Racing: Marienbard the perfect substitute for Dettori

It was the third Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe for perhaps the strongest stable on the planet, but when the huge form of Marienbard was first across the line for Godolphin in the Bois de Boulogne yesterday the immediate emotion was one of great surprise. Of all the horses in their silks that have descended on Paris in the autumn – including the 1996 winner Lammtarra and Sakhee, victorious here 12 months ago – none has arrived with such muffled fanfare.

Marienbard, the failed stayer, seemed to be what the Americans would call "a vanity runner", an entry for the sake of it. Certainly Sakhee and Grandera would both have been considered more suitable Godolphin representatives in the high summer than the big five-year-old, something who looked as though he would be handy for knocking down a castle door.

Marienbard's last two runs had been in Germany, at Baden-Baden and Dusseldorf, which are not reliable spawning grounds for Arc winners. This whole package meant the oldest horse in the race went off at almost 16-1.

No-one believed. Least of all Frankie Dettori. "In the last 100 yards I was sure it was a dream," he said. "When it actually happened I was shocked."

There is a cheap inclination to call this a bad Arc, but such thoughts are chased off when you see that Sulamani, the French Derby winner, was second and High Chaparral, the victor in the Epsom and Irish equivalents, third. If Marienbard had not been here, their battle would certainly have been heralded a struggle of the finest.

It was the two champion three-year-olds which commanded attention in the parade ring. High Chaparral, his head down, was flanked by three attendants. The colt's hide bore no reflection of the sickness which has affected him this summer. Sulamani looked close to nuts as he lashed out and arched his neck tight as a drawn bowstring. For Marienbard it appeared to be just another day at the office.

Dettori looked calm and unflustered as he mounted, almost lighthearted. It was as if he knew he could not win. When the stalls opened, however, the Italian knew it was time for work. Black Sam Bellamy, High Chaparral's stablemate, and his thumping stride were soon rushed to the lead by Johnny Murtagh. Islington was close, too close according to Kieren Fallon later, and Marienbard was just waking up. "He's a slow starter because he's such a big horse," Dettori said. "He looks like an elephant and he takes a long time to get going over the first couple of furlongs. I managed to get him out as quickly as I could, but I was still last. Luckily for me Aquarelliste and High Chaparral kicked forward and left a little pocket for me. That meant I could get him in the race."

The race appeared to have taken a disappointing diversion when Mick Kinane started getting physical with High Chaparral on the way into the straight. For one depressing moment it looked as if the Ballydoyle No 1 would struggle to get past his pacemaker, but then class kicked in as he was asked to hunt down Islington.

The filly would ultimately concede, primarily because she had started so cleanly that she had not been able to conserve her energy in the pack, according to Fallon.

The fresh challengers came from behind, from Marienbard and Sulamani. Dettori gathered his mount and Marienbard was manoeuvred out slowly, his limbs typically taking some time to respond to the messages from the bridge. But then came a surge.

Sulamani was launched down the wide outside by Thierry Thulliez and, for a moment, he looked most threatening. Suddenly, however, the exertion knocked the younger horse off a straight line and he was sucked towards the rail. Up front, the dream was being fulfilled.

"We knew we needed the run of the race and we got it," Dettori said. "In the straight I got the split and, in the Arc, 99 times out of 100 it goes as soon as it comes. But this time it stayed open."

Sulamani was three-quarters of a length adrift where it mattered, and High Chaparral, who may stay in training next season, a further half length back. "At the end he started running on again," Aidan O'Brien, the trainer, said. "It was the lack of a race, three months you know. He was very sick in the middle of that three months. He ran a good race. It just wasn't meant to be."

Islington faded into fifth for Sir Michael Stoute, while Geoff Wragg's Asian Heights was never competitive in 14th.

Marienbard, on the instruction of Sheikh Mohammed, who was watching back home in Dubai, will now run in either the Breeders' Cup Turf or the Japan Cup, a neat juxtaposition with the less fashionable events he has been contesting of late.

"Last year [when Marienbard was a beaten second favourite for the Gold Cup] we were campaigning him over longer trips," Simon Crisford, the Godolphin racing manager, said. "That was very much our fault. We were trying to stretch him out, make him into a longer distance horse than he really is. We have been playing him in the wrong position, if you like.

"In the last two months he's really come to himself, in a way that you have to to win a race like the Arc. He looked magnificent today. Coming into the race we were hopeful of hitting the frame, so actually to win is a dream."

There was a bizarre aftermath to the earlier Prix de l'Abbaye, which had apparently been won by Italy's Slap Shot judged by the way Mircu Demuro stood in a circus pose on the horse's back in the winners' enclosure and leapt off to join trainer Luigi Riccardo for celebratory interviews. Fifteen, Warholian minutes later David Nicholls' Continent was found to have won in the photograph. "I'm gobsmacked," Dandy said. We all were.

Continent, last year's Ayr Gold Cup winner, is another maturing kindly and has now won the two most celebrated sprints in Europe, having already captured Newmarket's July Cup.

There was a Dancing Brave moment in the Grand Criterium, when there was some respite for Ballydoyle in the flying shape of Hold That Tiger, who came from last to first and earn a 10-1 quote for next year's 2,000 Guineas. It was a staggering run, but this was not an afternoon to remember a tiger. This was the day of the elephant.