Chester omission - and a win at that!
One of the pitfalls of following such a heavily jumps-oriented stable is that it is easy to overlook its few Flat ventures when they take place. To that end I completely managed to miss the fact that Flat mainstay LES ARCS had a run in a handicap at Chester on Tuesday evening at the same time there were a couple of Richard Guest animals in action in the more familiar territory of Huntingdon. Not only that, whilst Reedsman and Ballyboe Boy were floundering at that track, Les Arcs was scoring his second win on the bounce and his fourth in total for Guest and owner Willie Mackay.
It sounded like an eventful race, as one of his rivals fly-jumped the starting stalls, unseating his rider in the process, and the loose horse's attentions to the field were close enough that he crossed the line together with Les Arcs, having trodden all over his hooves on at least one occasion. I don't know enough about Flat racing to know what would constitute a hammering from the handicapper following a win, but the gelding did only win by one length in the end and wasn't going away from the field.
I'll be interested to see what plans are for Les Arcs hereafter. Guest has made no secret of the fact that it is ADMIRAL, rather than Les Arcs, with whom he anticipates picking up big Flat prizes this summer - not entirely unsurprising a conclusion, that, given that Admiral was a Royal Ascot winner last year - and Les Arcs did feature in five-day declarations for a novices' hurdle at Perth last week before being withdrawn overnight when it became apparent the ground would be bottomless and thus wholly unsuitable. Les Arcs had one run over timber last season, but got stuck in the sticky toffee - sorry, sticky ground at Cartmel's August meeting and also appeared to blow up partway round on his way to a remote eighth place. This predated his wind operation, however, and it is reasonable to assume that given fast ground and a sharp track, he must be able to do better over timber if sent back over it in the near future.
It sounded like an eventful race, as one of his rivals fly-jumped the starting stalls, unseating his rider in the process, and the loose horse's attentions to the field were close enough that he crossed the line together with Les Arcs, having trodden all over his hooves on at least one occasion. I don't know enough about Flat racing to know what would constitute a hammering from the handicapper following a win, but the gelding did only win by one length in the end and wasn't going away from the field.
I'll be interested to see what plans are for Les Arcs hereafter. Guest has made no secret of the fact that it is ADMIRAL, rather than Les Arcs, with whom he anticipates picking up big Flat prizes this summer - not entirely unsurprising a conclusion, that, given that Admiral was a Royal Ascot winner last year - and Les Arcs did feature in five-day declarations for a novices' hurdle at Perth last week before being withdrawn overnight when it became apparent the ground would be bottomless and thus wholly unsuitable. Les Arcs had one run over timber last season, but got stuck in the sticky toffee - sorry, sticky ground at Cartmel's August meeting and also appeared to blow up partway round on his way to a remote eighth place. This predated his wind operation, however, and it is reasonable to assume that given fast ground and a sharp track, he must be able to do better over timber if sent back over it in the near future.
posted by Jeremy Grayson @ 9:57 PM
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