IT is easy to take the achievements of Aidan O’Brien for granted, even to want someone else to win for a change, but his 2024 has been yet another year of high performance. From getting City Of Troy back after his 2000 Guineas flop to more recent impressive efforts with the juveniles, winning a Morny with Whistlejacket eight days after the Phoenix and having Lake Victoria sharp enough to win two Group 1s in 13 days, the second down in trip, O’Brien is always willing to try something different, difficult, or both.

One fixture that has tended to best him over the years is Arc weekend. He has won the feature race twice versus four King Georges and 12 Irish Champion Stakes, equivalent all-aged championship races in Britain and Ireland, while he has generally struggled – relative to other achievements – in the Cadran (two wins), Opera (one win) and Abbaye (no wins).

His record in the two juvenile Group 1s is strong – he has won the Lagardere nine times, the Boussac on five occasions – but recent years have been tough going for Ballydoyle at Longchamp on the first weekend in October.

From 2010 through to 2023, O’Brien averaged 0.57 winners per year at the meeting, only once registering more than one winner, in 2017 when the fixture was held at Chantilly. There have been seven blank years during that period, between 2011 and 2013 and again between 2018 and 2021.

This year was different

This year, however, things were completely different, as the trainer had five winners over the weekend (from 16 runners), two more making the frame, and only one of those winners would qualify as a star, Kyprios.

His previous struggles over Arc weekend are hard to explain. Perhaps it was a busy season catching up with his runners, the home team often taking their traditional break and coming back in autumn, whereas the O’Brien team were on the go all summer. Certainly this season a few of his top three-year-olds took a run to really come to hand.

Yet the profiles of the five winners are quite different. Illinois had been beaten on his first two starts, so perhaps needed those initial outings, but this was still his seventh run of the year. Kyprios is Kyprios and he tends not to follow standard rules of form cycles.

Sales race winner Mount Kilimanjaro had two previous starts, albeit at intervals, whereas Grateful had returned quite late, only having her first run at the start of June, but had been kept on the go since.

Surprisingly

Perhaps the most surprising winner of all was Lagardere victor Camille Pissarro. A Navan maiden on debut, he seemed to have a big reputation, sent off 4/6 for the Marble Hill, where he was runner-up with no excuses, then again favourite for the Coventry, where he finished in midfield.

Connections even ran him in a sales race at the Ebor meeting where he was again beaten, but perhaps the slow ground at ParisLongchamp was a help, the first time he encountered an ease since the Navan win.

More generally, O’Brien seems to be using France regularly as an option for his horses and this may be down to opportunities or prize money or some combination of the two.

In 2022, he won nine races in France, whereas in 2023 that number was five. This year, he has won eight French races in all, even broadening his range to tracks like Craon, winning a listed race there in August and, if anything, we can expect more of this.

I WAS interested to read PA journalist Donal Murphy on Twitter during the week point out that October is the busiest month in the Irish racing calendar; I think if I had got that one in the sweepstake, I would have put it back in the hat!

Per Murphy, there are 46 meetings across the 31 days, 16 days with two cards including every Sunday and just one blank day. It is a ‘mix ‘em, gather ‘em’ month and that’s exactly what it felt like trying to keep track of events over the weekend.

Gowran’s Saturday card never got off the ground, with a total of 25 non-runners, 14 of them ground-related, the feature PWC Champion Chase losing much of its interest with five of the eight taken out, the later beginners chase also seeing significant nons.

One race at Gowran that stood up was the Listed Mucklemeg Bumper, where 13 took their chance, blacktype for fillies and mares so valuable. Despite the field size, however, the race looked weirdly uncompetitive with most of the field beaten with half a mile to go, especially those that raced around the inner.

Still, the winner Aruntothequeen achieved a fast time, despite racing on chewed up ground. There were five other two-mile races on the card and she was faster than all of them on raw times, even allowing for hurdles being jumped, she would have been quicker than all but Lot Of Joy in the earlier mares hurdle, which itself looked a well-run race.

Fast gallop suited

Jessica Harrington said this sort of pace suited her 25/1 winner, and that her previous four bumper defeats could be put down to lack of a gallop, and she was followed home by four last-time-out winners.

It is not that long ago that Harrington had a similar type in bumpers with Jetara, who won her first start, but was beaten in the next three before winning a well-run Navan listed bumper and going on to much better things when her stamina was tested over hurdles, now rated 145 and placed in multiple Grade 1s.

The feature at the Curragh was the Brigid’s Pastures Stakes and it showed how form against the geldings can be stronger than the fillies-only races. Both the first and second, Oujda and Ano Syra, had been well-beaten against the males previously, whereas a few of their rivals were coming from confined races.

Seven-furlong maiden winner Giselle, returning from a 121-day absence was the star elsewhere on the card, though The Palace Girl, who cost €30,000 and is a half-sister to Tamfana, made herself a valuable filly in finishing second.

The seventh, Sindria, is also worth keeping in mind for a time when her yard are going better. She travelled as well as any and the third took her ground when she was looking for a run.

World of trouble

The six-furlong handicap in the middle of the card produced the world of trouble, as most wanted to be near side and they got in each other’s way.

Surpass And Shine and Mile End were obvious sufferers in this traffic, while so too was The Bear Trap, who had the added misfortune of being shuffled back early and got no run at all from a bad position.

The feature flat race at Tipperary on Sunday, the Concorde Stakes, saw a surprise gamble on Vera’s Secret, a mark of 96 suggesting that she had a bit on with four rivals rated in the 100s.

She only managed fifth, but the support may have been directionally right as she shaped better than the result, overdoing it in the lead as the first three all came from the back half of the field. There is better to come if her speed can be harnessed, while she also proved soft going isn’t an issue.

Race winner Power Under Me bounced back from a disappointing run on going faster than ideal at ICF, bringing his record around a left-handed bend on ground soft or worse to:15142411.

The strong pace suited him, as it did Fleur De Chine, who looked in need of further, while the sixth Ojw Legacy was better than her finishing position, shuffled back at key point on the turn in.