Torquator Tasso gets the ground he needs for repeat win in Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe

Frankie Dettori has won the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe six times, more than any other jockey. His mount this year, Torquator Tasso, has won the Arc once, one more time than any of the 19 horses he faces Sunday. His trainer, Marcel Weiss, insists Torquator Tasso is at least as good now as he was a year ago, when he shocked the racing world with a 71-1 Arc upset. The upset came on a rain-soaked, heavy autumn course at Longchamp – and have you looked at the Paris forecast? Rain was to start just before midnight Friday and fall, at least intermittently, all the way through the Arc card.

Torquator Tasso won’t be 70-1, but he ought to be a playable price in a hotly contested renewal of what many view as the most important Thoroughbred race in the world, the Group 1, $4.9 million Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe. The field is capped at 20, with four entrants from Japan, five horses from England, two each from Ireland and Germany, and seven French runners. Post time is 10:05 Eastern and there are five supporting Group 1s on the card.

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There are no 3-year-old fillies entered in the Arc, but six 3-year-old colts, who get six pounds from the older males, will line up, among them Luxembourg, the favorite as of Friday, ridden by Ryan Moore and trained by Aidan O’Brien. Luxembourg was supposed to be a Derby horse, but pulled a muscle after his third-place finish in the English 2000 Guineas on April 30 and didn’t start again until August. His Arc credentials rest primarily upon an impressive soft-ground win last fall in the Vertem Futurity Trophy Stakes and his victory Sept. 10 over six rivals in the 1 1/4-mile Irish Champion Stakes, contested left-handed on softish ground at Leopardstown. If that makes Luxembourg feel like a shaky favorite, it should, because he is.

Three-year-olds Onesto and Vadeni finished second and third in the Irish Champion, and both contest the Arc. Vadeni had a tough trip in Ireland following a win over older horses in Group 1 Eclipse Stakes and a blowout score in the Prix du Jockey Club, the French Derby, a race in which Onesto dead-heated for fifth and Arc hope Al Hakeem was a wide fourth.

Three-year-old colts used to win the Arc all the time, but Golden Horn in 2015 was the last such winner. Golden Horn and the two 3-year-old colt Arc winners just before him, Workforce and Sea The Stars, all had won the Derby over 1 1/2 miles, and among this year’s sophomores, only Westover and Do Deuce have raced that far. Westover finished a troubled third in the Derby, then won the Irish Derby over 1 1/2 miles by seven lengths, albeit against subpar Group 1 competition. But in his most recent start, the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes in July, Westover was beaten 18 lengths, and he may not suit the very soft ground he’s likely to find Sunday. Do Deuce, one of the Japan-based runners, failed to impress in his European debut, finishing a modest third Sept. 11 in the Prix Niel, which, to be fair, was purely an Arc prep for this year’s Japanese Derby winner.

The shortest-priced Japan-based entrant is Titleholder, whose best races have come at 15 and 16 furlongs and who has no form on a course rated less than “good.”

There’s no reason the 5-year-old mare Alpinista can’t win – all she does, in fact, is win. Alpinista, based in England with trainer Mark Prescott, enters the Arc on a two-year, seven-race winning streak, her last five victories at the Group 1 level. A pure 1 1/2-mile horse, Alpinista won three German Group 1s in 2021, beating Torquator Tasso and Mendocino, who also runs Sunday, and has top-level wins this year in France and England. She has handled a wide range of course conditions and gets three pounds from the older males.

Under-the-radar older males to consider: Mostahdaf, a rising 4-year-old whose John and Thady Gosden-trained stablemate Mishriff is getting more attention, and Mare Australis, whose trainer, Andre Fabre, has won the Arc a record eight times.

We come full circle to another older male in Torquator Tasso, who can follow Enable (2016 and 2017) and Treve (2013 and 2014) as recent repeat Arc winners. Torquator Tasso broke from post 12 last year and has a worse draw, 18, for Sunday’s contest, but trust Dettori to work something out. He picked up the mount because Rene Piechulek, aboard for the 2021 Arc, is contractually obligated to ride Mendocino on Sunday. Mendocino nipped Torquator Tasso (Dettori up for the first time) when they met Sept. 4 in the Grosser Preis von Baden, a race run left-handed over good ground. Soft ground and right-handed turns are what Torquator Tasso truly wants – and, for the first time this season, that’s what he’s getting Sunday in Paris.