Enable should be at 100 percent for Breeders' Cup Turf after gritty Arc win

The last time trainer John Gosden brought a Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winner to the Breeders’ Cup Turf it just wasn’t all that fun for the man.

Golden Horn won the 2015 Arc and shipped three weeks later to Keeneland, where Gosden, upon arrival, spent a lot of time staring balefully up into dismal rain-filled skies. Golden Horn was a fast-ground horse forced to race over rain-sodden autumn turf. He failed to show his best over the going and was defeated by the filly Found.

This time around, it is Gosden who has the filly, and with Arc winner Enable there will be no real course-condition concerns. Enable acts over good ground, but she is fine on soft, too, and Enable will be one of the stars of Breeders’ Cup 2018 after becoming only the eighth horse to win back-to-back Arcs when she held on desperately to prevail by a head Sunday over the 3-year-old filly Sea of Class.

Enable did not produce her dazzling best in Paris, but just might do so Nov. 3 in Louisville. Enable didn’t even make her 2018 debut until Sept. 8, owing to a leg injury sustained in the spring, and Gosden revealed after the Arc that a minor illness had compromised her training between the comeback run and Sunday’s race. Enable won mainly on sheer class and talent and has every right to run better in her third start of the season.

Sea of Class, who ran too well to lose the Arc, had been mentioned as a candidate for the Turf or Filly and Mare Turf but will run in neither. Trainer William Haggas said Monday that Sea of Class was done for the season, though a 2019 campaign is planned. Arc third-place finisher Cloth of Stars as well as Arc also-ran Talismanic, the 2017 Breeders’ Cup Turf winner, shouldn’t be ruled out of a trip to Louisville.

The Filly and Mare Turf found one of its favorites Sunday at Longchamp when Wild Illusion won her second straight Group 1 with a decisive score it the 1 1/4-mile Prix de l’Opera, a BC Challenge race. Wild Illusion’s connections – Godolphin, trainer Charlie Appleby, and jockey William Buick – won the 2017 Filly and Mare Turf with Wuheida and will have a strong chance at another.

Also expect Group 1 Prix Marcel-Boussac winner Lily’s Candle to run in the BC Juvenile Fillies Turf. American owner Martin Schwartz bought her at auction the night before Sunday’s race, and the filly is pointed toward Louisville. However, neither of the top two from the Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere, the colts Royal Marine and Broome, have the BC Juvenile Turf as a target.

The Prix de la Foret over seven furlongs proved inconclusive as a BC Mile prep for the filly Polydream, whose chances ended when she was stuck on the rail and stopped cold in the homestretch, finishing seventh.

Saturday’s Sun Chariot Stakes in England, however, could yield a Breeders’ Cup starter, as victorious Laurens could run either in the Filly and Mare Turf or the Mile.