Treve has not cracked mentally, as Frankie Dettori has claimed, and will prove it when she bids to become the first horse since Alleged in 1977-78 to win Europe’s most prestigious race, the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, on successive occasions, says her trainer Criquette Head-Maarek.
Dettori, who Head controversially replaced as the filly’s jockey for the Prix Vermeille last month and restored last year’s Arc-winning rider Thierry Jarnet to the saddle, claimed at the weekend that after three successive defeats this year, Treve was worn down not just physically but mentally.
However, 64-year-old Head-Maarek, whose grandfather William Head and father Alec trained two and four Arc winners respectively, while brother Freddie won three as a jockey, insisted Treve had not lost her confidence.
“We will prove on Sunday he [Dettori] is wrong,” Head-Maarek said after Treve completed her last serious gallop ahead of the race.
“I don’t think she has gone mentally. She sweated before the Vermeille but then she did that before the Arc last year.
“Mentally she is still strong, less so physically after her foot and back problems this year.
“I wouldn’t run her unless I thought she was mentally up for the challenge.”
Head-Maarek, who has enjoyed the majority of her success with fillies such as Three Troikas, who won the 1979 Arc, said her stable star had come on significantly since her fourth place in the Vermeille, a race she won on the way to landing the Arc in impressive style last year.
Head-Maarek had mounted a robust defence of Jarnet and the filly to the entourage of Qatari owner Sheikh Joaan al-Thani after her defeat in the Vermeille, where she came with a strong run down the outside only to find little acceleration.
“She was rusty that day, but for me it was a very good preparation race from her,” she said.
“They went a slow pace and if you win from where she was [last entering the straight] then you are a world-beater.
“However, I was really pleased with the progress she has made since then and she produced a great training gallop this morning, what I saw of it that is, as it was pretty foggy.”
Head-Maarek’s father Alec bred Treve but she was such an unprepossessing yearling they couldn’t find a buyer for her at 22,000 euros in the 2011 yearling sales.
But Sheikh Joaan was willing to lay out 8 million euros last year after she won the French Oaks, and Head-Maarek said it seemed the problem affecting her hoof was over.
“If you put the right type of shoe on the troublesome hoof it makes quite a difference, so there should be no problem with that on Sunday,” she said.
“She has had a tough time of it with the combination of her back and hoof problems but she is really coming back to her best now.”
As for the chance of emulating the great Irish racehorse Alleged and his two successive victories, Head breathed in deeply and said: “Now that would be quite something wouldn’t it!”.
