Feed The Flame to limber up for Arc challenge in Prix Niel

Molly Hunter
August 29, 2023 1:57 pm

Leading big-race contender will have course and distance prep next month.

Grand Prix de Paris hero Feed The Flame will target the Prix Niel as he prepares to set his sights on the Qatar Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.

The Pascal Bary-trained three-year-old has won three of his four runs since taking to the track for the first time in April.

He was an impressive five-and-a-half-length winner on debut at ParisLongchamp when running over a mile and two and half furlongs and stepped up incrementally later that month to strike again at the same track.

At Chantilly in early June he made the leap up to Group One company when contesting the Prix du Jockey Club and was far from disgraced on his first attempt at stakes level when finishing fourth of 11 runners.

That experience clearly served him well on his next start, as he then landed the Grand Prix de Paris back at Longchamp, a Group One over an extended mile and a half that he won by a length from Adelaide River and Oaks heroine Soul Sister.

That performance will pave to way to the Prix Niel at Longchamp in early September, which will in turn lead to the Arc as both races are run over the same course and distance.

Only Ace Impact and Hukum are in front of Feed The Flame in the Arc market, which is one of the few races to have so-far eluded his decorated handler.

“Tres bien, he is very well,” said Chantilly-based Bary.

“He’s to run on the 10th of September in the Prix Niel.

“He needs that (run over course and distance) before the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.

“He knows the course very well now, he has won there three times.”