Whirl might not be the best 3-year-old filly currently trained by Aidan O’Brien, but she’s the star of the Sunday card at Longchamp. The annual preview program for the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe includes three Arc preps: The Group 2 Prix Foy for older horses, the Group 2 Prix Niel for 3-year-olds, and the Group 1 Prix Vermeille, for fillies and mares. Whirl is set to face five foes in the 1 1/2-mile Vermeille, for which she was an odds-on favorite with British bookmakers as of Friday. Added to the Arc trials card this year is the Group 1 Prix du Moulin, a one-mile contest that often produces runners for the Breeders’ Cup Mile. The whole card was moved up one week on the calendar to afford a longer break before the Arc itself, run this year on Oct. 5. Whirl comes into the Vermeille, where she gets eight pounds from the two older horses entered, following a four-length blowout at Goodwood Racecourse in the Group 1 Nassau, run over heavy going at 1 1/4 miles. That followed another 1 1/4-mile win against older competition in the Group 1 Pretty Polly, where she beat Kalpana, a leading Arc hope herself. :: Access the most trusted data and information in horse racing! DRF Past Performances and Picks are available now. Whirl has raced 1 1/2 miles just once, finishing second in the Oaks at Epsom to stablemate Minnie Hauk, who in early Arc betting is vying for favoritism with Kalpana. Whirl is the third favorite, though Minnie Hauk will have to be supplemented into the race. Whirl’s chief rivals Sunday are the 3-year-old Gezora, who campaigns for Peter Brant’s White Birch Farm, and the 4-year-old Aventure. In the Prix Foy, the O’Brien-trained Los Angeles, whose big win this season came in the Tattersalls Gold Cup, holds tepid favoritism over Sosie, Almaqam, and Map of Stars. Leffard, who in his most recent start won the Grand Prix de Paris on July 13 by a whisker, tops a humdrum renewal of the Niel. Rosallion supposedly heads the Moulin, though his reputation, earned before a long injury layoff, outpaces his performance level in a four-loss 2025 campaign. The O’Brien-trained 3-year-old Henri Matisse, who won the French 2000 Guineas late this spring, also is among a dozen entrants. Ombudsman to BC Turf Connections have changed course with Ombudsman, one of the leading older horses in Europe this year, diverting him from the Irish Champion Stakes on Sept. 13 in favor of a three-race campaign in the fall. A 1 1/4-mile specialist – in Europe, at least – 4-year-old Ombudsman emerged from relative obscurity to win the Group 1 Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot and the Group 1 International Stakes at York, where he avenged a narrow second-place finish behind the 3-year-old Delacroix in the Group 1 Eclipse. Trained by John and Thady Gosden for Godolphin, Ombudsman now will await the 1 1/4-mile Champion Stakes on British Champions Day at Ascot, Oct. 18, before wheeling back just two weeks later in the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Del Mar. From that Nov. 1 race, the plan outlined earlier this week calls for Ombudsman to go to the Japan Cup on Nov. 30 at Tokyo Racecourse. Both the Breeders’ Cup Turf and the Japan Cup are contested over 1 1/2 miles. The Gosdens and Godolphin evidently feel Ombudsman can perform to his standard over that trip on flat, oval courses. Del Mar’s short homestretch especially suits a 1 1/4-mile horse trying 1 1/2 miles, though winners of the International have fared poorly in the BC Turf. Ryan Moore out for the year Ryan Moore, widely considered the world’s best jockey, will miss the rest of 2025 after being diagnosed with a stress fracture in his leg. Moore’s status was revealed earlier this week by trainer Aidan O’Brien, with whom Moore has developed one of the great trainer-jockey partnerships in the history of racing. O’Brien said Moore had been riding with pain in his leg for quite some time before the nature of his problem was recently uncovered. In Moore’s absence, France-based, Belgian-born jockey Christophe Soumillon will take over as the top rider for O’Brien and his powerhouse client, Coolmore. Soumillon has regularly taken mounts for O’Brien in France when Moore was not available and when O’Brien has run multiple horses in the same race. ‘Hawkeye’ coming back to U.S. Wimbledon Hawkeye, the England-based 3-year-old who narrowly beat Burnham Square in the Nashville Derby on Aug. 30 at Kentucky Downs, will return to America for the Breeders’ Cup Turf, his connections announced late this week. The colt won’t start again before shipping to Del Mar in October. While the Nashville Derby was contested over 1 5/16 miles, Wimbledon Hawkeye has performed at least as well over the BC Turf distance of 1 1/2 miles. He was ridden at Kentucky Downs by Frankie Dettori, whom Owen hopes to have aboard at Del Mar. ◗ Rebel’s Romance was withdrawn from Sunday’s Grosser Preis von Baden due to unsuitable ground. Trainer Charlie Appleby said he could instead run in another race in Germany later this month or the Joe Hirsch Turf Classic at Aqueduct on Sept. 27. Rebel’s Romance won the Grosser Preis von Berlin last month at Hoppegarten, making him 4 for 4 in German races, including two wins in the Grosser Preis von Europa, both of which springboarded the gelding to Breeders’ Cup Turf victories at Keeneland in 2022 and at Del Mar last year.  :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.