By Gérard Augustin-Normand and John Hammond
Over the last 30 years the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe has had an average of 17 runners. Last year, 13 of those 17 were Group 1 winners. It is by common assent the best all-age race run in Europe every year.
Recently, France Galop decided to change the conditions of the race to allow geldings to run in it. Does that make sense? This decision to change a history-making event was taken largely on the back of one horse, Calandagan.
As always when tinkering with something that works it is important to beware of the law of unintended consequences. A few notable examples include moving the Derby from Wednesday to Saturday in order to increase crowd size, which actually led to a drop in attendance, and…Brexit…let's not even go there.
Opening the race to geldings is almost certain to lead, in the future, to more frequent eliminations which have until now been limited. The most influential broodmare of our times, Urban Sea, herself an Arc winner, would almost certainly been eliminated if geldings had been allowed to run in her year. In 2022, La Parisienne, who was second, beaten a short neck, in the Prix de Diane, did not make the cut. Connections were justifiably unhappy and it is highly likely that this will start to happen on an annual basis.
At present, France Galop faces serious problems. Actually, that is incorrect, it faces one serious problem from which stems all the others: a persistent fall in betting turnover. It is a little odd that the powers that be choose to create a polemic over an issue which is a sideshow to what really matters. If they think that merely opening up the Arc to geldings will bring people flocking to the racecourses or PMU bars they are being disingenuous.
Luckily, this strange decision was not taken a year ago. If it had, it is highly likely that Calandagan would have run in place of Daryz. Without Daryz's victory in the Arc, French breeding would have lost out on an exceptional future stallion who would be a winner of its greatest race. One cannot falsely claim the Arc has stopped producing stallions – especially with Europe's premier middle-distance sire, Sea The Stars, being a former winner – while inadvertently preventing future star colts from competing. Worse still, even if the decision had been made to run Daryz, he likely would have been eliminated anyway (he had a relatively low rating going in to the race) had a few more highly-rated geldings been permitted to compete.
Racing is a sport of strong opinions, which is why it is so compelling. We espouse our views here but at the same time we would like to doff our caps to team Aga Khan Studs and Francis Graffard for having bred and brilliantly campaigned two magnificent racehorses who have given racing fans the world over so much pleasure. Daryz is an outstanding beast with an eye-watering turn of foot. A middle-distance horse who is capable of running 200 metres in under 10.7 seconds – what an exciting stallion he will make. Calandagan has thrilled racegoers in Ascot, Dubai and Tokyo, as well as in France, with his lovely fluid action, long acceleration, and admirable consistency at the highest level. Thank you.
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