Sosie's chances of providing trainer Andre Fabre with a record-extending ninth win in Europe's most prestigious race, the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, were boosted on Thursday with a favorable draw.
The 16-strong field has attracted runners from Ireland, England, Germany and Japan, whose hopes of winning the race they regard as the Holy Grail of racing lie with Shin Emperor.
Sosie earned his favorite's tag when he won the Arc trial, the Prix Niel, last month inflicting the first defeat of Prix du Jockey Club (French Derby) winner Look de Vega's career.
He has been drawn in stall five for Sunday's showpiece race at Longchamp, from where two winners have emerged including the legendary Sea Bird, who won the 1965 Arc by a staggering six lengths.
Fabre, who turns 79 in December, may have had eight wins in the Arc but he has only visited the winner's enclosure once in the past 18 years, with Waldgeist in 2019.
However, the media-shy French handler -- whose other runner Mqse de Sevigne has the worst draw of all in 16 -- will be heartened his Rail Link is the last horse to have achieved the Niel/Arc double in 2006.
Shin Emperor is among the favorites after finishing third in the Irish Champion Stakes in September, the same trial his brother Sotsass ran in en route to winning the Arc four years ago.
His draw of 11 is not ideal because he will have more ground to cover in the 1 1/2 mile (2,400 meters) race being out wide, and just one Arc winner, Sassafras, has come from that stall when he upset the odds to beat the great Nijinsky in 1970.
Look de Vega -- in the colors of race sponsor Sheikh Joaan al-Thani who bought part of him after he won the Derby in June -- will start from stall eight.
Three Arc champions have won from that draw, including -- in what could be a good omen -- last year's winner Ace Impact, who like Look de Vega had also won the French Derby.
Surprisingly Irish record-breaking trainer Aidan O'Brien has just two Arc wins to his name and has decided to aim his superstar this year City of Troy at the Breeder's Cup Classic in November.
O'Brien has two runners in the race, the classy Los Angeles and 2023 English St Leger winner Continuous.
Los Angeles, also an Irish Derby winner, starts from stall 10, a far from impossible task as four Arc winners have sprung from there.
However, one has to go back to 1999 and Montjeu, who carried the colors of one of Los Angeles's part owners Michael Tabor, for the last horse to return to the winner's enclosure from that stall.
Continuous, though, faces a mighty challenge to improve on his fifth in the race last year having been drawn in 14.
O'Brien's son Joseph's runner Al Riffa -- to be ridden by Japanese ace Yutaka Take -- starts from stall nine.
England provides two runners, the most fancied being Bluestocking, who was supplemented for the race this week on the back of an impressive win in the Arc trial the Group One Prix Vermeille in September.
Bluestocking, whose colors were carried to victory by Enable on two successive occasions in 2017/18, has been drawn in three.
The Vermeille, though, has not been a rich source of Arc winners.
Only four winners in last 40 years have gone on to Arc glory -- the Sheikh Joaan al-Thani-owned Treve the last in 2014.
© 2024 AFP
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