Qatar Prix de la Foret (Group 1)

A BRITISH Group 1-treble on the card was completed when the seven-furlong specialist Kinross finally made his mark at the top level after seven defeats and having won three times in Group 2 company, in the Qatar Prix de la Foret.

The anticipated duel with Tenebrism looked set to materialise when that Ballydoyle representative was ridden into the lead down on the inside by Ryan Moore with a furlong and a half to run, at which point Kinross was cruising along towards the centre of the track.

But Tenebrism folded tamely and Kinross was left to storm home by two lengths ahead of the fast-finishing Malavath and the game Japanese-trained front-runner, Entscheiden.

The winner is now bound for the Breeders’ Cup Mile according to his trainer, Ralph Beckett.

Qatar Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere (Group 1)

Qatar Prix Marcel Boussac (Group 1)

THE prize money won by Rouget in the Arc means that Fabre will have to cede the French Trainers’ Championship he was won 31 times. But it was still a good day for the Chantilly maestro as, prior to Place Du Carrousel’s shock Opera victory, his two-year-old Showcasing colt, Belbek, the outsider of a seven-strong field, had come out on top in a three-way finish of necks in the Group 1 Qatar Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere.

This was another substandard renewal once the O’Brien-trained hot favourite, The Antarctic, was withdrawn by the racecourse vet having twisted a shoe and lamed himself on the flight over. Johnny Murtagh’s Shartash could only finish a never-dangerous fourth as the even-money favourite, prompting his trainer to conclude that he does not stay seven furlongs.

The result capped a fine few days for the winning owner-breeder, Kazakh businessman Nurlan Bizakov, who in the week announced that he had secured Mishriff to stand at his French stud and then landed Saturday’s lucrative sales race, beating O’Brien’s Denmark into second, with a Kodiac colt who was promptly sold for $400,000 at that evening’s Arc Sale.

Fourth generation

The afternoon’s other Group 1, the Qatar Prix Marcel Boussac, saw rookie handler Christopher Head become the fourth generation of his family to saddle an Arc Day winner when his Churchill filly, Blue Rose Cen, stormed five lengths clear of Jim Bolger’s Gan Teorainn and the Aidan O’Brien-trained Never Ending Story.

This looked impressive, but the second and third had both been beaten considerably further by Tahiyra in the Moyglare Stud Stakes, while the winner succumbed to another O’Brien charge, Victoria Road, at Deauville in August.