Fran Berry looks ahead to Sunday's Arc and feels Minnie Hauk has just about everything going for her as she bids to provide Aidan O'Brien with a third win in the great European contest.
Will O’Brien win a third Arc?
For British and Irish trainers, you have to consider that there has been a lot of racing done in the domestic season through to mid-September, and you’d forgive anyone for taking a breath and genuinely considering going for the Arc.
For Aidan O’Brien, he hasn’t won it since Found who came home in front at Chantilly back in 2016, while plenty of people will no doubt remember Dylan Thomas winning under Kieren Fallon, who had to put his personal issues aside that weekend. The drama that all went along with that will be talked about for years to come.
It looks with a settled enough weather forecast in Paris that it could be one of those Arcs where it’ll be run on decent ground and, in that instance, Longchamp can turn from a course where it pays to wait, into more of a speed-favouring track. I remember Danedream winning in 2011 on good ground, the turn of foot she showed to get to the front left the stronger stayers in the field with little chance of closing the gap.
She was a three-year-old filly, since when Treve and Enable have also won here towards the end of their Classic campaigns, and this year O’Brien has aimed three-year-old filly Minnie Hauk at the big race.
Like I said, given the nature of the track, with a fairly tight, right-hand downhill run, it can pay to be close enough to the pace when the ground is OK and Minnie Hauk has the tactical speed to sit handily.
There’s every potential that Minnie Hauk would be equally as good on testing ground, but she just looks really versatile and we know that despite being almost bone-idle once she’s put a race to bed, she has kept on improving through the season. I was fortunate enough to see her in Ballydoyle in the first week of September in the lead-up to the Irish Champions Festival and she looked extremely well and definitely going the right way physically since I saw her in the parade ring at York.
She was a ready winner of the Yorkshire Oaks on that occasion and while it wasn’t a vintage field, you had three Group 2 winners in against her and there are no Group 1 penalty-kicks in York. The manner in which she won was very, very impressive and given that well-known advantage of the filly and age allowance in a race like the Arc, Minnie Hauk running off 8st 9lb should be right there in the mix. She could be even better than what we’ve actually seen on the track to date.
Stablemate Los Angeles might be among those forcing the pace in Sunday’s Arc.
He’s a four-year-old Irish Derby winner who has won at the highest level again this season but you just wonder if his huge effort to finish third on bad ground in last year’s Arc might be hard to replicate in this weekend’s conditions.
His two most recent runs suggest he might have been campaigned with Paris in mind again but he ran the race of his life last year and finished behind Aventure, one of the favourites this time around.
I could have seen him finding another level again on a testing surface but with that unlikely to materialise, I can see him running a good race but not quite having the class to fight out the finish against some of the improving three-year-olds on a sound surface.
Birch not just a mudlark
White Birch is well worth his place in the Arc field. What you’ve got to take into account regarding the Irish Champion Stakes outing earlier this month is that it was his first outing since May. And going back to that Tattersalls Gold Cup (replay below) won by Los Angeles, White Birch would have gone extremely close to beating him with a clear run.
What’s more, that big effort came on good ground so while he’s clearly very good with cut in the ground, he’s also highly effective over a mile and a half on a quicker surface, as evidenced by his Epsom Derby third to Auguste Rodin in 2023.
We do associate White Birch with testing ground but he’s still unexposed over this trip on decent conditions. There’s 40/1 around about him which does look a bit big as you could argue he’s had a ‘French-style’ campaign heading into the Arc. He’s a strong traveller and I’d like to see him run well.
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Three serious contenders from Japan
Looking at the runners from Japan, we can tackle them in order of the betting and Croix Du Nord is obviously the winner of the Japanese Derby. He stuck to his task really that day back in June to beat what looked a deep field.
Given his unexposed profile and a very promising start to his European campaign, winning his trial over 10 furlongs at Longchamp this month, he’s a big player. It looks a good preparation.
Stepping back up to a mile and a half doesn’t look a problem given the likely underfoot conditions which really will bring the Japanese horses into it. It’s only every six or seven years you get an Arc run on good ground and if that’s the case this weekend, they will be at a clear advantage compared to some who have looked all at sea on heavy going here in the past.
Byzantine Dream had been taking on most of the top performers on his generation in Japan and while he might have something to prove on his overall form back home, given the manner in which he won the Prix Foy, he has to be a serious contender as well.
He’s a guaranteed stayer at this trip and will definitely appreciate conditions if the rain stays away, Oisin Murphy stated as much after the trial.
Alohi Alii is a son of Duramente, who passed away as a nine-year-old earlier this year. I actually managed to get Duramente beaten in a maiden race as a two-year-old and he went on to win the Japanese Derby and various other top races so not my finest hour perhaps!
Alohi Alii is another going the right way and he won impressively under Christophe Lemaire in Deauville. He showed a lot of the qualities you see in Japanese turf horses – he jumped, he travelled and just kept lengthening up the straight.
Stepping up to a mile-and-a-half might bring out the best of him and you’d assume Lemaire will be over to ride him again. His knowledge of Longchamp will be a big held for any Japanese runner here.
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