Three high-quality gallopers from the East will attack the Prix de L’Arc de Triomphe
After the near-misses of Orfevre last year and in 2012 as well as several other high-profile attempts to win the Qatar Prix de L'Arc de Triomphe, the Japanese are back in Paris again - and this time they have strength in numbers.
Rather than putting them off, their track recordseems to have encouraged them and the Japanese obsession with Europe's valuable end-of-season mile-and-a-half championship continues unabated. This time no fewer than three Japanese-trained horses will line up for Monday's race at Longchamp: Just A Way, Harp Star and Gold Ship.
In truth, the Arc that Orfevre should have won was in 2012, when he shot clear up the straight but dived right under Christophe Soumillon, gifting the race to Solemia. Last year, Orfevre was beaten in a couple of strides when Treve took off on her victory charge. Even Soumillon admitted his focus changed in that instant from winning the race to winning the fight for second.
It left Japanese television racing presenter Naohiro Goda contemplating what they had to do to win. "We know that fillies have won four of the last six Arcs," he said. "So maybe we should bring our Oaks winner - that's something we haven't tried."
Harp Star, the filly among this year's trio, is not an Oaks winner but she won the Japanese Guineas and was beaten a neck in their Oaks. Like Taghrooda, the winner of the Oaks at Epsom, gets the weight allowances for a 3-year-old of her sex. Fast ground would suit her ideally.
Just A Way comes into the race as the top-rated horse (130) in the world but the 5-year-old may be suspect over a mile and a half. He has never won over the trip, indeed he finished fifth of 11 and 11th of 18 on his only two starts over further than a mile and a quarter. He is very effective over anything from a mile - his last start was a group one over a mile in June - to 10 furlongs.
Outside of home, he ran away with the Dubai Duty Free in March - over nine furlongs - so travelling is clearly not a problem, but while his class might string his stamina out to a mile and a half, at Longchamp he will be up against the best stayers in Europe.
Though he won his last start over a mile on soft ground he looked as if he hated it so fast ground would suit.
Gold Ship is something of a mixed bag. Stamina is not a problem and he is probably the least ground-dependent of the three, but just as he can run a brilliant race, as he did in the Takarazuka Kinen, winning by three lengths at the end of June, he can equally run a stinker - as he did in last year's Japan Cup.
On the evidence of his prep race in Japan, where he was three-quarters of a length second to Harp Star in the grade two Sapporo Kinen in late August, there is not much between them and William Hill had all three trading at 9-1 yesterday, when Gold Ship was the best-backed horse.
Back to finish the job • Japan has never won the Arc.
