A notorious hoodoo was allayed in 2018 when Juddmonte’s superstar filly became the first-ever winner of Europe’s richest race to go on to victory at the Breeders’ Cup in the same year – via a “stellar performance”, according to former racing manager Teddy Grimthorpe
As part of the Breeders’ Cup Challenge series, the Qatar-sponsored Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe at ParisLongchamp on Sunday [Oct 1] is a ‘Win and You’re In’ qualifier for the $4m Longines Breeders’ Cup Turf at Santa Anita on November 4. There are five Breeders’ Cup Challenge races on the Arc card.
In her garlanded racing career, the formidable Enable rewrote the record books – but one specific achievement stands out, not least because of the exceptional equine athletes who had tried before and failed to seal the deal.
Until 2018, no winner of the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe had won at the Breeders’ Cup the same year. Eight Arc winners had tried, with Sakhee coming closest when edged out by Tiznow in an unforgettable Classic on the Belmont dirt after his six-length Longchamp romp in 2001.
The Godolphin horse lost little in a brave defeat – but a litany of disappointment elsewhere is notoriously headed by Dancing Brave, the first of Juddmonte’s indisputable all-time greats, who had managed only fourth in the Turf at Santa Anita in 1986.
Much more recently Golden Horn was beaten by Found in the Turf at Keeneland after his win in the 2015 Arc, while the following year Found was only third in the Turf at Santa Anita behind her stablemate Highland Reel, whom she had beaten in the Arc the previous month.
Make no mistake: this isn’t a straightforward feat, and in other hands Enable might never have had the opportunity even to attempt the double, let alone pull it off. So how lucky were we all that the late Prince Khalid Abdullah derived so much pleasure from seeing his good horses on the racecourse?
Trained, like Golden Horn, by John Gosden, Enable had done plenty during her spectacular Classic season, following her Epsom/Irish Oaks double (both by five lengths or more) with three more emphatic G1 wins – including the King George at home and the Arc, held at Chantilly that year while Longchamp was renovated to become ParisLongchamp. In her po
mp, she was always ridden by Frankie Dettori, with whom she developed a famous relationship.
Be that as it may, doubtless many people would have retired her to the paddocks after such an exalted three-year-old campaign, which is where the then-Juddmonte racing manager Teddy Grimthorpe takes up the story.
Fulfilling the criteria
He suggests there were always three criteria when weighing up whether to race on for another year with a good filly. “The first question to be asked is are they sound,” explains Grimthorpe.
“Secondly what are the opportunities – and finally does the owner want to do it? The answer to all three questions was ‘yes’, and in terms of the opportunities there were plenty of them, including the King George and the Arc again, as well as races like the Eclipse, the Prince Of Wales’s, the Juddmonte International and the Breeders’ Cup.”
Thus Enable was kept in tarining with Gosden as a four-year-old – but in the event, thijngs did not go smoothly as a minor setback in the spring meant several high-profile opportunities passed her by.
With the big international targets of the autumn in mind, though, that was arguably a blessing in disguise. For unlike all of those who had attempted the Arc/Breeders’ Cup double before her, it meant she travelled to North America a fresh horse, having had only two races all year.
“She came to hand very early in the spring of her four-year-old career, but then she got a little bony growth behind a knee,” Grimthorpe recalls. “It was no more than an irritant – if it had been anything major I’m sure she’d have been retired immediately – but it had to be shaved and that set her back until she was finally able to make her reappearance in the September Stakes on Polytrack at Kempton.”
Although the September Stakes has only G3 status, Enable faced a proper G1 opponent in Crystal Ocean, who had been beaten only a neck by Poet’s Word in the King George in the summer.
Enable won easily all the same, taking full advantage of the 8lb she received by making all of the running, and she was immediately installed a hot favourite to repeat her spectacular win in the Arc, now restored to Longchamp.
Another hurdle
There was still another hurdle to overcome, however, when she missed work with a temperature in the four-week gap between the September Stakes and the Arc. In what Gosden described as a “nightmare year”, the superstar filly was merely led out for a week.
After what was hardly the ideal preparation, Enable was nowhere near as spectacular in the Arc as she had been 12 months earlier, holding on from Sea Of Class only by the skin of her teeth after quickening a couple of lengths clear.
In the circumstances she did well to win at all. Gosden reckoned she was “only 85% fit” and Frankie Dettori said she was “not the Enable of last year” – but crucially she got the job done.
Grimthorpe says: “It’s difficult going to a race like the Arc after an interrupted preparation and just the one nice race on the all-weather at Kempton, so it was huge for her when she won again, just holding on.”
The Arc is a ‘Win and You’re In’ contest for the Breeders’ Cup Turf, which was held at Churchill Downs in 2018. Admittedly the expenses-paid aspect of the trip won’t have been a major consideration in the case of a Juddmonte-owned filly who had already banked more than £6m – but, rather more significantly in Enable’s case, she clearly had much more to offer.
“No horse had won the Arc and been successful at the Breeders’ Cup before, but unlike her predecessors Enable was going there fresh and in form,” Grimthorpe recalls.
Strong supporter
“On top of that, although Dancing Brave had suffered that shock defeat at Santa Anita, Prince Khalid had been a strong, strong supporter of the Breeders’ Cup right from the word go.”
As usual, Europe had a very strong hand in the Turf, but Enable went off an odds-on chance ahead of Magical, whose recent win in the QIPCO Champions Fillies and Mares Stakes was the first of her six at that level, and the Arc fourth Waldgeist.
Dettori reported that Enable’s “wheels were spinning” after a prolonged period of rain, and Magical offered a fierce challenge as the pair pulled nine lengths and upwards clear before history was made as the favourite stayed on strongly to score by three-quarters of a length.
No wonder the superlatives were flying about. Dettori described her as “amazing, very special”, while Gosden said she was “a magnificent filly with great mental strength,” claiming that completing the Arc/Breeders’ Cup double was a “simply a miracle” given the problems she had faced during her four-year-old campaign.
He wasn’t wrong. As Grimthorpe suggests, this was “a stellar performance”. One for the history books indeed.
… and after the Breeders’ Cup
With three Oaks wins, two Arcs, a King George and a Breeders’ Cup Turf to Enable’s name, most owners would have called it a day after Churchill Downs, but the three criteria outlined by Grimthorpe were once again all answered in the affirmative and so Enable raced on again not just at five, but also at six.
“The main attraction was the spectre of winning a third Arc, but things didn’t quite go her way,” says Grimthorpe. “Everything has got to go so right when you try these things, and certainly when she hit the front we were hopeful, but it wasn’t to be.
“It was sticky going and Ghaiyyath set a strong pace,” he goes on. “There were so many top horses in the field, and in that ground Waldgeist just ran her down. That wasn’t a huge shock probably, as he’d been the one you would have taken out of the race when Enable had won her second King George in the summer, as he was running on in third.”
That Enable had given her all as usual, but the unprecedented third Arc win that would have meant so much to all involved with her had proved beyond reach, as it did once again on her final racecourse appearance in 2020.
However, before then her fifth season on the racecourse at the age of six had yielded a third win in the King George – never done before – and she retired to the paddocks with earnings of more than £10m from her 15 wins, 11 of which were at G1 level.
Covered in the first instance by Juddmonte’s outstanding miler Kingman, Enable produced a colt foal who is due on the racecourse next year. In 2023 she had a filly by Dubawi, to whom she returned afterwards.
The story is far from over.
• Visit the Breeders’ Cup website and the Breeders’ Cup Challenge web page
• Visit the France Galop website
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