Potential Paris Party Pooper

If the idea of Enable pulling off an unprecedented Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe hat-trick can't float your boat then the good ship Romance is scuttled on a very dry beach. Sunday's race at Longchamp promises history. The best horse in the world is odds on to once again win Europe's greatest race. It's perfectly set up for a superb seasonal crescendo. Which is usually when things start to leak.

Not since a decade ago and Sea The Stars' perfect career denouement will there be more people pulling in one direction for the one Arc outcome. Enable is a wonderful champion with an all-time great achievement in her grasp. The depth of goodwill and support will be enormous which makes it just as well the five year old mare is happily unaware of the weight of expectation.

Despite the odds, Treve's fate when chasing the Arc hat-trick in 2015 illustrates how so much can go wrong. Even when ground, the draw and so many other factors fall into place, an insipid ride can come into play. As ineffectual as Thierry Jarnet was then, Frankie Dettori was inspired on Golden Horn. Now it's the Italian's turn in a hot seat that comes with a large target on the back.

This is the sort of occasion the very best get right and Dettori is one of the very best of all time. In strict ratings terms the same actually can't be said of Enable but an overwhelming success on Sunday might yet change that. Except is it asking too much of a five year old mare coming towards the end of a stellar career to produce her best once again, never mind possibly improve on it?

On almost every form basis Enable unarguably deserves to be a hot favourite as the most likely winner. Even the emerging three year old force that is Japan can be tied in with Enable through Crystal Ocean. Magical has been her career shadow. Waldgeist can't win on form. It's difficult to suddenly see Ghaiyyath in superstar terms.

But in terms of a potential threat to Enable it is Sottsass that lifts right out of her opposition because of a lack of any meaningful form link. The son of Siyouni was visually impressive in the French Derby but his principal opponent, Persian King, hasn't run since. It makes Sottsass the Arc's unknown factor. He's got plenty questions to answer but the potential to get them right.

His sire alone will have some doubting Sottsass' stamina although he wasn't stopping at the end of an unusually high tempo Prix Niel. What he beat in the Niel means little. But considering the pocket he found himself in Sottsass ultimately accelerated out of it in style. It's also encouraging how his trainer immediately nominated an Arc preparation after June's Jockey Club victory.

The impressive Jean Claude Rouget didn't do that with Almanzor who finished 2016 as Europe's top-rated.

Making an argument for a still relatively unexposed three year old to get the better of a true champion with history in her sights is a stretch. But with Enable odds on, it's hardly a shot in the dark either to suspect Sottsass is some value at a general 7-1 to emerge from left field and prove a Paris party-pooper.

Over the years, when international stories about anabolic steroids came to the fore, Irish racing's establishment always pointed to a pristine record of negative tests here. If it always seemed unlikely that the game in Ireland was some oasis of probity then such illusions have been well and truly banished in recent times.

The first horse to actually test positive for an anabolic steroid was Turbine and his case was wrapped up in August with a backdated 14 month ban that won't see him eligible to race until March of next year. As we know his trainer Denis Hogan was exonerated with a vet taking full responsibility for the horse being administered by mistake a substance containing Nandrolone.

Now just a month later, there are reports of the David Dunne trained Druim Samhraidh testing positive for another anabolic steroid, Boldenone, after winning at Ballinrobe last month. The Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board has said nothing on the matter, stating they have a policy of not commenting on prohibited substance cases.

This is the kind of negative news any establishment doesn't like. Such headlines inevitably prompt some reputational damage. The flipside of that is that they can sometimes produce a reputational boost for the system that uncovers them. So in credibility terms for the drugs regime that now applies in Ireland this is hardly the worst thing that could happen.

Racing officials in the US generally are finding out how difficult credibility can be to regain once lost. So news that another unfortunate horse lost its life when sustaining injuries during a race at Santa Anita over the weekend is another blow. Thirty horses died during the winter and spring. Now racing has resumed at California's premier track more fatalities will pile extra pressure on the sport there.

It makes the decision to keep the Breeders Cup at Santa Anita this year all the more puzzling. The whole Breeders Cup concept is about attracting attention onto an increasingly marginal sport in the US. Fears about racing's shop window grabbing focus for all the wrong reasons are surely all too real now. And it's not like US racing isn't getting enough negative attention as it is.

California's governor was recently quoted as saying about the 30 equine fatalities earlier this year: "What happened last year was unacceptable and all of the excuses be damned. Incredible abuses to these precious animals and the willingness to just spit these animals out and literally take their lives is a disgrace."

And he warned: "If you don't reform yourself, you're going to get run over and others are going to reform for you in ways that you don't like."

Righteous indignation from politicians can be a tough swallow and no doubt some in this part of the world will dismiss such rhetoric as being very Californian indeed. But if you don't think this is the trend in which general public opinion is going then you're deluding yourself. After all, most politicians are very good at telling the most voters what they most want to hear.

Finally, the competitive nature of flat racing here in Ireland was underlined once again at the weekend with Millisle's Cheveley Park success. This is a filly that made her debut in July at Bellewstown. She didn't even start favourite. Her victory continued the superb season enjoyed by Jessica Harrington who at 72 continues to expand her career horizons in spectacular style.

Her fortunes certainly might make for consideration in Japan where JRA rules apparently require trainers to retire at 70. Any similarly ageist rule here would make for a dramatic thinning of the ranks!