Around 5000 Japanese racing fans are expected to descend on Longchamp racecourse as expectation builds they will at last win Europe’s most prestigious race, the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, 44 years after their first runner.
Orfevre, last year’s unlucky runner-up, and this year’s Japanese Derby winner Kizuna, provide Japan’s strongest ever challenge for a race that to the Japanese is the one they dream of winning.
Orefevre, who will be once again ridden by crack Belgian-born jockey Christophe Soumillon, is set to start a short-priced favourite after landing a key Arc trial the Prix Foy, over the course and distance, for a second time last month.
Orfevre’s trainer Yasutoshi Ikee was buoyed also by the number eight draw he got which is far more convenient than the 18 he drew last year.
“Eight is also a lucky number for us,” said the 44-year-old.
He certainly won’t be short of support in the stands as thousands of Japanese fly in for the race.
“We expect around 5000 Japanese racegoers to fly over from Japan to support their horses,” a France Galop spokesman said.
Orfevre and Kizuna, who also won his Arc trial the Prix Niel on the same day, will face 15 opponents on Sunday (Monday AEDT) on what is likely to be soft going after German star Novellist was withdrawn with a temperature.
This is the second successive year that German racing has been robbed of fielding a major fancy for the French feature as Danedream was unable to mount a title defence due to an outbreak of swamp fever in Cologne.
The soft going is unlikely to suit the highly-fancied Flintshire, one of Andre Fabre’s five runners, but the trainer is the Arc specialist of the modern era having saddled seven winners, and in French Derby winner Intello he has another major chance.
Criquette Head-Maarek by contrast has just one Arc win to her credit, filly Three Troikas in 1979, but in unbeaten Treve she holds a great opportunity to deny the Japanese.
