FRANKIE READY ENABLE
He can become first to win five Arc’s, but Dettori insists it’s all about the horse
FRANKIE DETTORI says that ensuring Enable claims her place in racing history with victory in the Qatar Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe is far more important than achieving another personal milestone.
Victory for Dettori in the £4.4 million contest staged at its temporary home of Chantilly would be his fifth in Europe’s most important all-age middle-distance contest and make him the most successful jockey in the race’s 97-year history.
Weighing room legends Pat Eddery, Yves Saint-Martin and Freddy Head have also won four.
And Dettori has a chance to write his name in the record books three days after the 21st anniversary of his Magnificent Seven at Ascot when he won every race on the card. However, the 46-year-old is determined to add John Gosdentrained Enable’s name to the Arc winner’s roster two years after the duo landed the Arc with the equally brilliant Golden Horn.
Enable has already won the English, Irish and Yorkshire Oaks as well as the King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes this season.
Dettori said: ‘The most important thing is Enable trying to win. If I become this, or that, or the other, it doesn’t matter. The only thing in my mind is to try to give the filly every chance, and to try to win.
‘She’s been amazing but this is her biggest test. Everybody’s there so, if she wants to be the best in Europe, she’s got to show her stuff. It’s the biggest prize of the season, the race everybody wants to win, and everybody’s turned up.’
Enable will be Frankie Dettori’s 29th ride in the Arc. Since his first mount — pacemaker Roushayd in 1988 — finished 20th of 24 starters, the Italian has only missed one running, in 2013, when he broke his ankle in a fall at Nottingham four days before the race. It cost him the ride on winner Treve.
If Enable can win, she will continue the great recent run of fillies and mares in the race. Between Danedream in 2011 and Found last year, only Golden Horn has succeeded for the males of the species.
Dettori feels another filly, Aidan O’Brien’s dual 1,000 Guineas winner Winter, could pose his biggest threat this afternoon even though Ryan Moore’s mount has never raced over a mile and a half before. Like Gosden, Dettori is fearful of trouble in running with an 18-runner field tackling Chantilly’s tight circuit but he has not seen any signs that a tough, long season which started with a third place at Newbury in April has taken its toll on his mount. The jockey added: ‘Fillies get a good weight allowance from the boys and don’t forget Winter’s in the race as well. I’m level weights with her and she’s pretty good herself.
‘[Enable] has been very consistent but she’s had a long season and until you try you don’t know. She seems in good fettle in the morning and we’re all happy.’
Fears the Arc could be run in a bog have receded with forecasts of biblical downpours being revised. That could mean little change to yesterday’s good to soft ground, a mighty positive to Michael Stoute’s King George runner-up and Eclipse and International Stakes winner Ulysses, who now looks too big at 8-1. Andre Fabre’s Cloth of Stars looks the best long shot at 25-1.