Dearth of Arc runners raises questions over health of British Flat racing

There were always going to be some notable absentees from the field for the 103rd Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe at Longchamp on Sunday. Goliath, Calandagan and Rebel’s Romance, three of the top four middle-distance turf horses in the world on ratings, are all geldings and therefore ineligible, while City Of Troy, the Derby winner and top-rated turf horse, is being aimed towards the Classic on dirt at the Breeders’ Cup in November.

But there is another noticeable gap in the list of 18 horses still in contention for Sunday’s showpiece event of the European season. David Menuisier’s Sunway, the runner-up in the Irish Derby in June but a 66-1 shot with the bookmakers, is currently the only horse in the race that is trained in a British yard. Ralph Beckett’s Group One-winning mare, Bluestocking, is likely to be added to the field at the supplementary stage on Wednesday, but she too is a double-figure price, albeit a good deal shorter than Sunway at about 12-1.

It is a poor showing from British Flat racing in general, and its so-called “Headquarters” of Newmarket in particular. There were four British-trained runners in the Arc in 2023 and 2021, and five in 2022 including the winner, Alpinista. There have also been nine Newmarket-trained Arc winners since Dancing Brave, who was prepared on the same Sussex gallops where Sunway now takes his morning exercise, blitzed his field in 1986.

It might just be a blip, of course. In terms of numbers, after all, there were just two British-trained runners in the Arc in both 2019 and 2017. The brilliant Enable, though, was the favourite in both years, finishing second behind Waldgeist in 2019 and first two years earlier, when Sir Michael Stoute’s Ulysses, the other British-trained runner, was third.

The thousands of racing tourists who will head to Longchamp this weekend, for what is often said to be the second-biggest annual sporting trip from Britain after Le Mans, are not, on the whole, overly nationalistic. Like their counterparts from Ireland, they make the annual pilgrimage to the Bois de Boulogne to watch, and bet on, the best horses in Europe, regardless of where they happen to be stabled, and it is invariably one of the most enjoyable and uplifting racing weekends of the year.

As an indicator of the underlying health of British Flat racing, however, the weakness of this year’s Arc challenge should perhaps be an early cause for concern. It comes at the end of a season when Aidan O’Brien’s Ballydoyle stable has already wiped the floor with its British rivals, winning 11 of the 28 Group Ones so far, while Dermot Weld and Donnacha O’Brien, Aidan’s son, have chipped in with three more. The overall score so far is Ireland 14, Britain 12, with one win apiece for France and Australia.

Optimists will suggest that these things are always cyclical, that O’Brien is having a remarkable season even by his exalted standards, and that John Gosden and Charlie Appleby are a little off the pace. Sooner or later, by this logic, one or both of Newmarket’s twin powerhouses will return to the pre-eminence that saw them monopolise the trainers’ championship over the previous six seasons.

We heard similar noises as Irish stables rose to dominate the big spring jumping festivals at Cheltenham and Aintree, however, and there is no sign that that wheel is about to turn around again any time soon.

Willie Mullins, in fact, took things a stage further last season, as he became the first Irish trainer to win the British jumps’ title since Vincent O’Brien in 1954. And while jumping is, for the most part, an Anglo-Irish pursuit, Flat racing is an increasingly globalised sport, with a much wider range of countries vying to attract the best horses and stage the most valuable events.

Even without the geldings, this year’s Arc promises to be a strong, competitive and international renewal. Andre Fabre, France’s greatest-ever trainer, is aiming for a record-extending ninth success, which would also make him a winner in five different decades.

O’Brien’s powerful team is headed by Los Angeles, the Irish Derby winner, while Japanese joy will be unconfined if either Yoshito Yahagi’s Shin Emperor gives the country its first ever Arc success after a series of agonising near-misses, or Joseph O’Brien’s Al Riffa gets the legendary jockey Yutaka Take home in front at the 11th attempt. British racing, however, feels likely to be a relative spectator by comparison, hoping for a turn-up from Bluestocking or Sunway.

The current dearth of top-class 12-furlong horses in British stables might just be one of those odd quirks that crop up from time to time. The country’s jumping yards, though, can confirm how swiftly a blip can turn into a trend, and then into the status quo.