Seven Days: If Carlsberg Did Couples

'If Carslberg did weekends' was the caption on Tom Marquand's social media post beneath a photograph of the jockey with his wife, Hollie Doyle, after she had won her second Group 1 of the year aboard Bradsell (GB) (Tasleet {GB}). Marquand had himself lifted both of Leopardstown's Group 1 races the previous day with two of the best three-year-olds currently in training, Economics (GB) (Night Of Thunder {Ire}) and Porta Fortuna (Ire) (Caravaggio). Their mantelpiece may soon need reinforcement. 

There are few sports in which men and women take each other on directly but even with that proviso it is hard to imagine a more golden couple in world sport than Marquand and Doyle. The level of the latter's success in particular is such that it is now not even remarkable to see her win a Group 1. She has ten to her credit among her 1,000-plus winners and, at the time of writing, remains two wins ahead of her husband in the jockeys' standings for the year. They are two of only five riders in Britain and Ireland to be in three figures so far in 2024.

As important as the Doyle-Marquand success on the track is how they comport themselves. Apparently utterly dedicated to their sport and the rigorous fitness required, they are also just very nice people. Nice can almost be a rather damning word, but at a time when it is more important than ever for all involved with horseracing to be mindful of the sport's image to the wider world, it is indeed rather nice to have two unofficial ambassadors who are both scandal-free and bloody good at what they do.

An Autumn to Savour

It helped to lay off the Carlsberg or any other form of alcoholic refreshment this past weekend in order to keep up with the ferocious pace of group races being served up on a variety of channels. On such a day of international importance it is maddening that the teams at the Curragh and Longchamp couldn't have come up with a way to present a longer gap between their main races of Sunday.

The Arc trials didn't merely take place in Paris, however. Shin Emperor (Fr) (Siyouni {Fr}) put his name firmly in the picture with his running-on third in the Irish Champion Stakes, as did the Irish Derby winner Los Angeles (Ire) (Camelot {GB}), who was just a head behind him in fourth. 

The connections of hitherto Arc favourite Look De Vega (Fr) (Lope De Vega {Ire}) appear unconcerned with his lacklustre performance when third of five runners in the G2 Prix Niel in his first appearance since winning the Prix du Jockey Club on just the third start of his life. He has now been replaced at the head of the market by Sosie (Ire), who had the benefit of having won the G1 Grand Prix de Paris after finishing third to Look De Vega in the Jockey Club. Fifteen years after his sire Sea The Stars (Ire) closed out his own remarkable three-year-old season in the Arc, could Sosie give him a first winner in France's most important race, thus extending his trainer Andre Fabre's record to nine wins?

Bluestocking (GB) (Camelot {GB}) may yet have something to say about that, however. In a classy field assembled for the G1 Prix Vermeille, Juddmonte's four-year-old looked imperious in her victory over the Sea The Stars-sired duo of Aventure (Ire) and Emily Upjohn (GB), with the Group 1-winning three-year-olds Opera Singer (Justify) and Sparkling Plenty (Fr) (Kingman {GB}) farther back in fifth and sixth. Ralph Beckett, whose tremendous season continues apace, appears to be itching to supplement Bluestocking for a return to Longchamp.

It's not all about the Arc, obviously. Of the three top-rated horses in Europe so far this year Calandagan (Ire) (Gleneagles {Ire}) and Goliath (Ger) (Adlerflug (Ger}) can't run in it and City Of Troy (Justify) won't run in it. The latter may only be seen in public once more in this part of the world when turning up for a precision-planned racecourse gallop at Southwell this Friday afternoon as part of his prep for the Breeders' Cup Classic. 

The German-bred Goliath will give his home fans something to cheer about in this Sunday's Preis von Europa in Cologne, very close to where he was born, before heading out to the Japan Cup. Meanwhile British Champions Day could be given a little extra sparkle with the prospect of Calandagan and Economics meeting for the first time in the Qipco Champion Stakes. 

Sorry Joe, Gotta Go

It is unlikely that the transatlantic double of the White House and Doncaster's Town Moor has ever before been completed within 24 hours but Britain's prime minister Sir Keir Starmer managed just that last weekend. 

We've seen no official transcript of his meeting with Joe Biden but it was undoubtedly a little less wild than some of the statements made by Biden's presidential predecessor Donald Trump in his debate with Kamala Harris last week. 

If Biden bunged Starmer a tenner to put on Illinois (Ire) in the following day's St Leger then he will have got a good run for his money but ultimately no return as that particular Galileo (Ire) colt gave way to another from that same penultimate crop in a ding-dong battle for the world's oldest Classic. It was Jan Brueghel (Ire) who – no pun intended – trumped his stable-mate to give Aidan O'Brien his eighth St Leger.

“He's such a slacker,” said no-one ever about O'Brien, but he will have to pull his socks up if he is to overtake the extraordinary St Leger record of John Scott, who trained 16 winners of the race between 1827 and 1862. 

It is noteworthy that Lake Victoria (Ire) (Frankel {GB}) and Kyprios (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) became only O'Brien's second and third winners of Group 1 races in Ireland this year, but the trainer has been busily mopping up Group 1s elsewhere. City Of Troy's haul at Epsom, Sandown and York, along with top-notch victories for Content (Ire), Opera Singer, Luxembourg (Ire), and the aforementioned Jan Brueghel and Kyprios, have given O'Brien what is surely an unassailable lead in the trainers' championship in Britain with earnings in excess of £7.2m, despite having only had 26 wins in the country this year.

