Ryan Moore and Minnie Hauk come three and a half lengths clear at York

Minnie Hauk is clear in the Yorkshire Oaks, a good pointer to the Arc of late

Fillies standing in way of first Arc success for Japan

By John Ingles

Horse Racing

Fri September 12, 2025 · 3M ago

John Ingles assesses the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe picture after Sunday's trials at Longchamp.

Fillies to the fore again?

When Bluestocking when last year’s Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe she maintained the excellent recent strike-rate of fillies and mares in Europe’s richest race. Females have won the majority of renewals – 10 out of 17 – since Zarkava was successful in 2008. That contrasts with just a single filly or mare being successful (Urban Sea in 1993) in the 17 Arcs which took place between 1991 and 2007.

It’s an important stat because there’s every chance of that trend being maintained this year. Bluestocking was retired to stud after winning at Longchamp last October, but her form will be represented in this year’s race by Aventure who not only chased the year-older Bluestocking home in the Arc but had also done so beforehand in the Prix Vermeille.

With her season built around another Arc bid, Aventure went one better in last Sunday’s Vermeille – the Arc trials were brought forward this year to give a four-week gap until the big race instead of three. It’s certainly possible to pick holes in the bare form of her first Group 1 win, even if she did beat the Prix de Diane winner Gezora who herself shaped well after an absence in second, but as a means to an end Aventure ran a highly satisfactory trial following a ten-week break which should put her spot on for next month.

Aventure’s task was obviously made easier by the disappointing showing of Whirl – reports from France suggest she didn’t take the eye beforehand - who dropped out tamely to finish last of the six after setting just an ordinary pace. But Aventure has better pieces of form she can be judged on, including when runner-up to subsequent King George winner Calandagan in the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud on her previous start, and she has a wonderfully consistent record overall. In twelve starts, she has only once finished out of the first two and even then, when fourth in last year’s Prix de Diane, she was beaten less than a length.

Times suggest the ground at Longchamp on Sunday was good to firm, quicker than the official ‘bon souple’, but if conditions do soften in the next four weeks – Timeform have called the Arc going soft or heavy in four of the last five years (it was good to firm in 2023) – that certainly won’t inconvenience Aventure.

Calandagan beats Kalpana in the King George

Kalpana was a fine second to Calandagan in the King George

Whirl wasn’t the only filly to blot her Arc copybook over the weekend. King George runner-up Kalpana lost her place as ante-post Arc favourite after she suffered an odds-on defeat in the September Stakes at Kempton which now makes Minnie Hauk the main challenger to Aventure at the head of the betting.

With Ryan Moore on the sidelines, Minnie Hauk will almost certainly be the mount of two-time Arc winner Christophe Soumillon who is picking up a lot of the top rides for Ballydoyle. Unlike Aventure, Minnie Hauk has been kept busy over the summer with a Group 1 hat-trick in the Oaks, Irish Oaks and Yorkshire Oaks. But she has still had only six starts in all, winning the last five, and has more scope for improvement than the year-older Aventure.

Minnie Hauk has had a similar three-year-old programme to Enable when she won her first Arc as a three-year-old – both fillies also won the Cheshire Oaks, though Enable’s campaign also took in the King George as well as completing the Oaks treble at Epsom, the Curragh and York. Minnie Hauk, on the other hand, is yet to face male rivals.

Given the recent success of fillies and mares in the Arc, the Yorkshire Oaks has become an important race with the first Sunday in October in mind. As well as Enable, the last two fillies or mares to win the Arc, Alpinista and Bluestocking, both also won at York on the way to Longchamp.

Minnie Hauk, who needs to be supplemented for the Arc, faced only three rivals in her Yorkshire Oaks and ran out a clear-cut winner from year-older rival Estrange who, nonetheless, has had the same number of starts and while her form is some way short of Arc standard, she too remains capable of better. Conditions were almost certainly firmer than ideal for Estrange at York, and her odds would no doubt tumble if it came up soft next month.

Estrange wins at Haydock

Or will this finally be Japan’s year?

In contrast to the success of fillies and mares in recent Arcs, repeated attempts by the Japanese to win the Arc have yet to be rewarded for all that there have been some near-misses from their challengers over the years. Far from being discouraged, though, there’s a four-strong Japanese raid this year and two of them have already been successful on French soil in recent weeks.

One of those was Sunday’s Prix Foy winner Byzantine Dream who became the latest winner of that trial for Japan which had also been won by his compatriots El Condor Pasa and Orfevre before they finished second in the Arc.

Byzantine Dream finished stone last in last year’s Japanese Derby but is much improved this year as he first showed in the spring when winning the Red Sea Turf Handicap on the Saudi Cup card before a narrow defeat back home in Group 1 company in the Tenno Sho (Spring). Both those races are staying contests, but the Foy revealed that Byzantine Dream has the speed to win a well-run mile and a half contest on good to firm ground.

Byzantine Dream in action

Normally attracting not much more than a handful of runners, this year’s nine-runner Foy looks a more substantial race, the form looking solid and the time the quickest of the three Arc trials. Produced from off the pace by Oisin Murphy who also won on him in Saudi Arabia, Byzantine Dream recorded a career-best and a high-class effort to beat a field that included last year’s Arc third and fourth, Los Angeles and Sosie.

Sosie was only half a length back in second and unlike Los Angeles has more obviously improved from three to four, recording a couple of Group 1 wins at Longchamp in the spring. Andre Fabre’s Arc runners almost always come on for their run in the trials and Sosie shouldn’t be far away again next month. He’s another who won’t be inconvenienced if the ground changes, but softer conditions are the big unknown as far as Byzantine Dream is concerned.

The same goes for three-year-old Croix du Nord, a son of Oaks runner-up Rising Cross, who took his record to four out of five when winning the Japanese Derby on his latest start in early-June. We’ll have a better idea about his Arc chances after he has run against older horses in the Prix du Prince d’Orange at Longchamp next Sunday.

Soft ground seemed to scupper the chances of Shin Emperor who was Japan’s sole Arc runner last year. The brother to the 2020 heavy-ground Arc winner Sottsass is due to have the same prep as last year in Saturday’s Irish Champion Stakes when his close third to Economics made him a leading Arc hope. Since then, he has gone close in the Japan Cup and was another winner for Japan on the Saudi Cup undercard but hasn’t been seen since underperforming in the Dubai Sheema Classic in March.

READ: Fran Berry on Shin Emperor and the Irish Champion Stakes

Japan’s other contender is another lightly-raced three-year-old, Alohi Alii. His only win from four starts in Japan came in a newcomers race last season, and he was only mid-division (with Croix du Nord runner-up) in the Japanese 2000 Guineas in the spring. But he returned from four months off to put up a very smart effort to win the Prix Guillaume d’Ornano at Deauville last month. Soon in front, the rest of the field had closed up behind him on the home turn, but he kicked away again in the straight to win readily under Christophe Lemaire.

Alohi Alii is yet to race over a mile and a half but he’s by Japanese Derby winner Duramente out of an Orfevre mare so should get the trip. Third behind him at Deauville was the Prix du Jockey Club runner-up Cualificar. While he won Sunday’s other Arc trial, the Prix Niel, on his first try at a mile and a half, when value for more than his short-neck win and quickening well, that was the slowest of the three trials and it looks a modest renewal of a race which hasn’t supplied the same year’s Arc winner since Rail Link was successful for Cualificar's trainer Fabre in 2006.

That said, Cualificar might end up the sole male representative of the European classic crop in the Arc field – unless something pops up in the next week or two, there might not be a British or Irish three-year-old colt in the line-up at all.

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