The biggest flat race of the Eu­ro­pean turf sea­son takes place on Sun­day (Oc­to­ber 1, 2023) at Paris Longchamp when the Group 1 Qatar Prix de l’Arc de Tri­om­phe will take place.

Six­teen hors­es are ex­pect­ed to face the starter and the race promis­es to be a crack­er with the win­ners of the 2023 King George VI and Queen Eliz­a­beth Di­a­mond Stakes, 2023 French Der­by, 2023 St Leg­er, 2023 Gross­er Preis von Berlin, 2022 Cham­pi­on Stakes, 2023 Grand Prix de Saint Cloud, 2022 Prix de l’Opera as well as the run­ner-up in the 2023 Ger­man Der­by and 2023 Takarazu­ka Ki­nen. A fas­ci­nat­ing race is in prospect.

Head­ing the bet­ter for the Arc is the un­beat­en French Der­by win­ner, Ace Im­pact. This colt is un­beat­en in five starts and won the French Der­by in tremen­dous style in June.

He re­turned from a short rest to com­fort­ably win his warm-up race in mid-Au­gust and it will take a very good horse to low­er his colours. The two po­ten­tial chinks in his ar­mour are that he is rac­ing over the Arc trip for 12 fur­longs for the first time and he will be com­ing up against old­er hors­es for the first time, and in the Arc, he will be meet­ing the best of the old­er mid­dle dis­tance hors­es. His train­er and jock­ey are supreme­ly con­fi­dent and will not hear of de­feat for their son of Cracks­man. He looks for­mi­da­ble and eas­i­ly the best of the three-year-olds.

The oth­er three-year-olds are his fel­low French-trained Feed the Flame, who was a ready win­ner of the Grand Prix de Paris over the Arc course and dis­tance but he had pre­vi­ous­ly well held by Ace Im­pact when on­ly fourth in the French Der­by. Aidan O’Brien’s St. Leg­er win­ner is the oth­er ma­jor three-year-old con­tender but while this colt has im­proved in the lat­ter half of the sea­son with wins in the Great Voltigeur and then St Leg­er, he was eas­i­ly held by Ace Im­pact on the French Der­by pre­vi­ous­ly. The Ger­man Der­by run­ner-up, Mr Hol­ly­wood, al­so rep­re­sents the clas­sic gen­er­a­tion while his coun­try­mate Torqua­tor Tas­so shocked the rac­ing world two years ago, this would be an even big­ger sur­prise.

The old­er brigade for the 2023 Arc is a for­mi­da­ble bunch. The most fan­cied duo are the King Geroge 1-2, Hukum and West­over, both are re­gal­ly bred colts. Hukum is a full broth­er to last year’s cham­pi­on Eu­ro­pean horse, Baeed and is un­beat­en in 2023. He de­feat­ed the 2022 Ep­som Der­by win­ner on his come­back and then came out on top of West­over by a nar­row mar­gin in the King George. He has form on all types of go­ing and that is re­as­sur­ing when the like­ly go­ing re­mains un­known at this stage.

The Jud­dmonte Farms-owned, Frankel colt West­over came might­i­ly close to giv­ing his fa­mous fa­ther an­oth­er big race win when nar­row­ly beat­en in King George. Be­fore that, he had chased home the high­est-rat­ed horse in the world, Equinox in the 2023 Dubai Clas­sic and eas­i­ly won the Grand Prix de Saint Cloud. This colt won the 2022 Irish Der­by but was on­ly sixth in the 2022 Arc when the go­ing went against him. All signs are that the go­ing will not be as soft in 2023 and that will bring this colt firm­ly in­to the race.

An­oth­er horse that chased home the Japan­ese champ Equinox is the Japan­ese-trained mare, Through Sev­en Seas. This mare ran the great horse to a neck at Han­shin race­course in Japan it is hard to be­lieve that was Equinox run­ning at his peak. If it was, she will be very hard to beat with the mare’s al­lowance. The oth­er old­er horse wor­thy of men­tion is the 2022 Cham­pi­on Stakes win­ner, Bay Bridge. He had a most­ly dis­ap­point­ing 2023 sea­son but seemed to re­vive his year with an im­pres­sive win in his warm-up event for the Arc, the Group 3 Sep­tem­ber Stakes. While that race was used as a step­ping stone to Arc vic­to­ry by the great En­able, this five-year-old’s three-length de­feat of the low­ly-rat­ed Can­dle­ford is un­like­ly to give con­nec­tions of the oth­er lead­ing con­tenders any sleep­less nights.

Of the oth­ers, on­ly the fil­ly Place du Carousel, who rep­re­sents An­dre Fab­re, the train­er with the record for the most Arc wins might be able to trou­ble the lead­ing prin­ci­pals af­ter her wins in the l’Opera at last year’s meet­ing and the 2023 Prix Foy. She will prob­a­bly still on­ly be run­ning for a place.

In one of the best Arcs in re­cent mem­o­ry, I be­lieve the race will be a straight bat­tle be­tween Ace Im­pact, Hukum and West­over. I sus­pect that any sta­mi­na doubts in Ace Im­pact will be ex­posed by Hukum and West­over and I be­lieve the King George one-two will fight out the fin­ish with the edge on this oc­ca­sion go­ing to West­over, who can give his sire a sec­ond suc­ces­sive win in the event fol­low­ing the suc­cess of Alpin­ista in 2022.

On the Sat­ur­day pri­or to the Arc, the 2023 bet365 Cam­bridgeshire Stakes, one of the best bet­ting races of the sea­son will take place at New­mar­ket Race­course. As usu­al, a full field of 30 hors­es is ex­pect­ed to line up for the event and the cav­al­ry charge will be as much a game of luck as it is a game of abil­i­ty with the go­ing and draw hav­ing as much im­pact on the re­sult as any­thing else. I like four hors­es against the field—As­tro King, Ma­jes­tic, Mer­lin the Wiz­ard and Oviedo. Good luck in this one.