Mike Cattermole: Ready Enable! Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe thoughts and more

Enable to make history

The brave and sporting decision to keep Enable in training as a six-year-old can be rewarded with an historic third Arc win at a deserted Longchamp on Sunday.

Although the opposition includes an outstanding young filly in Love and her own stablemate, the brilliant stayer Stradivarius, I believe Enable will do it.

How sad that the season’s highlight will be staged in front of only a thousand or so spectators gathered among the falling leaves of an autumnal Bois de Boulogne.

Unfortunately, I will not be one of those lucky ones looking on as the necessity to quarantine for 14 days on my return (thus forfeiting several opportunities of work) meant I had little choice but to turn down renewing my acquaintance with the Equidia team on their world feed production.

I will miss what is usually a wonderful experience, along with my annual motorcycle taxi back to Charles de Gaulle, which can be as daunting on the Peripherique as it is trying to get a clear run in the Arc itself!

Enable has had as good a preparation as John Gosden could have hoped for leading up to Arc number four and the decision to avoid an earlier clash with Love at York might have been inspired.

She was majestic when winning her first Arc at Chantilly on soft ground and then overcame the brilliant and slightly unlucky Sea Of Class - after an interrupted season - for her follow-up on good ground at Longchamp in 2018. She got away with it, just.

The hat-trick wasn’t to be 12 months ago but I am convinced that Enable wasn’t at her best on the day, for whatever reason.

Some have sought excuses and blamed the circumstances of the race as Frankie Dettori kept an eye on the front-running Ghaiyyath. But she still came to win her race and looked to be doing so until floundering in the last 100 yards as her old rival Waldgeist swept past.

So near yet so far, but you can’t be at a concert pitch every single time. She was still in front of Sottsass and Japan, however.

I believe that Sea Of Class was a brilliant filly, the equal of Love, and yet Enable still beat her from an interrupted prep. The only thing that niggles at me is the way Enable left the stalls when winning at Kempton last time.

She is six now and five seasons of racing can leave a mark, not so much physically but mentally. Even Frankel was showing signs of not concentrating at the start of his races towards the end and was very slowly away in the Champion Stakes.

Enable cannot afford to lose ground when the stalls open, so let’s keep our fingers crossed.

How good is Love?

When you look back at Enable’s three-year-old season, she was beating top Group One performers such as Rhododendron, Ulysses and Coronet - with ease.

Love has won all three of her Group Ones this season in the same spectacular style but the opposition is nowhere near the class that Enable tackled.

However, the raw style and dominance of those wins, along with rave reviews from both Ryan Moore and Aidan O’Brien, fuels the belief that she is very special.

How relevant is it that the form of her three wins has not been littered with subsequent winners? Indeed, those behind her, well behind her, at Newmarket, Epsom and York, have hardly lit up the season.

The Guineas seems to have worked out the best with the runner-up Cloak Of Spirits winning a Listed race last week - after four defeats, the sixth Under The Stars also won at Listed level, while the seventh, eight and ninth, Millisle, Summer Romance and Rose Of Kildare have all won a Group Three.

The Oaks form has been “boosted” by the Listed win of the fourth Queen Daenerys and a Group Three from the fifth Passion, but that is it.

Finally, Yorkshire Oaks runner-up Alpinista was arguably an unlucky loser in a Group Three last week. Nothing else has run from the race yet but the fourth, Manuela De Vega, lines up in Saturday’s Group One Prix de Royallieu.

Could there be a late form boost?

Also, with the Longchamp ground described as very soft at the time of writing, and more rain forecast, Love will be encountering the deepest ground she has raced on.

Sure, she is 0/3 on good to soft but that was when she was a two-year-old and she has left those days – and form – a long way behind now.

It’s a bit of a guessing game with Love and her close relatives provide mixed evidence on the ground. Her half-sister Lucky Kristale never touched soft, while her full sister Peach Tree flopped both times she encountered very soft or heavy ground.

However, her other full sibling, Flattering, won her maiden on deep ground at Cork - by 10 lengths.

I personally think she will handle it but it is an unknown, just as it is with Mogul and the supplemented Derby winner Serpentine (well beaten on soft on his debut).

Persian King is a fascinating contender but can Kingman sire an Arc winner? Andre Fabre’s colt seemed to be outstayed by Sottsass in last year’s Prix du Jockey Club. But the 30-time champion trainer has chosen the Arc over the Champion Stakes.

Enable then for me with Stradivarius coming home late to fight Love for second.

Longchamp meeting outstanding

The Brits could be in for a great weekend in Paris.

I believe that Max Vega, trained by the in-form Ralph Beckett, will relish conditions in Saturday’s Group Two Prix Chaudenay over just short of two miles. He is crying out for a stamina trip like this and the ground is perfect.

On Sunday, Nando Parrado could surprise a few in the Jean-Luc Lagardere before Battaash and Glass Slippers, the last two winners of the Abbaye, go again.

Equally mouth watering is the clash between Tarnawa and Tawkeel in the Prix de l’Opera.

One Master bids for a third win in the Prix de la Foret, which, like Enable, would be a first. She must go well.

Lovely time at Bangor

Tuesday’s additional meeting at Bangor gave me a chance to commentate at this unique track for the first time in a very long time. Fifteen, maybe 20 years?

During a very pleasant afternoon, when the sun shone for most of the time, two things struck me. The first was watching Paddy Brennan at close hand. But for a nose, he would have won the first three races on the card and is clearly riding like a man inspired right now.

His effort to win the opening “match” on Thegallantway, had a touch of the AP McCoy about it. Thegallantway was never travelling with the fluency of the favourite The Wolf under Adrian Heskin, but Paddy set him off in front, got after him at about halfway and dictated both the race and his mount.

As we often said about AP, he made his mind up for him, was never headed and it duly paid off.

Then, in the following novice chase, his mount Cool Destination looked held just after two out but Paddy got a tremendous rally out of him and almost got back up to beat another Heskin-ridden hotpot, The Butcher Said.

He then completed his double with a no-nonsense ride on Teqany in the next, completing a brace too for Fergal O’Brien with whom he has forged a very fruitful partnership as he approaches the autumn of his career.

The other thing that struck me was how comfortably Bangor would incorporate a bio-secure crowd. There is no stand there of course, in this instance a huge advantage, there is loads of space and operating a safe one-way system around the venue would be so simple to organise.

Admittedly, Tuesday was a lovely day and that is not always going to be a given. But a handful of gazebos erected around the site would provide an inexpensive way to provide shelter, should it be necessary.

One or two big screens around to show the action and a good, safe day out would be assured.

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