After coming agonisingly close in 2023 Ralph Beckett looks to go one better at Longchamp this year as Bluestocking prepares to go head to head with the best in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe Ralph Beckett watched Westover finish second at Longchamp last year Illustrious trainer will be hoping to Bluestocking can go one better this year By Dominic King Published: 22:30, 5 October 2024 | Updated: 22:30, 5 October 2024 e-mail View comments 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 i.
