Up until Saturday’s demolition job by Harbinger on a high class King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes field on Saturday, Fame And Glory looked the horse they all had to beat in the autumn showpiece, the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, writes Elliot Slater.
Now, everyone placing a Horse race bet is wondering if Sir Michael Stoute’s four-year-old has picked up the mantle of the great Sea The Stars and has taken the modern thoroughbred to another level. The son of Dansili sluiced home in record breaking time by an astounding 11 lengths, registering a performance that has provisionally been rated by Timeform as high as 142, that’s 2lbs better than last season’s six-time Group 1 winner!
The mouth-watering prospect now looms of a clash between Harbinger and the high class Fame And Glory, already an impressive winner this term of the Group1 Coronation Cup at Epsom and the Tattersalls Curragh Cup. Aidan O’Brien’s charge did little wrong last year when gong head-to head with Sea The Stars on three occasions, finishing second to John Oxx’s world beater in both the Epsom Derby and the Irish champion Stakes and is being campaigned with the autumn feature in mind.
The ‘Arc’ is always a fantastic race that brings together the cream of both the three-year-old crop and the older horses from across Europe and, on occasions, even further afield. Immediate bookmaker reaction for those who bet online was to make Harbinger the new 7/4 favourite (with Ladbrokes) for the Paris feature on October 3, whilst Fame And Glory has been pushed out to 5/1.
With the pair almost certain to be seen in action a time or two before then there could yet be more shake-up’s in this leading ante-post market as the anticipation mounts ahead of what might prove to be one of the best international Group 1 races for many a long year.