Moore rides Winter and Heffernan rides Idaho. The draw will be made later today apparently.

Donnacha (not Heffernan) on OoSG is strange, too inexperienced to be given the role of pacesetting perhaps? Could Heffernan who is on Idaho the hare this time?; Seventh Heaven running is a surprise, to say the least, given softish ground she will not like but then she managed to be 2nd to Jack Hobbs in the Sheema Classic on similar ground.

I still believe Capri had had a hard race in the St Leger just two weeks ago. But Winter taking on Enable is something to savour.

Taghrooda finished 3rd, trapped wide all the way from 15 and beaten by horses drawn in 3 and 4 that had a dream run round.  Is anyone saying she didn't run right up to her best?

While I don't have a penny on her lets hope for Sandowns sake that Enable proves to be as good a lay as Saxon Warrior was last Sunday.

I’m not surprised that HR and COM were withdrawn, but I didn’t think Winter would run (maybe the L’Opera) and the fact RM is riding her adds another dimension to the race.

Maybe AOB/RM feel the filly has a better chance of winning than OOSG who had a hard slog only 2 weeks ago, additionally she has more room for improvement, goes on soft and has a turn a foot, but will 12f in soft be too much.

On a strict line through Rhododendron, Enable has the beating of Winter, although not by much, but she has improved since. All in all it makes for a better race, but I still maintain Enable must take all the beating.

Sun Princess hated the ground and Time Charter was given a poor ride, not as poor as Park Top though. Snow Fairy ran possibly her best race here. Taghrooda was beaten by a couple of better and well-drawn horses. I think looking at past results is clutching at straws. What I think is more important is what runs in opposition.
I think you are right Andrew. In the Nassau Winter beat Queens Trust by 4 lengths and in the Yorkshire Oaks Enable beat Queens Trust by 5.75 lengths. Considering Queen Trust is a doubtful stayer I too think there may be not much between them and will force Frankie's hand to ensure a strong gallop. Hopefully, that will help the guaranteed stayers Satono Diamond and Idaho.

I'm not sure about the Oaks run of Hydrangea because she appeared to be going really well until put under pressure where she stopped suddenly. It wasn't a surprise that she bled next time so she may have had a problem they never knew about. You would have to want to be on Enable in a match race but apparently, Secretariat wasn't going to stay the Belmont trip.

I expect those who don't believe that stats have any place to always find the reasons why those who were beaten were unlucky or had good excuses.But they do offer circumstantial evidence and for that reason alone, caution should be the watchword. And, Headmaster, my argument is only to do with "price". On the =at stat which I I posted about British trained horses, you might want to question whether Enable is a proper 1.1 shot or even odds on, in the face of that list of top class horses. And, no HM, I didn't lay Saxon Warrior, as the point that I was making there was that on the face of it, with at least 12 lbs to make up plus more was needed to justify the price. Only those with inside knowledge would have been in a position ot know whether that was justifiable.  Laying would have been a guess as much as backing.

Here is an extract from Julian Muscat in the RP which sheds further light on British trained F&M in the Arc, and on the issue of running in G1's in July and August

Three-year-old fillies have a commendable record but the only Arc winner to contest Group 1s in either July or August was Danedream. She won the Grosser Preis von Berlin by five lengths, which suggests she had nothing more arduous than an afternoon stroll in the July sunshine. It must also have been a weak race, since Danedream started at 20-1 when she won the 2011 Arc.


Yet Danedream was very much the exception. The likes of Three Troikas, Treve and Zarkava all backed away from intense midsummer competition to freshen up for the Arc, while Detroit was in a similar mould. An unraced two-year-old, Detroit bypassed the French Classics and came into the Arc via a pair of minor midsummer Group races. She didn’t exactly burn out her lungs en route.

Enable, by contrast, has been taking on all-comers and routing them. She has been exerting herself in the process; her aggressive style of running never affords her an easy race. She draws the sting from her opponents with those long runs for home. This is an obvious concern when so many previous Arc winners eased off in midsummer. She has been on the move since April.

In Enable’s favour is Chantilly’s topography, which favours horses who race prominently, although with Ballydoyle likely to be mob-handed, Frankie Dettori will be anxious to avoid becoming surrounded at any stage of the race.

Dettori will also keep his fingers crossed for a low draw. This is seen as an advantage at Chantilly but last year’s renewal belittled the notion when the first three home departed from stalls 12, 11 and 16. That’s the Arc for you. It does not conform.


Enable’s supporters must hope that holds true on Sunday, because within the morass of data thrown up by the race, one stat makes for daunting reading. The simple truth is no three-year-old filly trained in Britain or Ireland has ever won the Arc.

