metres but didn’t find as much as I thought she had left. She just folded a bit and the winner was too good.’ Gosden, who before the race had listed Waldgeist as one of the horses he feared despite Enable’s previous superiority over him, added: ‘They went a very strong pace in very testing conditions. I was quite shocked actually.
‘Frankie looked like he had the race won. He was simply beaten by a class horse that outstayed us in the ground.
‘It’s just a pity we got the rain. She has this great turn of foot from the 400m to the finish line, and that’s going to be blunted in the ground.
‘When I walked the track with Frankie the stick was going in so far that I thought, “Houston, we have a problem here!” If the ground had been like last year — good to soft — I would have been very disappointed to have finished second. But I could see this sucker punch coming.
‘I take nothing away from the winner, who is an absolutely brilliant horse.’
There is British connection to Waldgeist in that he is part-owned by Newsells Park Stud in Hertfordshire with German partners.
All the way there were signs that Dettori was not 100 per cent happy with Enable, cajoling her forward. But history still looked within his grasp when he struck for home tailed by third-placed Sottsass and fourth Japan.
But from further back Waldgeist was gathering to pounce.
So Enable remains one of eight dual Arc winners in its 98-year history and she still boasts a record that earns her a lofty position in a list of racing’s top mares or fillies.
In theory, she could still run again. That decision will be made by owner-breeder Khalid Abdullah.
But after such an exacting race it is hard to see her turning out on Champions Day at Ascot on October 19 and harder still to see her running at the Breeders’ Cup in California in November.
Lord Grimthorpe, racing manager to Abdullah, said: ‘The wave of goodwill we all had was unbelievable so therefore it’s not quite what we hoped.
‘We have to be honest on that but how can we complain because she’s an unbelievable filly. We love her to death and don’t love her any less now.’