This is Treve’s fourth season of racing, and from the look of her win Sunday in the Group 1 Prix Vermeille at Longchamp, her passion for competition has hit an all-time high.
A great day of racing overseas was marred Saturday by controversial results in the St. Leger Stakes at Doncaster in England and in the Irish Champion Stakes at Leopardstown.
The filly Simple Verse was disqualified from first to second and Bondi Beach declared winner in the St. Leger after two bumping incidents late in the 1 3/4-mile race. But in the Irish Champion, heavily favored Golden Horn’s number stayed up despite the fact the winner came out and bumped hard the eventual third-place finisher Free Eagle.
The day after a tremendous Irish Champions card at Leopardstown, there is more high-class racing in Ireland on Sunday at The Curragh, which hosts a pair of important 2-year-old races as well as the Irish St. Leger.
The National Stakes for 2-year-old colts and fillies and the Moyglare Stud Stakes for 2-year-old fillies both are Group 1 races that are part of the Breeders’ Cup Win and You’re In program, the National linked to the BC Juvenile Turf and the Moyglare Stud to the BC Juvenile Fillies Turf.
Almost nothing went right in 2014 for the super mare Treve until she won the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe for the second time last fall, but so far this year, as Treve bids to become the first three-time Arc winner, everything has gone right. The season-long plan laid out by her connections makes a stop Sunday at Longchamp, where Treve has her final start before the Arc de Triomphe in the Group 1 Prix Vermeille, one of three Arc de Triomphe preps on an outstanding card that also includes the Group 1 Prix du Moulin de Longchamp over one mile.
Prince Gibraltar, who struggled in Group 2 races in France and England in May and July, won Sunday’s $278,000 Grosser Preis Von Baden at Baden-Baden Racecourse in Germany.
The Group 1 Grosser Preis Von Baden was part of the Breeders’ Cup Win and You’re In program, offering a fees-paid berth to the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Keeneland on Oct. 31, if the winner is eligible to the Breeders’ Cup program.
After Sunday’s race, Prince Gibraltar was considered more of a candidate to the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe at Longchamp on Oct. 4 than the BC Turf.
Goldstream, fourth in the Grade 1 Secretariat Stakes at Arlington Park on Aug. 15, is part of a modest field in Sunday’s $278,000 Grosser Preis von Baden at Baden-Baden Racecourse in Germany, a race that will award the winner a fees-paid berth to the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Keeneland on Oct. 31.
Gleneagles, one of the best horses in Europe, is being pointed to the Breeders’ Cup Classic, trainer Aidan O’Brien announced Tuesday.
The 3-year-old colt, winner of the English 2000 Guineas in May, has been a miler during his excellent overseas career, but will try to stretch his stamina over the Classic’s 1 1/4 miles at Keeneland this fall if his connections’ plan holds.
Acapulco, the 2-year-old filly who was second against older horses in the Group 1 Nunthorpe Stakes at York Racecourse in England on Aug. 21, will be rested for the remainder of the year.
Acapulco will resume racing in early 2016 with the goal of starting in the Group 1 King’s Stand Stakes at Royal Ascot next June, trainer Wesley Ward said on Saturday. Ward cited the absence of top-class races for turf sprinters in the United States in the coming months as the principal reason not to run Acapulco for the rest of the year.
“Essentially, she’s a turf sprinter,” he said.