This file photo taken on September 23, 2015 shows 5-year-old Thoroughbred racehorse Treve and rider Pascal Galoche during training in Gouvieux, north of Paris.

By Greg Wood/The Guardian

Qatar-owned Treve, who finished only fourth in her attempt to win the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe for a record third time, enjoyed her first morning as a retired racehorse in Chantilly, France, on Monday, but the debate over possible reasons for her defeat at Longchamp continued as Freddy Head, the brother of her trainer Criquette Head-Maarek, suggested that the intense focus in the build-up to Sunday’s race had contributed to her defeat.
Head, now a leading trainer but once one of the world’s foremost big-race jockeys, runs a yard less than a mile from his sister’s base on the outskirts of Chantilly. He has watched in recent weeks as dozens of reporters, photographers and camera crews have descended on her stable, and considered also how the attention on Treve might have affected Thierry Jarnet, her jockey.
“The pressure is not a good thing because it stops jockeys and trainers thinking the normal way,” Head said Monday. “I think that’s what has beaten Treve.
“I don’t want people to come and see the work as they’ve done with Treve; they’ve had people on the gallops and things like that. I like to be on my own in the morning. I wouldn’t do it myself, it’s not good, it takes you out of your routine and I’m a very routine-y guy. Everybody’s different, that’s how I feel but maybe it’s different for other people.”
Jarnet plotted a safe path around the outside of the field on Treve, forfeiting ground to runners on the inside but staying out of trouble.
“I think he [Jarnet] didn’t want to take any risks,” Head said. “He won the Vermeille like that [on the outside], he won his first Arc [on Treve] the same way. The only thing is that last year he had a super race on the inside, got a lovely opening, was on the rail all the way, and won.
“But since then, he won the Vermeille like that, so I think it is in his mindset. Will I take the risk of being in the bunch, and then you can always be trapped? Or do I ride a bit on the outside like that, and I think in his mind that’s what happened, because of all what was going before the race.
 “There was so much hype with that mare that he couldn’t take the risk, imagine taking the risk and being trapped. They would have said: “You’re crazy.’”
Head does not feel that Jarnet could have done much more as the race developed, with Frankie Dettori, who rode an outstanding race on the winner Golden Horn, settled close behind a steady pace after two furlongs after racing alone in the early stages from an outside draw.
“If he has to ride the race again, I think he would do it the same way, because you can’t do anything else really,” Head said. “When I was a jockey I rode very good horses like Miesque, who was a very hard puller. Those horses don’t give you much chance, you can’t do what Frankie did yesterday, where you settle on the outside all alone. With some horses you can’t do that, they’re too keen and you have to put them behind something.
 “In that ground with only seven furlongs to go the race was over if he [Dettori] had enough horse. I thought [Golden Horn] had no chance before the race. I saw him run the other day in Ireland [in the Irish Champion Stakes]. I thought the run was terrible, a horrible race, very hard, and then he veered to the right [in the closing stages] like a horse who’s had enough. Then you see yesterday.”
At Criquette Head-Maarek’s stable a little further up Avenue du General-Leclerc, Treve’s trainer remained philosophical in defeat while conceding that in a perfect world, Jarnet might have ridden a little closer to the pace.
“I don’t give him orders,” Head-Maarek said. “I think he thought that if he went on the inside, he would get locked in, so that’s why he rode her that way. The ground is not an excuse, it was the same for everyone and she was acting well on the ground. If I can say there’s an excuse, it is that we were too far out, that is all, and she had to make a lot of ground when the ground is fast [but] after the race it is always easy to find excuses.
“I’m relaxed, so for me it doesn’t change. The Arc is over, it was yesterday, so there’s things coming on and more horses to look for. That’s our life, a trainer should be like that. They are not ours, so you can’t keep saying, I’d like to keep her. She will be very well looked after and that’s the main thing.
“I think she deserved to retire, another year won’t give her anything. She’s won two Arcs already, six Group Ones, if anything happened to her I would be really sad. I’d rather see her go and have a good life and make babies, and I hope that HE Sheikh Joaan [ her owner] will send me one.”
Freddy Head was speaking at a media event ahead of Qipco British Champions Day at Ascot on 17 October, which is expected to sell out in the Premier enclosure by the end of this week. He is due to saddle the miler Solow, who is on an eight-race winning streak which includes the Queen Anne Stakes at Royal Ascot and the Sussex Stakes at Goodwood, in one of the day’s feature events, the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes.
Solow has not run since his victory at at Goodwood, a deliberate decision by his trainer as Solow had been racing since early March.
“I think the horse is very well and he’s freshened up a bit,” Head said. “When you run in Dubai [in March], he had a prep race before that and you have to start your season very early. After that, he never stopped really, he ran in the Prix D’Ispahan [in May] then after that at Royal Ascot in June, then at Goodwood. So Goodwood maybe was the end for him, he needed a rest then.
“He was impressive in Dubai [in the Dubai Turf] but the opposition wasn’t as good as he met later in the year. What impressed me was when he won at Ascot in the Queen Anne, he was very impressive that day. He beat Esoterique [a Group One winner at Newmarket on Saturday] and everybody said, he beat nothing.
“He’s a real champion and can do a lot of things, he is versatile, he can [race around a] turn, he can go anywhere.”
As a gelding, Solow has relatively few options in France and has made three of his four Group One starts this season abroad. Head, however, comes from a family of racehorse breeders and feels that the ban on geldings lining up for many major events is better for the future of the breed.
“It’s a discussion we’ve had before with Cirrus Des Aigles [Europe’s leading money-earner who is also trained in Chantilly],” Head said. “But I’m a bit against opening the good races to the others. I’ve got enough races for him really if I want to. People always complain about things, but I think it’s a good decision, racing is to get the best horses for the future so I wonder if it’s a good idea to open every race. They’ve done it in Australia and they have very few stallions now, they need us to get the stallions.”
“Without gelding, he wouldn’t have been the horse he is. He was a heavy horse, and he had problems and he was very nervous. When he was an entire, he would get very annoyed and would lose all his potential with worries. He’s changed completely now.”