mickeyjp – I think the Oaks form has more chance of holding up as the first two were well fancied and cleared right away from the rest of the field and it was also run on much better ground than today’s race.
A soft ground Arc will see the first three home today fare better than those down the field (that clearly want better ground) considering it will inconvenience a lot more horses like last year’s Arc did but the race today was 8.15s slow and they appeared to go a pretty good gallop from the start and he (as Matt Chapman would say) travelled like a travelly thing the whole way – the Oaks by comparison was only run 4.04s slow.
Christmas Day clearly revels in attritional conditions as he won on heavy ground over a mile as a two year old – the Dante was the quickest ground he had every run on and he did underperform that day (comparatively speaking as he had won the Ballysax Stakes previously to York on good to yielding ground). You could see a heavy ground Arc holding no fears for him.