SHIROCCO RUNS BEST ARC TRIAL

It was Arc Trial day at Longchamp last week, and if history is anything to go by we almost certainly saw the Arc winner in one of the three big races – the Prix Vermeille, The Prix For or the Prix Niel.

It’s possible that Shawanda (32) who took the Vermeille will win the Arc. She won a slow run race for the fillies’ race, so her speed rating tells us little. However she did hit a speed rating of 41 when she won the Irish Oaks, so she might just progress enough to take the big race (though personally I doubt it).

It may be that Hurricane Run (37), the Prix Niel winner, is going to go on and take France’s biggest price. My concern about him is that he has simply never run a fast time despite several opportunities. It’s very rare for an Arc winner not to have run a Group 1 time prior to the big race and Hurricane Run hasn’t even earned a speed rating equal to an average Group 2 winner as yet.

The fastest of the three Arc Trials was the Prix Foy won by PRIDE (42). Pride earned a solid Group 1 speed rating from me and I can’t discount the possibility that she’ll continue her winning streak on the big day. My problem with her is that she has yet to win a Group 1 in 15 starts. In fact she’s run unplaced the three times she’s tackled colts in Group 1 company. This is hardly the profile of an Arc winner.

Runner-up ALKAASED (40) is more interesting. He is a Group 1 winner who has clearly been trained with the Arc in mind. His trainer, Luca Cumani, says he will improve for this run and I believe him. Alkaased has earned several Group 1 speed ratings from me, so I have to give him a shot in the big race. But the one I really like just has to be lat year’s German Champion SHIROCCO (39) who put up a really smart performance to finish third.

The ground was on the fast side of good not the official good to soft judged by race times. So Shirocco, a confirmed mudlark, did remarkably well to finish so close –especially considering he came into the race off an eleven month lay-off.

Shirocco has only twice encountered genuinely soft ground. The first time was when he ran away with the Deutsches Derby. The second was when he beat the Italian Champion Electrocutionist in the Gran Premio del Jockey Club. I gave both Shirocco and Electrocutionist speed ratings of 44 for that race – up there with the biggest I’ve awarded over the last few years. And Electrocutionist certainly validated the high rating with his recent win in the Juddmonte International.

This was Shirocco’s first run for Andre Fabre who is clearly pointing his new charge towards the Arc. If Shirocco gets the soft ground he needs I reckon he’ll be hard to beat.

STARCRAFT CAN RUN FASTER

STARCRAFT (38) had things all his won way up front when taking the Prix du Moulin. His jockey shrewdly kicked on after it became clear there wasn't much of a pace on. In the circumstances it's perhaps not surprising his final time was only a second a mile closer to my standard than that of a claiming race later on the same card.

I confess that I find it hard to ‘read’ Starcraft. He’s clearly very versatile. He’s shown he can win top races off a fast pace or a slow one and at ever distance from seven furlongs to a mile and a half.

Starcraft’s next race is to be the QEII and that looks logical. Most QEII winners have been horses that stayed longer than a mile - probably due to the searching pace it is run at. In fact, if Stracraft takes the race this year it will be the third running in a row that has been won by a horse that previously scored over 12 furlongs in Group 1 company.

I’d prefer to see Starcraft shoot for the Breeders’ Cup Turf rather than the Mile. US Turf races at longer trips are run in a similar way to those in Australia, and we already know Starcraft can win a slow run 12 furlong Group 1. What’s more, the Turf is probably going to be an easier race to win than the Mile this year.

One horse that does interest me for the Breeders’ Cup is CACIQUE (31) who ran a fair race considering he was returning off a two month break and was eased when beaten. It seems likely to me that his shrewd trainer Andre Fabre is training him to peak for the big meeting in America.

Cacique has run as fast as any miler in training. His form has been made to look bad by the fact that (like most of his family) he’s best at nine furlongs or less and requires fast ground. In fact, over trips of nine furlongs or less on what my going allowances say was fast ground Cacique had won five times out of six before this defeat. His sole previous loss was to French champion Bago when that one put up an extraordinarily fast time to win the Prix Jean Prat.