Arc de Triomphe runners

Graham Richards's Arc preview

Derby form is a big worry for Authorized backers

By Ian Carnaby

How poor is the Epsom Derby form?

The question is worth asking as the annual invasion of Paris for the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe gets underway. The race may be analysed in the minutest detail, like all top-class races these days, but the fact is that any number of English visitors will be going purely and simply to see Frankie Dettori win on Authorized. It has something to do with the ‘feelgood factor’ and, needless to say, if everyone does indeed feel good afterwards, having accepted 5 to 4 or whatever, the following will seem at best pessimistic, at worst churlish.

But how poor is the Epsom Derby form? Well, very poor indeed by Classic standards. Authorized beat a pretty ordinary bunch very easily and there will be those who claim that five lengths is an impressive winning margin in any Group 1 race. But it would have been gratifying to see Eagle Mountain or Aqaleem, his closest attendants that day, achieve something meaningful in the interim. Frankly, Aqaleem does not look anything out of the ordinary and will never quicken in a month of Sundays, while Eagle Mountain, who runs on very testing ground more often than not, has only a modest four-runner affair to his credit.

It’s difficult to pull the British and French form together

We were deprived of potentially the most meaningful clue where the Arc is concerned when Eagle Mountain unseated early on in the Grand Prix de Paris, won impressively by Zambezi Sun. The latter’s jockey caused the accident and was fortunate to escape serious punishment, while Zambezi Sun might well have lost the race had the stewards acted with their usual thoroughness. A cynic might ponder the fact that the winning owner was also the sponsor. If cynics are right, are they still cynics? Discuss.

Anyway, if Eagle Mountain had given Zambezi Sun a run for his money it would have been possible to pull the British and French form together, something that is very difficult now.

Anyone citing Lucarno’s St Leger victory as a fillip for the Derby form is clutching at straws. John Gosden’s horse, fourth at Epsom, failed to win the next twice before setting up his Doncaster triumph with a gritty effort in the Great Voltigeur at York. He did well on Town Moor but beat a two-miler in Mahler with the upgraded handicappers Honolulu and Regal Flush right behind. Honolulu, a ridiculous 13 to 8 that day, again looked one-paced at Ascot on Sunday.

Most of the others in the Derby can be dismissed in a few lines. Salford Mill bitterly disappointing, Kid Mambo outclassed, Yellowstone and Acapulco quite likely to be used as pacemakers now and again, Mahler hopelessly short of pace. All of which leaves the fifth home, Soldier Of Fortune, who may have improved when winning the Irish Derby by a wide margin or may simply have handled the paddy field that the Curragh became that day better than the others.

He followed up in the Prix Niel, where the easy time given to Zambezi Sun in third has been exaggerated in some quarters, although he was definitely ridden with the Arc in mind.

Racing is no different from other sports in that optimism abounds. Maybe Soldier Of Fortune did indeed learn a lot, as Aidan O’Brien says, between Epsom and the Curragh. Then again, he’d have needed to because he has absolutely no chance with Authorized on the form book, having been smothered for pace by him on a better surface.

Authorized may have been below par in a messy Coral-Eclipse at Sandown, where Dettori was intent upon watching George Washington and allowed Ryan Moore his moment on the overrated Notnowcato. (Overrated simply because he was all out to beat stable-companion Maraahel on the nod in last year’s International at York and Maraahel has never won a Group 1 race.)

Authorized avenged that defeat pretty easily in the International this time, finding an impressive turn of foot after holding in Dylan Thomas on the rails for a while. Paris must be damp in October - tradition and Marcel Proust demand it - and that will not improve Dylan Thomas’s chances of turning things around, though personally I think he is a better horse than Soldier Of Fortune.

Note how the prices contract as judges better than I make their thoughts known. Just consider the prices about Honolulu, Borderlescott, Knot In Wood and Balthazaar’s Gift (9 to 4 last Sunday the daftest odds I have seen in a race of that nature in 50 years of watching the game) over the past few weekends. Authorized will not ease all that much, if at all, but Zambezi Sun will contract to cover that angle, as well, and the process has already started with the 5 to 1 disappearing. Racing is often a matter of romantics taking on hard-nosed businessmen and I’m sure you don’t need me to price up that particular contest.

Conclusions? If Zambezi Sun has been trained specifically for this race, which is more or less guaranteed, he must be a danger to the favourite. But, if you fancy him strongly, it is worth looking at Sagara, who had a luckless run through in the Grand Prix de Paris and was not far behind him (fourth and seventh) in the Prix du Jockey Club. At 25 to 1 he will give his supporters a run for their money.

My opinion of this year’s Derby could not be much lower and it is highly likely that Authorized beat a very ordinary bunch. But five lengths is a long way and it would have been further, had Dettori so desired. 5 to 4 is a very poor price, indeed a worrying one, but AUTHORIZED should win, leaving many people with the aforesaid feelgood factor in the Bois de Boulogne.

Sagara is the best outsider.