Prix ​​de l’Arc de Triomphe in Paris: bet millions on the weather at a gallop

Horse racing is a thing for bettors, and not just because their bets finance the business. The owners and trainers also sometimes have to gamble: In which race do they let their thoroughbreds compete? Where do they have a chance for great fame and big racing prizes – and where might the track be so muddy that even some of the fastest horses can’t move fast enough?

For the owners of the four-year-old mare Bluestocking, this bet paid off on Sunday – at the most important and prestigious horse race in the world, the 103rd Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in Paris-Longchamp. Bluestocking was registered at short notice for the race of all races, the trainer Ralph Beckett had to have a lot of trust and the mare’s owners had to bring a lot of change: 120,000 euros were due for the late entry. At the end of the 2,400 meter race, Bluestocking had won, Irish jockey Rossa Ryan raised his fist to the sky and said the trainer was a genius. 2.857 million euros in prize money will now flow to the Juddmonte Farm racing empire founded in the 1980s by Saudi Prince Khalid bin Abdullah.

The owners of the German starter Fantastic Moon also had to gamble – just the other way around. The Liberty Racing syndicate wanted to withdraw the four-year-old, trained by Sarah Steinberg in Munich-Riem, at short notice on Sunday afternoon. It had been raining in Paris, the ground was getting deeper and deeper, that doesn’t suit the stallion. Only: deregistering also costs a lot of money; in this case, 55,000 euros would have been due. So Fantastic Moon ran after all – and finished ninth among others. In 2023 he came eleventh. But what can be overcome is that after the current “Galoper of the Year” won the German Derby in Hamburg in 2023 and the Baden Grand Prix in Iffezheim in 2024, the ownership group’s commitment has long since been paid off.