Sea The Stars vs Wootton Bassett

It is hard to decide on who was the stallion of the week but we may have to award a tie to Sea The Stars and Wootton Bassett (GB).

Sosie was the standout for the former, whose daughters Aventure and Emily Upjohn both ran placed in the Vermeille, while Hanalia (Ire) took another big step forward with her victory in the G2 Blandford Stakes.  The Aga Khan-bred, who is trained by Johnny Murtagh, hails from the same family as Sea The Stars's Derby winner Harzand (Ire) and could be seen next in the G1 Prix de l'Opera. 

These successes followed on from the G2 Doncaster Cup win on Friday of Sweet William (Ire), Philippa Cooper's half-brother to the Irish Derby winner Hurricane Lane (Ire) (Frankel {GB}).

Wootton Bassett has now stood for four seasons in Ireland, with his starting fee there of €100,000 having doubled for this year. It is worth recalling that he started his stud career in France at a fee of €6,000 and dropped to €4,000 in those difficult years three and four.

That is all but a dim and distant memory, and with his first Irish-conceived crop now two-year-olds this season, his results make for encouraging reading. He has had 25 juvenile winners so far from 59 runners at a strike-rate of 42%. That group includes eight black-type winners, two of which shone over the last weekend.

Green Impact (Ire) won the G2 Champions Juvenile Stakes for his breeder Marc Chan, whose good day got even better an hour or so later when the admirable Kinross (GB) (Kingman {GB}) landed his ninth group win in the G2 Park Stakes. 

Ireland's Champions Festival had got off on a great footing for Wootton Bassett when Chantez (Ire) won the Listed Ballylinch Stud Irish EBF Ingabelle Stakes for Newtown Anner Stud.

Over in France, the five-year-old Topgear (Fr) won the G3 Prix du Pin for Christopher Head, who is on record saying that he thinks another Wootton Bassett, the juvenile Maranoa Charlie (Fr), is the best horse he's had in his stable, which has also housed the multiple Group 1 winners Big Rock (Ire) and Blue Rose Cen (Ire).

A red rosette must also be handed to Kameko, who became the first of the European freshman sires to notch a Group/Grade 1 winner. New Century (GB), now the winner of three of his five races, including the Listed Stonehenge Stakes, and trained like his sire by Andrew Balding, struck in the Summer Stakes at Woodbine, beating Godolphin's Al Qudra (Ire) (No Nay Never).

Paint it Tartan 

If you were a tweenager of the mid-1970s and you weren't wearing cut-off tartan trews with a poster of Les McKeown taped to your bedroom wall then you really weren't living at all.

There is only one mystery, and that is why it's taken so long for someone to name a horse Bay City Roller. Almost half a century on from Bye Bye Baby becoming the biggest-selling single of 1975, the band's name could be back near the top of the charts via a hardy-looking colt who claimed Saturday's G2 Champagne Stakes for George Scott. It was a memorable weekend for his owner Shaikh Nasser Al Khalifa of Victorious Racing, who was also represented by Bradsell, winner of the G1 Flying Five, a day later.

Neither owner nor trainer is old enough to have been a Bay City Rollers fan, but the colt ran first in the colours of Clive Washbourn, who has doubtless enjoyed a seventies disco or two in his time and presumably gave the New Bay (GB) colt the memorable name which makes him an instant hit with this column.

Remarkably, the Bay City Rollers are still touring, with not quite the original line-up as in the band's heyday, but they didn't have such a good week as George Scott, who also landed Sunday's G3 German St Leger with Prydwen (Ire) (Camelot {GB}). 

Regrettably, the band's tour van was stolen in Walsall on Thursday night but the loot within shouldn't be too hard to identify.

“We woke up in the morning for a bit of breakfast and the van had disappeared,” the Bay City Rollers' singer and keyboard player John McLaughlin told the BBC. “It's heartbreaking because our gear's obviously all painted tartan.”

Hip Hooray for Jim Goldie

Jim Goldie was hors de combat last week, having had a new hip installed, but his recuperation will doubtless have been aided by the achievement of a notable handicap double at Doncaster.

At opposite ends of the distance spectrum, the Scottish trainer displayed his versatility by landing both the Mallard and the Portland, with eight-year-old Faylaq (GB) and four-year-old American Affair (GB). Faylaq owns one of the smartest pedigrees on show throughout the whole of the St Leger meeting, being by Dubawi out of the Arc winner Danedream (Ger), and having been bred by Teruya Yoshida. 

American Affair, who runs again this weekend in the Ayr Gold Cup, is of more humble genetic origins but will undoubtedly be close to the trainer's heart. Goldie, who co-owns him with Barraston Racing, bred American Affair and his dam Classy Anne (GB), who is by the same stable's former star sprinter Orientor (GB). Granddam Class Wan (GB) (Safawan {GB}) was also trained by Goldie.

The trainer is on course to have his best season yet in his 30th year with a licence. Another tough sprint handicapper, Jordan Electrics (GB), has been his most prolific scorer this year, his seven wins having improved his rating from 72 to 101. Like Faylaq, he is now eight, but that pair is outdone in seniority by arguably the stable's best known resident, the admirable Euchen Glen (GB). The son of Authorized (Ire) is now 11 but notched his 13th win at Ayr in June. He landed his first stakes race at the age of seven, when most Thoroughbreds are already considering retirement, and now has three Group 3 victories to his credit. 

Stayer or sprinter, Goldie can certainly keep them sweet.