Arc de Triomphe: Take 50/1 on this dual G1 winner who wants autumn ground

It's been such a long, drawn-out agony for Japan.

There have been so many attempts to claim the – in their eyes – most glorious international prize of them all. If you've followed international racing for long enough, the names of those elite, vanquished warriors from the East will be etched forever in the memory: El Condor Pasa; Nakayama Festa; Orfevre; Orfevre again. All fell one place short of Longchamp glory on the first Sunday in October. And many others have tried too, only to fall even shorter.

So what of this year's Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe challenge from the Land of the Rising Sun?

Well, there will be no Croix du Nord again this year after last year's dampest of squibs. No Forever Young, who connections have decided will stick to dirt for his final races this autumn. No Juryoko Pierrot, the Japanese Oaks winner, who was originally mooted for the race but won't be travelling. Perhaps Byzantine Dream, who ran so well last year from a shocking draw, will turn up again. But he's yet to hit form since.

So can we disregard the 2026 challenge?

Not in our view. For Japan is bringing over one top-class horse in raging form: specifically, a winner of two Group 1 races who has a strong preference for some give underfoot. And for good measure, this middle-distance turf star has an official rating on a par with Japanese star Forever Young.

Step forward Meisho Tabaru, a horse that those of you with no interest in Japanese racing may never have heard of (unless his participation in last year's Dubai Turf were to ring a bell).

But read on, and you might just decide he's worth a swing at 50/1.

The Class Factor

Meisho Tabaru has won "only" six of his 15 lifetime starts. But his performance trajectory is very positively skewed towards his achievements over the last year or so. His five best lifetime performances have come in his last six races, and include two wins in Group 1 contests that were exceptionally deep by any standards.

Most notably, his most recent run saw Meisho Tabaru successfully defend his Takarazuka Kinen crown in a highly competitive field over 11 furlongs at Hanshin racecourse. In an 18-horse field containing five Group 1 winners and another half dozen Group 2 winners, he saw off none other than the top-drawer Croix du Nord – the same horse that despatched Daryz (giving that horse weight, nota bene) in the Prix du Prince d'Orange last September. The third horse to cross the line in the Takarazuka Kinen, Group 1 winner Danon Decile, was some three lengths adrift in third, while the great majority of the field were beaten eight lengths or more.

Viewed through the dispassionate lens of handicap ratings too, Meisho Tabaru stacks up as a genuine contender for a place at least. He now has an official handicap rating of 123, higher than any older horse being aimed at the Prix de Triomphe other than Daryz (126) and Minnie Hauk (124 when factoring in her fillies' allowance). Timeform and the Racing Post consider the gap to the "big two" to be slightly wider - probaby rightly so - but they too agree that Meisho Tabaru has nothing to find with the likes of Kalpana, Bay City Roller, Almaqam, or Estrange, for example. Yet that quartet are trading at significantly shorter prices.

The Ground Factor

Many a challenge from the Far East has simply fizzled away when confronted with the all-too-familiar reality of autumn ground in the Bois de Boulogne. Many Japanese horses have arrived with soft ground an unknown experience, only to flounder in testing conditions.

All the evidence suggests Meisho Tabaru is different. Indeed, his CV suggests he is at his peak when he encounters "give" underfoot. Excluding the juvenile campaign, Meisho Tabaru's form figures on fast Japanese going ("good" per Japanese horse racing database Netkeiba, who don't use the word "firm" in their descriptions) are as follows::

1-0-0-0-5-6-0-2

Not that shabby, albeit worryingly inconsistent. Still, the fact that Meisho Tabaru was second at Group 1 level in his penultimate race (the "2" in the sequence above) at least indicates that he can handle it at times.

But what about his form figures with the word "soft" somewhere in the going?

Well, how about that:

1-1-1-1

That quartet of wins comprise a Group 3, and Group 2, and two Group 1s in that order. What's more, the softest going he has ever encountered, namely in his last-time-out win in the G1 Takarakuza Kinen, resulted in his most impressive ever victory according to all the above-mentioned ratings entities (official, Timeform, RPRs).

In short, for the first time in a while, Japan are bringing over a horse who actually wants the kind of ground that Longchamp has so often served up in recent years.

All In The Price

We shouldn't shy away from a couple of obvious question marks.

For one thing, all Meisho Tabaru's wins have come over at least a furlong shorter than the Arc distance of 2400 metres. The two Takarazuka Kinens were run over a trip of 2200 metres, i.e. 1 mile 3 furlongs. So despite the fact that the Group 1 tally of his sire (Gold Ship) includes two victories over distances of around two miles, half a mile further than the Arc distance, how his son will cope with the last furlong at Longchamp is a valid enough question to ask.

As another (and possibly compounding) factor, while we know he appreciates some cut, proper heavy ground – which Longchamp has served up a couple of times in the last decade – would be a new experience for Meisho Tabaru altogether, and one that would potentially exacerbate the distance doubts alluded to above.

But ultimately, we take the view that these unanswered questions are all factored into the price, and then some. Meisho Tabaru is firmly targeting this race, he's a mature 5-year-old who has run the best race of his life last time out (a big-field, deep Group 1), and he thrives for a bit of juice in the ground.

So in our opinion, neither the win odds (50/1) nor the place odds of an each-way bet (10/1) are even close to being in synch with reality.

Recommendation: Back Meisho Tabaru each-way at 50/1 to win the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe at Longchamp racecourse on Sunday 4 October. Price available with Bet365, Unibet, Betfred, Paddy Power and Skybet, as well as StarSports, Betway and Bresbet.