Ado McGuinness and his team celebrate their Group 1 French success© Photo Healy Racing
Sunday’s 100th running of the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe produced a thriller. Europe's premier race had promised so much with a glittering line up and certainly delivered a wonderful spectacle where all the leading contenders held their chances in the home straight but in the end it wasn’t quite the result we expected to round off a vintage Flat season.
It’s hard to imagine any race would have been better without the winner but that certainly seems the case with the Arc, at least from an Irish perspective. If Torquator Tasso hadn’t turned up we’d be celebrating one of the greatest ever Irish victories.
Tarnawa beating Charlie Appleby’s pair of Derby winners would have been a fantastic result for Irish racing and the perfect addition to an already incredible career for Dermot Weld. The 73-year-old’s ground-breaking career didn’t necessarily need an Arc added to the CV but his handling of Tarnawa certainly deserved that fairytale ending.
Torquator Tasso produced a top class performance to become the third German-trained winner of the great race - second in ten years - and it begs the question as to why more German horses don’t travel to the UK and Ireland for the big meetings? The same could also be asked of the French. Increasing international competition can only be good for the sport and as the saying goes 'if you’re not in you can’t win' which Ado McGuinness will testify to after his momentous l’Abbaye success with A Case Of You.
Frankie Dettori is certainly good for the sport. He lit up Bellewstown last week with his winner in the Barney Curley memorial race at the Meath track on Thursday. The Italian-born rider is the single biggest draw in the game and never disappoints with his showmanship and infectious enthusiasm, even treating the Bellewstown crowd to his trademark ‘flying dismount.’ It’s 25 years since his ‘magnificent seven’ at Ascot and while there have been some ups and downs in his career in those intervening years he’s currently at the very top of his game both on and off the track. Despite his intended Arc mount, Love, withdrawn he managed to come away from Paris at the weekend with a haul of two Group 1s and a Group 2.
Racing isn’t structured to fully capitalise on his super-star status but with Dettori entering the twilight of his career at 50 years of age it could be the time for the authorities to start organising a farewell tour with him so he can provide a much-needed shot in the arm for some of the lesser tracks before he hangs up his boots.
Dettori and the Prix de l’Arc are at one end of the racing spectrum but spare a thought for those operating at the other end. The Three Zero One syndicate have owned three horses over the last seven years which have raced a total of 35 times between them. The first two horses never won any prize money at all and while their current horse, Ifyouhaveaminute, has managed to pick up €900 in her 19 starts it can be safely said that the 12-rated flat handicapper is officially the worst horse in training by some way.
Under the handicapping system that operates in Ireland Ifyouhaveaminute must race off a rating of 33lbs higher than her official handicap mark each time she runs on the flat so in reality she can never win a race.
Considering that it costs just as much to feed and train a bad horse as a good one and the Three Zero One Syndicate are contributing to the overall racing economy just like all other owners shouldn’t there be a few races a year where horses rated below 45 can compete off their official ratings?
Lastly, it was somewhat puzzling to see a small trainer found in breach of the same rule as Charles Byrnes was over Viking Hoard but receive no more than a warning.
The trainer ran two horses at Tipperary on Sunday but the IHRB Veterinary Officer found one of those horses had been left unattended in the stableyard after its race. The trainer explained that this was due to his groom having to lead up his other runner in the preliminaries for the following race. This has always been a common practice at race meetings when small stables have two runners on the day.
The only substantive difference between this incident and Byrnes is that the Byrnes’ horse was subsequently found to have been doped by an unknown third party. Byrnes was not charged with having knowledge of or involvement in the doping of Viking Hoard yet lost his licence for six months for simply leaving the horse unattended in the stableyard.