There is good reason for it. Top-class fillies trained in Britain and Ireland have an attractive sequence of races to contest throughout the summer. There is the Oaks, Irish Oaks, Pretty Polly Stakes, Nassau Stakes and Yorkshire Oaks, which are all Group 1 races.

Enable has won three of those in addition to the King George. In recent times the only French-trained filly to travel a similar route was Pawneese, winner of the Prix de Diane, Oaks and King George in 1976. Come the Arc and she was plainly spent in finishing 11th behind Ivanjica.


Will Enable make history? At a shade of odds-on, I won’t be paying to find out. Especially when those buried under the Arc rubble include Taghrooda, Ouija Board, User Friendly, Salsabil, Diminuendo and Sun Princess, all of them three-year-old fillies.

brigust1

My MO is to deal in probabilities, i.e chances of winning. Therefore, it will not surprise me one jot if Enable trots up, but in assessing BEFOREHAND the chances of her doing so, I am obliged to take on board all those considerations which can affect the chances. The price of evens assumes that she has a 50% chance. For me to want to BACK her, I would have to be rating her chances as considerably better than 50% which it is impossible for me to do, when as you rightly say, all the competition are rated in probabilities as well.Things like stats are merely the BACKGROUND to the degree of RISK which I want to take.

It seems that I cannot be understood by those who only think only in terms of will/can't win. C'est la vie.

Anyway, good luck with your bet on Enable and the others.

One year at Christmas on Boxing Day I had 5 selections all who could not win. The prices were huge when combined so I spent all morning on my motorbike going around the areas bookies spreading the bets to keep within their limits. None were placed.

To THM and all others trying to rationlise why horses ran well or got beat, I would just say that IT IS ON ARC DAY that potential winners need to be able to reach their best PM, and to do so, they need conditions to suit, have been prepared to peak for THAT race and not subsequent races, and to have had a preparation where the races ADDS to their  fitness level, not DETRACT from it.  The potential winner then needs as much luck in running as possible, to boot.

There have been examples before, like Montjeu in his second Arc, where he absolutely destroyed the field in the KG  that year (much much more impressive than Enable), was odds on for the ARC yet couldn't repeat it on October. Just saying.

Yes I read Muscat's article.  It didn't impress me the first time and hasn't improved for a second reading, but not much of his stuff does, Sandown. (Btw I didn't mention Saxon Warrior - think that was brigust) 

Just to clarify my position, I am in no way saying Enable is nailed on.  But to be against her because a string of totally unconnected fillies "didn't win" is mind-numbingly lazy.  Especially considering many of those fillies ran right up to their best in the Arc and subsequently posted equally good efforts.  Muscat's point was that they'd been hammered by a domestic summer campaign and had gone by Arc Day.  He clearly couldn't be bothered to check if they ran after the Arc and to what level.  Or maybe he did and it didn't fit the argument so he decided to ignore it, which would be a greater sin in my book.

We can do better than this, lads, surely?

If you think Enable is under-priced based on the fact she may have been on the go too long is fine.  We'll find out on Sunday.

To chuck Taghrooda, Snow Fairy, Ouija Board and others into the argument - and conveniently ignore Danedream - is clutching at straws.

THM

I thought that being a Headmaster, you at least would understand that to work with probabilities, it is necessary to take as much evidence (direct and circumstantial) into account as  you can. I am not saying for one minute that a list of 13 failures means that another failure MUST therefore follow. However, a sequence of 13 (unless its PURELY RANDOM) predisposes me to ask whether the next one in line will be more likely another failure or a success? Whatever the underlying causal factor may be, it doesn't float my boat to back something  at evens. On those grounds alone, I would write down the chances rather than write them up, which then takes me more into laying rather than backing. How much I might risk  is another question which comes strongly into consideration.

I thought you would be considering laying/ or at the very least not backing Enable because historically the filly and mares who have won the King George/not targeted the Arc have done poorly. If that is not what you are saying then I have misunderstood you.

brigust1

I am currently a layer of Enable.

Well done. It is just that you talk about probabilities etc then plump for the fact that Enable is too short a price considering the season she has had when that hasn't come into consideration with the other examples you have cited.

Andrew I also walked the course on the morning of that Dewhurst along with Mr Grimthorpe. He was on the phone most of the time and I was taking photos of the course which I used in my DVD.

Laurie, was TG on the phone to his bookie ?

No rain predicted now for tomorrow or Saturday. Light rain on Sunday.

Maybe not so much failed but left supporters empty-handed?