Enable: Wake me up when September starts

Business as usual on belated return

Winning five straight Group 1s as a three-year-old – equalling the feat of Giant’s Causeway and Rock of Gibraltar (Sea The Stars holds the European record with six) – gave Enable something of an air of invincibility. Her four-year-old campaign was eagerly anticipated but a planned reappearance in the Coronation Cup at Epsom – as a prelude to an attempt to repeat her King George and Arc victories – was scuppered when she met with a setback in early-May, the injury said to be `filling in a knee’ which was likely to keep her out of action until August.

In fact, Enable wasn’t seen until September – four weeks before the Arc – when Kempton racegoers were given a rare treat when she came up against the Hardwicke winner and King George runner-up Crystal Ocean in the September Stakes. Enable met Crystal Ocean on favourable terms as the September Stakes has penalties for wins in pattern races after March 31st, and Crystal Ocean carried the Group 2 penalty of 5 lb for his success in the Hardwicke, meaning he had to concede 8 lb to Enable.

The September Stakes was effectively a match – the two other runners started at 66/1 and 100/1 – and odds-on Enable led all the way, quickening early in the home straight after taking a keen hold from the start, and winning most decisively by three and a half lengths, with Crystal Ocean never looking likely to make any impression.

ENABLE holds off Crystal Ocean to take the September Stakes in strong style at Kempton Park, for John Gosden and @FrankieDettori pic.twitter.com/qFElK40Upl

— The Jockey Club (@TheJockeyClub) September 8, 2018

Arc double in difficult circumstances

A single preparatory run on an artificial surface, against one serious opponent, was far from ideal for Enable as she headed to Longchamp (the Arc was back at its usual home after being hosted by Chantilly for two years because of redevelopment), but she still started at evens in a field of nineteen for the Qatar Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, by some way the richest race in Europe with a first prize of £2,550,893 (three times that for the Derby).

The only others sent off at single-figure odds were the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud winner Waldgeist, who had completed a four-timer when winning the Prix Foy on Longchamp’s `day of trials’, and the three-year-old filly Sea of Class who had beaten the Oaks winner Forever Together in the Irish Oaks before winning the Yorkshire Oaks (a race that had been pencilled in at one stage for Enable’s return).

Enable’s race unfolded in remarkably similar fashion to that of the previous year, prominent from the start, travelling with enthusiasm, and then responding well to take a seemingly winning advantage halfway up the home straight (her final effort delayed a little longer than it had been the previous year). Enable didn’t sustain her finishing run, however, anything like as well as she had twelve months earlier, and, as she began to tread water, Frankie Dettori put down his whip in the last hundred yards to concentrate on cajoling his mount with a hands-and-heels finish (`She was very tired in the last fifty yards and I tried to make sure she had her head down on the line’).

Sea of Class, who had only one behind her on the final turn, flashed home after producing a breathtaking run in the home straight and was the best horse in the race on the day, but the post came just in time for Enable who clung on by a short neck. Third-placed Cloth of Stars also came from off the pace, staying on to finish three quarters of a length behind Sea of Class, while fourth-placed Waldgeist also sliced his way through the field without perhaps creating the same impression as the runner-up.

She's done it again - Enable wins the Qatar Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe! @paris_longchamp pic.twitter.com/xRuK4TWhJF

— At The Races (@AtTheRaces) October 7, 2018

On form, it was a far from vintage renewal and Enable’s performance could not be rated so highly as that of the previous year, though she had looked set for another clear-cut success until the closing stages.

What caused Enable to slow so dramatically at the end of the Arc? One of the possible interpretations that sprung to mind as she crossed the line was that, given her far from straightforward preparation, she might just have been short of a gallop. John Gosden’s post-race comments – after saddling his third Arc winner in four years – revealed that Enable’s training had `suffered a little hiccup’ since her win at Kempton when she had a slight temperature which had indeed caused her to miss a gallop (`She had to be led out for a week’).

More history in Breeders’ Cup barnstormer

Enable was given the green light for a tilt at the Longines Breeders’ Cup Turf at Churchill Downs once it was clear that she had come out of Longchamp in good form. European runners have built up an excellent record in the Breeders’ Cup Turf – after Enable’s win they now lead their North American counterparts by twenty-one to thirteen (High Chaparral and Johar also dead-heated in 2003) – and the latest field of thirteen included five from Europe.

Enable, sent off at odds on, had beaten the four other Europeans – Waldgeist, Magical, Talismanic and Hunting Horn – at Longchamp. Magical had won the British Champions Fillies’ And Mares’ Stakes at Ascot from a strong field since finishing tenth in the Arc, while the strongest of the home contingent appeared to be the Joe Hirsch Turf Classic winner Channel Maker, the Arlington Million winner Robert Bruce, the Sword Dancer Stakes winner Glorious Empire and the consistent Sadler’s Joy who had finished fourth to Talismanic in the previous year’s Breeders’ Cup Turf.

Fears about the potential state of the going became a talking point after a deluge hit Louisville in the middle of the week leading up to the Breeders’ Cup meeting. Dettori had already won the Breeders’ Cup Mile on Expert Eye before Enable lined up for the Turf and, once he had extricated Enable from the inside rail after the first turn, he deliberately steered a course towards the centre of the track to avoid the softer ground near the inside rail (the official going had been given as `good’). Rounding the final turn with Hunting Horn and Magical on her inside, Enable was forced to edge out even wider.

What a star she is!

Enable shows class and determination to win @BreedersCup Turf #BC18!

(🎥@AtTheRaces) pic.twitter.com/gndIs8anyQ

— Timeform Live (@TimeformLive) November 3, 2018

Magical gave Enable a race all the way up the home straight in a renewal that was run at an end-to-end gallop (the field covered the first four furlongs faster than the runners in the Mile). Enable kept responding really well to hold off Magical by three quarters of a length, with nine lengths back to third-placed Sadler’s Joy (Waldgeist and Talismanic came fifth and sixth). Enable’s victory gave her owner a seventh Breeders’ Cup win, her trainer his fifth (one of them when he trained in California) and her jockey his fourteenth.

Read part one 'Enable: The freakishly-talented three-year-old' of our Arc countdown here