Four months of buildup to what may be a historic Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe began on Friday, a couple of miles west of Longchamp at Saint-Cloud, where Treve was a sensational winner on her seasonal reappearance. The mare is now no bigger than 4-1 to win her third Arc, in which she would be the first horse in the race’s 95-year history to pull off the hat-trick.
Friday’s Prix Corrida, a Group Two contest restricted to fillies and mares, ought to have been meat and drink for Treve and she was understandably sent off at odds of 7-10. But even the most one-eyed of her followers would have had to entertain the possibility of disappointment, following the experience of last year, when Treve seemed in decline right up until the day that mattered most.
Outbattled by Cirrus Des Aigles last April, visibly uncomfortable at Royal Ascot and unplaced in the Vermeille, Treve spent 2014 shedding more fans with each defeat and was allowed to start at 11-1 in the Arc. The faithless were brutally punished as she bolted away from her 19 rivals in the straight, having plainly cast off the physical ailments, relating to her feet and her back, that had made her so beatable.
Criquette Head-Maarek, the trainer who knows Treve so well and who did her best to talk up her chance in the days before that last Arc, seemed assured before Friday’s race that those difficulties were in the past. Even so this was a first run of the year, Treve would be sharper for it and there were race-fit rivals of quality in opposition, led by the Group One winner We Are.
Those others were made to look ponderous as Treve, having turned for home with only two behind her, including her toiling pacemaker, slalomed her way among the leaders to hit the front inside the final furlong. Given the most modest of encouragement from the saddle by the 48-year-old Thierry Jarnet, she shot clear to win by four lengths, a margin she has bettered only once in her career.
“I am delighted,” Head-Marek said. “I have to be. She’s done everything I thought she would and she will improve a lot from the run because she spent three months on the farm during the winter and hadn’t run since last October.
“Thierry said she was very relaxed throughout the race and I could tell from the look on his face when he came back in that he is as thrilled as I am. To see a five-year-old mare do what she did today is quite something and tells us we might have much to look forward to in her buildup to the Arc.”
That buildup will continue next on 28 June, when Treve will return for the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud. She should be better again over that longer trip of a mile and a half but she may need to be, as Cirrus Des Aigles is expected to line up against her in what will surely be billed as the mare’s big chance for revenge.
If it comes off, it will be a race worth swimming the Channel to witness, although Cirrus Des Aigles’ most recent outing was rather a non-event when one of his shoes snapped in half and he trailed home last. Between them the pair have won more than £11m, both having put together the kind of extended careers normally associated with jumpers. Under current plans Treve would then have one more run, in September’s Vermeille, before the Arc on 4 October.
Beyond that it is to be hoped she enjoys a happier retirement than the mare after whom Friday’s race was named. Corrida, who before Treve was the only female to win two Arcs, was at stud in Normandy during the second world war but no trace of her was found after the area was liberated by the Allies.
Sumbal is still expected to line up in Sunday’s French Derby, although the colt’s owners, Qatar Racing, have said they may make a late decision to withdraw if the weather forecasts suggest he might get suitably soft going for the Epsom equivalent next weekend. But it may be hard to take him out of the Chantilly race now that the 9-1 shot has a fair draw in five of 14, while the two market-leaders, New Bay and Karaktar, are in 13 and 12 respectively.
