Shirocco Ready For Foy Test

Leading Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe contender Shirocco is reported to be fit and well ahead of what promises to be a fascinating Prix Foy at Longchamp tomorrow.

The Andre Fabre-trained entire has not raced since fending off a sustained challenged from Ouija Board to win the Coronation Cup at Epsom in June.

He returns to the fray to face his stablemate Hurricane Run, last year's Arc hero, among a five-strong field in a hot renewal.

Paul Harley, racing manager to Shirocco's owner Baron Georg von Ullmann, said: 'Shirocco is very well and Christophe Soumillon will take the ride.

'Sunday is just a prep race for his main target, the Arc, and we will expect him to improve on whatever he does on Sunday ? Mr Fabre is a genius.'

Shirocco beat the likes of Azamour and Bago to claim the Breeders' Cup Turf at Belmont Park last year and has won both of his starts as a five-year-old this season, posting the first of those wins in the Jockey Club Stakes at Newmarket in May.

Harley said: 'He's shown everyone in Europe how good he is with his performances at Newmarket and Epsom, and Mr Fabre is very happy with him at present.

'Of course he will now be up against Hurricane Run in the Prix Foy but the filly Pride will also be a big danger ? she's very good. I have a lot of respect for both horses.

'It's going to be a very, very interesting race.'

As well as Hurricane Run, Fabre also saddles the eight-year-old Near Honor.

All the recent talk in France has been about Japanese super horse Deep Impact's bid to become the first raider from outside Europe to land the Arc.

But Hurricane Run will do his talking where it counts on the track.

Fabre is a man of few words, but the master trainer has a record six Arcs to his bow and to his mind Hurricane Run is possibly the finest he has handled.

The four-year-old colt has not been seen out since his stunning victory in the King George VI And Queen Elizabeth Diamond Stakes at Ascot in July, but the Foy represents his penultimate step towards becoming only the seventh horse to win Europe's greatest race in successive years.

Fabre, though, has discounted the Foy as being a duel between his pair to see which one goes to the Arc with the favourite's tag hanging around his neck.

'This is just a prep race and nothing more than that,' was his standard blunt remark about the significance of the race in relation to the Arc.

Pride, who defeated Hurricane Run in the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud in June, represents Alain de Royer Dupre while supplementary entry Divine Story, trained by Rupert Pritchard-Gordon, completes the field.

(C) PA Sport