“Pinatubo has got a very slender lead as they approach the last furlong,” or so said the English commentator during the running of the Group 2 Vintage Stakes on July 30. No sooner were those words spoken than Pinatubo took off, leaving his rivals flailing over the Goodwood course.

Brett Davis – Selections

R1 – 3-6-2-12
R2 – 8-3-1-11
R3 – 3-5-4-10
R4 – 8-1-5-9
R5 – 11-7-5-6
R6 – 3-2-1-4
R7 – 10-1-5-8
R8 – 3-7-6-10
R9 – 4-7-9-2

Best – R7 n10 Playa Del Puente
Longshot – R5 n11 Godspeed
Best Play – R5 Q/Qp 5,7,11

Andrew Le Jeune:

R1: 3-6-2-11
R2: 3-8-9-11
R3: 10-3-1-9
R4: 10-8-2-1
R5: 6-5-7-9
R6: 1-3-6-4
R7: 10-1-9-4
R8: 3-4-7-8
R9: 9-7-2-4

Two months ago, Good Omen, the 5-year-old British-bred gelding, was transferred from trainer Dennis Yip to Douglas Whyte.

Whyte, the former champion jockey in Hong Kong, spent the summer forming a stable for his first season as a trainer, which began last month. Through Sunday, Whyte had won with 4 of 30 runners.

Good Omen is one of six runners Whyte starts on Wednesday’s nine-race program at Happy Valley Racecourse. Good Omen is part of a competitive field of 10 in the $267,747 Japan Racing Association Trophy at about a mile and 50 yards on turf.

HAPPY VALLEY SELECTIONS
(Wednesday, 9 October, 2019)

One Master is not quite an elite short sprinter, nor has she been able to reach her highest peak racing one mile. But seven furlongs? That’s ideal, and for the second year in a row, One Master won the seven-furlong, Group 1 Prix de La Foret on the Arc undercard.

In 2018, One Master – who was bred and is owned by Roy and Gretchen Jackson’s Lael Stables – went from the Foret on to a fifth-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Mile, but trainer William Haggas said after Sunday’s race the 4-year-old filly would be cut back to six furlongs for the Champions Sprint in two weeks at Ascot.

Villa Marina ran the race of her life to upset the Group 1 Prix de l’Opera on the Arc undercard Sunday at Longchamp, just holding off a late surge from the Coolmore filly, Fleeting.

The winner got home by just as head as Fleeting ran out of ground while finishing three-quarters of a length ahead of Watch Me. Heavily favored Mehdaayih set the pace but was done a quarter-mile from the finish and faded to 10th, apparently struggling over very soft going.

“Waldgeist wins his first Arc” is not the headline anyone was looking for Sunday, but it was Waldgeist, fourth in the 2018 Arc, who ran right past Enable in the final half-furlong of the Group 1, $5,490,000 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.

Anapurna, the winner of the Group 1 English Oaks in May, won Saturday’s Group 1 Prix de Royallieu for fillies and mares at Longchamp Racecourse in Paris in what could lead to a start in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf at Santa Anita on Nov. 2.

:: BREEDERS’ CUP 2019: See DRF’s top contenders

Enable might be the main attraction on Sunday’s Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe card at Longchamp, but she’s not the only one.

There are five other Group 1 races on the Arc card, including the Prix l’Abbaye de Longchamp, a five-furlong straight-course dash that’s part of the Breeders’ Cup Challenge Win and You’re In series, offering a fees-paid entry into the BC Turf Sprint plus travel expenses to Santa Anita.

:: BREEDERS’ CUP 2019: See DRF’s top contenders

Maybe it will rain, literally, on Enable’s parade, but there is no dampening the worldwide excitement focused on Longchamp, where Enable on Sunday will try to become the first three-time winner of the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.