Snow Fairy Pointed to Asia After Arc Third
- By A.J. Ryder on October 3, 2011 15:40 GMT
While Snow Fairy didn't manage to win the 2011 Arc De Triomphe she certainly had a genuine crack at it and managed to place third after one of the weirdest iterations of the European championship. Conditioner Ed Dunlop spoke to the media on Monday morning and reinforced the widely-held theory that Snow Fairy would head towards Asia once again.
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Snow Fairy's Pacific sojourn saw him win both the Grade 1 Queen Elizabeth II Commemorative Cup at Kyoto and the Group 1 Cathay Pacific Hong Kong Cup at Sha Tin.
She isn't having the bang up year she had in 2010 and she remains winless despite hitting the board in her past three contests – all of which have been run at Group 1 level. Much of her success last year came because she was running against a weaker female division and she has shown that she is more than able to hang tough with the best male handicappers in the world.
The faster going in the Arc meeting saw her steam from 25/1 to 10/1 at one point before going out of the gate at 14/1. German horse Danedream scored an Oktoberfest victory at a hefty 27/1 in a five length victory over the 66/1 priced Shareta.
Dunlop was emphatic about Snow Fairy's chances going forward and he indicated that preferred jock Frankie Dettori also felt like she had every chance. “Frankie felt that she might win a furlong and a half out and even when it became clear that she could not match Danedream's finishing kick she never stopped trying and ran all the way to the line.”
The Arc run was called Snow Fairy's best career performance by virtually all connections.
Should the five-year-old bay filly be able to complete another Pacific double, she would be taking her career earnings extremely close to the £4,000,000 mark.
