A SUPERSTA
Horse eyes sixth successive Grade 1 win as Prescott says: It’s my last great Arc chance
SIR MARK PRESCOTT will bank on Alpinista’s “nuisance” factor as the legendary trainer seeks to crown a storied career with victory in today’s Prix de l’Arc de
Triomphe.
“She’ll need to improve to win,” concedes the 74-year-old (right), Newmarket’s youngest trainer when he began in 1970 and a flesh-and-blood rebuttal of the charge that all the characters have left modern professional sport.
“It won’t be good enough just to do what she’s done, but her great strength is you can adjust how you ride her to be the most nuisance to your competitors.
“She’s straightforward, which is why she’s been unbeaten for two years. You can mess up everything with her, because she doesn’t mind what you do.”
Alpinista has carried the colours of owner-breeder Kirsten Rausing to victory in her last seven races, including five Group 1s.
In August of last year, she beat Torquator Tasso to land Hoppegarten’s Großer Preis von Berlin, form boosted by the runner-up’s Arc victory eight weeks later. “I was very glad as the form was much better than we realised,” adds Prescott.
“For Miss Rausing, to win three Group 1s and be champion in Germany –
she became champion in Germany despite ‘Tasso’ winning the Arc, because she’d beaten him – was enough.
“But this year, she wanted to win the glitzy Group 1s.”
Prescott’s plan to prepare the grey for the Coronation Cup at Epsom in June and Ascot’s King George VI And Queen Elizabeth Stakes the following month – “she wasn’t off colour,she just hadn’t come in her coat” – had to be shelved.
But Alpinista and Luke Morris did make a winning return in the top-level Grand Prix de SaintCloud in July before defeating Oaks heroine Tuesday for the Yorkshire version last time out.
Bookies make her the 5-1 second choice to become the first fiveyear-old mare to win Europe’s middle-distance championship since Corrida in 1937.
“Is Alpinista important on Sunday? Enormously, because it took me 53 years to get one to be second favourite for the Arc and I’m unlikely to get another shot,” Prescott said. “I think it’s the last great chance. You don’t get two, do you?”