Ive been telling you all for ages, the Oriental Express will demolish this lot, the only horse in the field who can match him for class is Camelot but the race has been an afterthought for him and he lacks Orfevres accelertion, he has had a poor preparation to be winning an Arc, whereas Orfevre has had the perfect prep and is coming in to top form according Soumillon, who you can tell fancies his chances. Off a good gallop, they wont see which way he went, will be over in a matter of strides, Sanois is outclassed in this company and Camelot will be staying on too late.
perhaps Camelot was unlikely but now that 2 of the main contenders are out Coolmore decided to have a crack.
Orfevre isnt for me. The weather is not ideal for him and although he has a turn of foot, he fended off Meandre in a messy race. No different to Sarafina in her trials last year in winning a small field trial. Anyone else think Imperial Monarch is the most mistreated horse of the season. Not running him in an Arc where there will be at least a little bit of juice in the ground is utterly mad. He has now been pullee from the English and Irish Derbys and an Arc De Triomphe, despite two excellent runs in France and a Group1 win. Other trainers would have loved that horse.
Supplementary entry update - John Gosden has added Nathaniel's half-sister GREAT HEAVENS to the Arc field. More here Bayrir and Saonois have also been added to the field.
Imperial Monarch runs in Canada next I believe. Almost certain to stay in training as a four year if he isn't sold to Sheikh Mo's cousin who often buys surplus Coolmore stock to run in Dubai.
GREAT HEAVENS will carry a featherweight 8-8, on her favoured going over a trip that she has previously won over. You don't pay €100,000 to supplement into a race for the sheer hell of it. Be interesting to see what price they offer about her.
The best price on offer is 16/1 from Corals; this seems a very fair price. My judgement was that Great Heavens would be about 14/1 based on the likely going and the rest of the field. I was fortunate enough to get fired in at 50/1 with Stan James on 14 September. Before everyone thinks I am too smart for my own good I would add that I have now backed seven (yes, seven) non runners in this year's Arc!!
I have just backed Great Heavens and can see it going off more like 8-1 come the day, this is one of the weakest and most oprn Arcs for a long while now and with ground and weight as has already been mentioned 16's is a great EW bet in my opinion.
45 minutes later and the best price for Great Heavens is 12-1 This may prove to be a steal, but when you know you have missed bigger opening odds it spoils it slightly! I'm happy enough with my ew on Sea Moon, but - against my long time held views that forecast betting is for mugs - I'm going to look for some permutations excluding Camelot and the Jap horse, see if I can hit on a hot one Edit: Apologies - still 16's with Coral (one of the few I don't have an account with!)
Great Heavens Jesus H Christ lads, Irish Oaks soft ground plodder of the highest order. Who started this myth that Orfevre dosent go in soft ground He romped the Japanese Derby in near bottomless ground Everyone is trying to complicate things when the obvious is staring them right in the face
Dosent go in soft ground belting down all day, much worse conditions than he will face on sunday. [video=youtube;KaYbkrUXKs8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaYbkrUXKs8[/video]
Orfevre was at 75% last time in the Foy according to his trainer, he will be 100% on Sunday and off a strong pace, we will see something special, soft ground is only ideal for the plodders like Great Heavens, but Orfevre will handle it fine and it remains to be seen how soft it will be, Sunday is supposed to be a good day and it might end up no worse than Good To Soft, which would probably be called Good over here.
my money is on Shareta 8/1 at best and looks to be coming to Longchamp in the peak of form. She won over C&D on 16th September on good-to-soft beating a decent field comfortably and, before that, she beat the well-respected The Fugue at York giving away 10lb. She is the one that will be carrying my money on.
