Buzzing Arc meeting deserves to be back on racegoers’ bucket lists

Bluestocking was a worthy winner of Sunday’s Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe at Longchamp, under a fine ride by Rossa Ryan from an excellent draw, and a well-backed winner too, with an industry SP of 11-2 in the UK having been a double-figure price overnight.

But she is unlikely to be remembered as one of the best Arc winners of recent years, because this was simply not one of those Arcs. The 16-strong field was closely matched on ratings and recent form, the world’s top-rated turf horse – City Of Troy – was on his way to next month’s Breeders’ Cup, and three more of the season’s top middle-distance horses, including the King George winner, Goliath, were denied a run by the ban on geldings.

The fact that so many of the most obvious candidates for a 12-furlong European championship event were not in the field for one reason or another should, on the face of it, be a cause for concern at France Galop, French racing’s governing body.

This is, after all, a race and event that has suffered a series of setbacks in recent years, including the calamitous re-opening of Longchamp in 2018 after a three-year redevelopment, when the bijou post-modernist replacement for the track’s looming twin 1960s grandstands was overwhelmed by a 35,000-strong crowd.

There were just 15,000 at the track three years later for the 100^th Arc, despite an urgent plea from France Galop executives a few weeks before for British and Irish racegoers to revive their annual pilgrimage to the Bois de Boulogne. At that point, the bottom line seemed to be that the French authorities had splurged €140m (£117m) on Longchamp to lose 70% of the attendance for by far its biggest day.

A walk around the track on Sunday, though, suggested that whether it is by luck, judgment or a combination of the two, the Arc has finally moved on. The 22,300 attendance, a slight drop on 2023 which was probably because a drizzly start to the day deterred walk-ups, could be seen as either 49% up on 2021, or 59% down on 2015.

But the bare numbers are less important than the atmosphere and experience, and the good news for Longchamp and its biggest day is that the lack of an outstanding champion or two in the main event did not seem to be on anyone’s mind. The enclosures were buzzy and busy but you could still move around. Queueing time for a baguette was about five minutes, and for a pint of beer, not even that.

When set against the sheer scale, intensity and scrum of an event like the Cheltenham Festival or the Grand National at Aintree, Longchamp on Sunday felt … well, civilised. The course has learned the lessons of 2018 in terms of keeping its customers fed and watered, and the weekend’s fans are beginning to trickle back.

And it is the day and the location that matters, as much as the big race itself. Of course it would have been a better, more illuminating championship race if some of the best middle-distance horses of the season had been able to take part. Goliath dispatched Bluestocking by an easy two-and-a-quarter lengths in the King George at Ascot in July and would have been a strong favourite to do so again on Sunday.

Whether it would have added even a few hundred extra racegoers to the gate, however, is another question. The Arc is a race that has had an almost mystical significance for generations of racing fans, in Britain and Ireland in particular, and it is about much more than the horses that go to post for any particular renewal, or even backing the winner. For its keenest fans, it is all about being there, and after a rocky few years, it is an experience that again deserves to be on every racegoer’s bucket list.