- Ralph Beckett watched Westover finish second at Longchamp last year
- Illustrious trainer will be hoping to Bluestocking can go one better this year
Ralph Beckett can laugh about it now but, at the time, it was difficult to raise a smile. Walking out of Longchamp 12 months ago with prize money close to £1.1million might have had many elated. But Beckett was wondering what might have been.
Westover, who looked a picture of equine perfection, had run a mighty race to finish second in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe to the superstar Ace Impact. Kinross — a stable favourite in Beckett’s Hampshire yard — occupied the same position in the Prix de la Foret.
So close, so honourable, yet for a trainer with a ferocious appetite for winning, second didn’t feel the same. When you go to the most important day on the flat racing calendar, where the fashion is glorious and the competition is ferocious, first place is all that matters.
‘It was a tough day,’ Beckett says now, wryly. ‘Look, I was proud of them both. With Kinross, things didn’t go right. The ground had dried out to as fast as it ever gets at Longchamp.
‘Westover never ran again — he didn’t recover from it and got an injury to a tendon.
Ralph Beckett watched Westover race to finish second in the 2023 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe
The colt was beaten by Ace Impact and never raced again after sustaining an injury
‘I was immensely proud of them both. One more than the other? I’m not sure. Westover was beaten by a very, very good horse but the thing about it was he had turned up every time we asked him to race. At the top level, what he did was nigh on extraordinary.’
It was, but Beckett will be back at Longchamp today with the female version of Westover. Bluestocking, like her former stablemate, will carry the green and pink silks of Juddmonte Farms, after being supplemented for the Arc at a cost of £105,000 on Wednesday.
This filly was so often the bridesmaid last summer but, she has blossomed as a four-year-old and won top-level events in Ireland and France, her trial run in the Prix Vermeille showing her liking for Longchamp.
Bluestocking will be one of only two English-trained runners in the Arc field — along with Sunway — but it speaks volumes for Beckett’s ambition that he wanted to pitch her into the fray. If the arrow is sharp enough, you only need to throw it once to hit the target.
‘I grew up watching Detroit and All Along and Dancing Brave… on and on it goes,’ Beckett says. ‘It’s such an important gig for everyone involved and to be competitive in it is tough. You don’t go to races like that expecting to win. You show up and hope it will all fall into place.’
Who is to say it won’t? The fact Bluestocking’s ‘worst’ result this season in five runs is fourth place to City Of Troy in the Juddmonte International in August tells you all about how she has been handled and what consistency she has. She is primed to give jockey Rossa Ryan the spin of his life.
But the form of Bluestocking offers Beckett hope that he can secure a historic win this year
Ryan will also be on board Kinross, who returns for another crack at the Foret, and Starlust, Beckett’s contender in the Prix de l’Abbaye. If the yard’s form continues as it did last week (he saddled a double at Salisbury on Thursday when we spoke), the near misses of 2023 might be banished in a blaze of glory.
‘I’m blessed to have good horses — it is all about good horses,’ he says. ‘When you get them, you learn to appreciate them. I was talking to someone about the horses that define you and I’ll never forget a little handicapper we had called Inzacure.
‘He won a Brighton nursery in September 2000 and we backed him from 40-1 into 9-1. He then won three races in a week before Christmas that year. He was a career-defining horse because I didn’t have anything else at the time! He was really important to me.
‘I’m blessed with a good memory and I am grateful for those good horses we have now. You never take this for granted. You have to enjoy every single second of these opportunities when they come along.’
