Longchamp
Long distance racing
On the first Tuesday in September, the day that students returned to school in France, the horses came back to Longchamp in Paris. They had been racing by the Atlantic at the resort town of Deauville. All along that coast and in the Mediterranean the French had sunned themselves in the hottest summer. Now it was time for la rentrée. Back to town they came. Businesses reopened. At Longchamp, the greatest race in France, the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, was only a month away.
There had been a Group One sprint at Deauville on Sunday, won at 25/1 by Whipper, but for the programme in town no stars were out. Nonetheless, for this mid-week meeting at the world’s most imposing track, there was a nine-race card. The prize money ranged from $27,000–$80,000. There were two listed races and—Australian authorities please note when whingeing about the dearth of local stayers—all eight races were 1600m and up in distance. The first was designed to be the biggest betting event, with a field of 18 guaranteeing huge returns for anyone who could pick the first four or five home.
It was a September Sunday 28 years ago since I had last been to Longchamp. Then we saw a very good staying filly, Ivanjica. Immediately I tipped it to win the Arc, which it did, but a year later. Since it had been so long ago, I sought directions from a couple of desperates in Jean-Louis’s L’Autre Bar in Montmartre. They tried to get me on a bus from Clichy to Porte Maillot. In the end I took the metro to Sèvres-Babylone, changed for Porte d’Auteuil and took the 241 bus to the track. My companions were mostly older than I am, withered veterans of the hazards of the track.
Longchamp has a commodious, sweeping straight. The woods of the Bois de Boulogne run along the back of the course. In front groups of cyclists pedal ceaselessly. The Eiffel Tower pops up behind them. At the turn out of the straight there is a large windmill and a small chateau. The first race was run over a horseshoe 2000m course (the Sydney way) on improbably plush green grass, considering Europe’s drought. Cantering to the post, the jockeys’ colours looked brighter when the sun picked them out on this dull day. In Le Parisien, the ‘dernière heure’ (or late mail: racing language is the same