Easy does it for Godolphin’s Jack Hobbs at Kempton Park

Wiliam Buick rides Jack Hobbs to the win at Kempton Park on September 05, 2015 in Sunbury, England. Next stop for the Godolphin horse may be the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe at Longchamp outside Paris. AShow more

KEMPTON PARK, ENGLAND // Jack Hobbs warmed up for the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe with an easy victory in the September Stakes on Saturday.

Faced with six rivals of no more than Group 3 standard at best, Godolphin’s leading hope for the European championship race next month at Longchamp sauntered to an easy three-and-a-quarter length win.

That the second, Sweeping Up, had won only a handicap in four starts this year mattered little.

It was more that the Irish Derby winner had shrugged off his 70-day absence and looked in fine fettle going in to his date with Treve on the Bois du Bologne.

“We didn’t come here to see how fast we could go, but came here to get a nice prep race in,” trainer John Gosden said.

Treve is slated to run the Prix Vermeille at Longchamp next Sunday in her own prep ahead of her bid for an unprecedented third Arc.

Treve is favourite to win the October 4 race, but in Jack Hobbs she will face a much bigger and more imposing specimen to the one that beat Storm The Stars by five lengths at the Curragh in June.

“He’s done well for his break,” winning jockey William Buick said.

“He was very fresh. It was basically a racecourse gallop for him. We did not want to come here and have a hard race.

“He’s filled out a lot. I definitely think he is a better horse now than he was at Epsom. He has taken leaps and bounds forward and he is on course for his trip to Paris.”

Earlier in the morning, Gosden had overseen the racecourse gallop at Newmarket of Jack Hobbs’s stablemate Golden Horn, who will take to the track in the Irish Champion Stakes next Saturday at Leopardstown.

Golden Horn worked well over 1,500 metres under Frankie Dettori, but Gosden sounded a note of caution about Golden Horn’s participation in Ireland.

Golden Horn lost his unbeaten record to outsider Arabian Queen in the Juddmonte International last month on rain-softened going only a few weeks after Gosden had pulled him from the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot due to easy ground.

The weather at Leopardstown is set fair for the week, but should rain arrive, Golden Horn is likely to skip the trip for Gosden to start planning his final race of the season.

“It was a satisfactory piece of work and they went a solid clip as usual,” Gosden said. “I’m very happy to run him on good to soft, but if it goes soft he will not run. They’re calling it good at the moment and I think it will remain that way no matter what, and Leopardstown drains better than any other track in Ireland.”

When asked whether Golden Horn could still be pitched in to battle alongside Jack Hobbs in Paris, he said: “Very possibly. Anything is possible.”

Later in the afternoon, all three of the Dubai-owned representatives in the Sprint Cup at Haydock faltered when Twilight Son edged out Strath Burn in the Group 1 event.

Godolphin’s Belardo fared the best of the trio in ninth, while Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid’s Adaay was 10th.

Waady carried the Minister of Finance’s second colours in to 13th.

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