Horse Racing: Bago Shows True Colours to Lift Arc

Royal blue with light blue cross-belts. The colours have been part of racing's fabric for more than 30 years, carried to success across the world by the horses of the Niarchos family. But while the vast majority of their horses are stabled in France, the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe had always eluded them. Until yesterday, when their three-year-old Bago stitched up the hole in the tapestry.

When Bago turned three on New Year's Day, he was officially the best of his age in Europe. Four wins from four starts as a juvenile had been enough to establish him as the champion of his generation. Two more victories, both in Group One events, soon followed.

Yet by the time he arrived at Longchamp yesterday, he looked more like a busted flush. He had been beaten in the International Stakes at York and then, more disturbingly, in the Prix Niel at Longchamp three weeks ago.

One more card finally completed his hand. Jonathan Pease, the Englishman who trains Bago, had always insisted that this was the best horse he had ever saddled, and with Spinning World, a Breeders' Cup winner, among his alumni, it was an impressive claim. Yesterday, he was proved right as Bago surged past Cherry Mix in the last 100 yards to claim the middle-distance championship of Europe.

Bago was settled in midfield by Thierry Gillet, as North Light, the Derby winner, cut out the early running under Kieren Fallon. North Light was soon joined by Tap Dance City, from Japan, who needed two furlongs to get to his ideal position at the head of the field from his wide draw in stall 18.

The pair of them fought a private battle for the next mile, as Cherry Mix tracked the lead and others, Bago included, jostled for position in behind. North Light changed his legs several times, a clear sign that he was feeling the fast ground, but as they turned for home, it was Tap Dance City who was first to drop away.

Cherry Mix was the first horse to sweep past North Light, but while he quickened clear going to the furlong pole, Bago had already started to reel him in. He got up to beat him by half a length, with Ouija Board, who finished brilliantly from an impossible position, another length away in third.

"I've said that he was the best horse I've had, and he is," Pease said. "He missed the spring completely when he was wrong with a minor respiratory virus, and that put his season sideways.

"I think the ground was very heavy when he was beaten at York and he struggled to go the pace, whereas on good ground today, he wasn't close, but he was close enough.

"He was the top-rated two-year-old last year, and it's very unusual for the top-rated juvenile to win the Arc at three."

Cherry Mix carried another famous set of silks, those of the Lagardere family, into second place, though their bloodstock empire may yet go under the hammer in the near future to pay off an immense tax bill.

Ouija Board, meanwhile, was the closest thing to a hard-luck story in the race. The winner of the Oaks in both England and Ireland had just four horses behind her as she turned into the straight, and passed a dozen on her run into third place.

"Johnny [Murtagh] said that he couldn't really get a clear run and he was probably too far back, but then she took off and flew," Ed Dunlop, Ouija Board's trainer, said. "Being so far back, he used a lot of her speed to get as close as he did and maybe he just ran out of gas at the end. Hopefully next year there won't be quite so many runners."

Ouija Board may have one more task this season, in the Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Turf in Texas later this month, and she is 9-4 favourite for that race with Hill's. Bago, meanwhile, could go for the Classic at the same meeting, the most valuable race in the game, and is 5-1 second-favourite (from 12-1) with Coral to win it.

North Light, who is expected to stay in training next year, ran particularly well to maintain his gallop into fifth on unsuitable ground, but Grey Swallow, who beat him in the Irish Derby, had gone a race too far, and finished second-last.

It was Bago, though, who secured his place in turf history. The horse, as always, is oblivious. For the family behind his famous silks, decades of effort had found their reward.