O’Brien can frustrate Sir Mark
RACING: PRIX DE L’ARC PREVIEW
If there is any justice in racing at all, then surely Sir Mark Prescott will win this afternoon’s Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.
After 52 years training at Newmarket, the 74-year-old has won nine UK Group 1 races and three in France. But there’s no doubt that the Arc, at Longchamps, would be the accolade of a lifetime and his five-year-old, Alpinista, is a player.
A winner of her last seven starts for Swedish-born billionaire Kirsten Rausing, the daughter of the great Frankel warmed up at York.
That was in the Group 1 Yorkshire Oaks, where the mare was always doing enough to hold off Epsom Oaks winner, Tuesday, by a length.
The Arc typically serves up easy ground but that should not concern Alpinista, who has won three times with give.
Vadeni for the hosts was a big disappointment.at Leopardstown and fourtimer-seeking Titleholder is a credit to Japan.
However, they all may have to give best to a familiar figure in the Longchamps winner’s enclosure, for Aidan O’Brien runs Luxembourg.
A little frustrating in the spring of the campaign, the Camelot colt won the Irish Champion Stakes – over 10 furlongs – three weeks ago.
He will relish a quartermile further today, the soft ground too, and can improve again to lift the £2.4-million first-prize pot.
SELECTION
Luxembourg 7/2. (Paris Longchamps. 3.05).
LONG SHOT
Onesto 14/1.