Qatar Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe (Group 1)

JOCKEY Rossa Ryan has packed a lot in to just three years of taking the odd ride in France.

The son of the Co Galway-based Punchestown Festival-winning National Hunt trainer David Ryan, he began right at the pinnacle as a callow 21-year-old, guiding Mojo Star to 10th place in the 2021 renewal of the Qatar Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, his very first ride in France.

His third, in a juvenile Group 3 almost exactly a year later, saw him elbowed out of the saddle by Christophe Soumillon, earning the Belgian a 60-day ban.

He had to wait until the end of October last year, on his 12th ride, to gain his first Gallic success, in a listed race at Saint-Cloud.

His 16th brought Group 1 glory, aboard Bluestocking in last month’s Prix Vermeille, and then his 18th, last Sunday, brought Group 1 trauma, as his actions aboard Starlust in the Prix de l’Abbaye provoked the ire of the Longchamp stewards, and Ryan was handed an eight-day suspension for attempting to force his way through a non-existent gap against the inside rail in the closing stages.

Then, from zero to hero in less than an hour and a half and showing remarkable composure given that Starlust had so nearly ended up on the deck, he enjoyed the best two and a half minutes of his young life when giving Bluestocking a copybook steer en route to a famous victory in the Arc. Quite an afternoon for the kid from Tuam!

Unpredictable

Much of what came to pass at Paris’ premiere racetrack in the early stages of last Sunday’s fixture had been utterly unpredictable, most notably the unforecasted wet weather and a couple of unfathomable Group 1 results, so it was a relief that things calmed down for the big race itself.

Well aware of a potential lack of pace, Ryan Moore did the right thing as usual, ignoring his wide draw to get the stamina-laden Los Angeles to the front and across to the rail as soon as was prudent, with Bluestocking never far away and the ill-starred Haya Zark also in the vanguard, blissfully unaware that she was moments away from suffering a fatal pulmonary haemorrhage.

Bluestocking hit the front travelling strongly with a quarter of a mile to run and responded well enough to Ryan’s urgings that she never looked like being passed.

Aventure, her nearest pursuer in the Vermeille, again played the bridesmaid’s role, a length and a quarter in arrears, coming from further back than any other member of the first four.

Los Angeles toughed it out up the straight to hold on for third, another length and a half adrift, while Sosie, who had found himself in a challenging position turning for home, could only plug on at the one pace and was the same distance back in fourth, with a longer gap to Sevenna’s Knight in fifth, best of the rest.

Two Irish stallions

Remarkably, with money only paid down to fifth, the entire prize pot of €5 million was collected by representatives of just two Irish stallions.

Coolmore’s Camelot had the first, third and fifth while the Gilltown Stud-based Sea The Stars, who, earlier on the card, had been the dam’s sire of two Group 1 heroines over much shorter trips, is the sire of both Aventure and Sosie.

Bluestocking’s backstory is a long way from the dazzling tale of brilliance and constant success that the winner of this race usually provides.

Indeed, her profile at the start of the year did not even justify an entry in this race, the nominations deadline in May coming just days before she achieved her breakthrough result when landing the Group 2 Middleton Stakes, hence she needed to be supplemented at a cost of €120,000.

She has been a worker, running six times in each of the last two seasons, but her 2023 was, despite a pair of Group 1 seconds, completely devoid of appearances in the winner’s enclosure and many questioned her appetite for a fight 13 months ago when she backed out of things tamely at the finish of a Chester listed race.

The application of cheekpieces has certainly helped as, on Sunday, did the absence of any of the only four horses to have finished in front of her this year, when second in the King George and fourth in the Juddmonte International.

Her victory came 12 months after her trainer, Ralph Beckett, and owner-breeder, Juddmonte Farms, had been forced to settle for second place in this race when Westover was unable to deal with the astounding burst of speed produced by Ace Impact.

Hampshire-based Beckett, who was crowning a career which had previously been topped by three British classic victories and an Irish Derby, was close to tears as he tried to process the enormity of what his filly had achieved.

Extraordinary

He said: “It’s a tribute to her constitution as much as anything. It’s extraordinary to have a horse start in May and dance all those dances, the King George, the Juddmonte, and get beaten and come back and do that.

“After only three weeks and what looked like a tough race in the Vermeille, it’s extraordinary. She is an extraordinary beast.

“I think the draw [in stall three] helped, it was terrific. Rossa got her into the right place and everything went to plan, he was able to pull it off.

“Westover hit the front with a furlong left last year and I was kind of waiting for something else to come and get her. What price would Westover have been in that field today?

“This is our best ever day, it has to be. I’ve been lucky enough to win a couple of Oaks but this is our best day, for sure. I never thought she’d win.”

Fairly confident

Ryan said: “A horse can really change your life and Bluestocking has mine. When I dissected her form, I was fairly confident beforehand, but I wasn’t confident enough to tell anyone.

“Just like in the Vermeille, being drawn where we were opened doors for us and it’s probably won the Arc for us as she’s been jumping and settling well. Once I got in behind Ryan [Moore], I got into a great rhythm. From there I had every chance to win, we just had to see what was really there, and she didn’t let us down.”

Christophe Ferland, trainer of Aventure, was magnanimous in defeat, heaping praise on both Beckett, who he once worked with when the two of them were assistants to Peter Walwyn, and his own filly, who will stay in training as a four-year-old next year.

Aidan O’Brien had no excuses for Los Angeles but made clear his conviction that the Irish Derby winner would have been better suited by a livelier tempo with the rhetorical question: “they were going slow, weren’t they?”