Rougir won the tightest of photos over Grand Glory to win the Group 1 Prix de l’Opera on the Arc undercard Sunday at Longchamp.
Tepidly favored Audarya, winner of the 2020 Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf, made the lead in hand past the quarter pole but had no final punch over a heavy course, fading to fourth. Eudaimonia finished third.
Race favorites Tarnawa and Hurricane Lane ran to form in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe on Sunday at Longchamp. The German 4-year-old Torquator Tasso did not, storming past those two in the dying strides to post a 71-1 upset in the 100th Arc.
Saffron Beach notched her first Group 1 success Saturday at Newmarket with a sharp victory in the Sun Chariot Stakes.
Going straight to the lead under William Buick, Saffron Beach poured it on through the final furlong to post a three-length win over favored Mother Earth, the 1000 Guineas winner this past May, in this one-mile contest.
There are clues in the recent race record that Dhakuri, a 4-year-old New Zealand-bred gelding, can develop into a successful stayer in Australia for trainer James Cummings and Godolphin Racing.
Dhakuri won a maiden race at 1 1/8 miles last November and a handicap at about 1 1/8 miles on Sept. 17 at Newcastle. The Newcastle race was Dhakuri’s second start of a late 2021 campaign that continues on Monday in a handicap at about 1 5/16 miles at Warwick Farm Racecourse in Sydney.
With the benefit of a recent win in a Grade 2 sprint, the 4-year-old filly Resistencia will be favored to win her second Grade 1 race in Sunday’s $2.27 million Sprinters’ Stakes at Nakayama Racecourse.
The champion 2-year-old filly of 2019 in Japan, Resistencia won the Grade 1 Hanshin Juvenile Fillies at the end of that season. In five subsequent starts in Grade 1 races, Resistencia has been second three times, most recently in the Takamatsunomiya Kinen at six furlongs at Chukyo Racecourse in March.
Audarya, winner of the 2020 Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf, is the name in Sunday’s Prix de l’Opera most recognizable to American racing fans. And because of that she may be a vulnerable parimutuel favorite that American bettors can oppose.
Audarya’s failure to win any of her 2021 starts isn’t an indictment of her form. She was a close second behind Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe runner Love in her season’s debut and ran below form in her second start, but bounced back to finish second by a nose in her most recent race, the Group 1, 1 1/4-mile Jean Romanet on Aug. 24 at Deauville.
Zesty Belle had a rough patch in late July and mid-August, finishing eighth and ninth in lucrative handicaps at Caulfield Racecourse in Melbourne, Australia.
More than six weeks later, the outlook is better for Zesty Belle, a winner of 2 of 12 races who starts in a handicap at 5 1/2 furlongs at Bendigo Racecourse on Sunday.
Zesty Belle is part of a full field of 14 and will be ridden for the first time since January by Damian Lane, the leading rider at tracks in the state of Victoria, where Caulfield and Bendigo are located.
In the midst of a spectacular 2021 season, Godolphin trainer Charlie Appleby can win his first Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe on Sunday at Longchamp Racecourse.
It might not come with the horse you’d expect.
Everest Carnival: With the Carnival now in full swing, Randwick will stage stakes races every Friday night in October. The Everest will be run on the 15th at six furlongs for $15 million. Nine of a maximum twelve contenders are confirmed for the world’s richest turf race: last year’s winner, Classique Legend, Nature Strip, Eduardo, Gytrash, Masked Crusader, Rothfire, Lost And Running, The Inferno and Libertini.
The brilliant mare Verry Elleegant is on a familiar path to Australia’s most famous races in coming weeks.
Saturday at Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne, Verry Elleegant will start as narrow favorite in the Group 1 Turnbull Stakes at 1 1/4 miles, a prep for the Group 1 Cox Plate at Moonee Valley on Oct. 23.
Last year, Verry Elleegant won the Turnbull and the Caulfield Cup and was later sixth in the Group 1 Melbourne Cup at Flemington in November. This year, she is rated as a prospect for the Cox Plate.
