The Sun King in his new court: European champion Ace Impact receives a hero's welcome as he arrives to start stud career

It was a question in need of an answer. Title-winning sports teams get open-top bus parades, so why shouldn't the horse of a lifetime be given a hero's welcome when 'coming home' to the stud farm where he will make his second career?

We have all known since a few days after Ace Impact roared home in the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe his sporting career was over. But that fact became a reality on Monday when, having been ridden out for the last time at Jean-Claude Rouget's base at Deauville racecourse, he travelled the ten minutes to Haras de Beaumont, where he will command a covering fee of €40,000 from the middle of February, and where his co-owners the Chehboub family will attempt to make him a champion twice over.

It was Kamel Chehboub who asked the question and farm manager Mathieu Alex, who responded by gathering almost everyone who had played a significant role in the horse's career, as well as around 20 members of the media, to mark his official transfer.

Chehboub's daughter Pauline, who manages the family's racing interests under the Gousserie banner, was left in charge of the music that would serenade him under the arch and into the newly refurbished stallion yard at Beaumont.

As news filtered through that the van was on its way, she teased the audience with a couple of red herrings from a surprisingly eclectic playlist. Surely the Cartier Horse of the Year wouldn't stride into Beaumont to Video Killed The Radio Star by Buggles, much less a jazzy reworking of the Shadows' Apache?

Right on cue the mood changed as Ace Impact appeared to the strains of the theme to the Versailles television series, which loosely traces the reign of France's Sun King, Louis XIV.

Beaumont already stands 2021 Champion Stakes winner Sealiway, another Jockey Club winner in Intello as well as Stunning Spirit. There was a brief exchange of territory-marking roars, as Ace Impact was walked before all the stallion boxes before, after a brief buck and a kick, he was shown to his luxury box.

Frederic 'Ponpon' Ponthier, Rouget's travelling head lad and the man responsible for taking Ace Impact to all of his six career starts, recounted the emotion of this last duty before handing the son of Cracksman over to the care of Beaumont's stallion man Gregory Parchantour.

"It's just ten minutes from the yard and then a new chapter to the story begins," said Ponthier. "They leave a hole in your heart, horses like him that have the career he has had. I've taken him to all the great races and now it's over, it's come to a great end."

He added: "During that short journey Mathieu Alex and I were reliving his great victories, especially the home straight in the Arc, and when he ran right past Big Rock in the Jockey Club."

Ponthier added to the great cameos played by French travelling head lads at the moment of triumph when bending down to kiss the turf as Ace Impact crossed the line at Longchamp.

For Pauline Chehboub and Ace Impact's original owner Serge Stempniak, the memory of last Thursday's double victory at the Dorchester Hotel is still vivid in the memory. French racing recognises the Cartiers as the ultimate summit but nearly everyone at Beaumont had expressed the same sentiment, summed up by Alex.

He said: "You can't dream of the way he has been celebrated since the Arc and I was very moved by him being crowned horse of the year by the British, considering he never ran there, and especially given their Derby winner has gone on to prove himself a champion."

Now Alex and his team have the job of establishing Ace Impact's stud career, a process of winning over a whole new set of racing people that his genetic performance can be every bit as potent as his turn of foot proved on the track.

As for the horse himself, Alex has no doubt that Ace Impact will swap one well-established daily routine for another ahead of the start of the covering season on Valentine's Day 2024.

"I think he'll be easy to handle," says Alex. "On the way over from Jean-Claude's he never made a sound and 'Ponpon' says he's a great traveller.

"Now he needs to understand his new environment and it's important that it's the same person he deals with every day, that he comes to respect Gregory and the other way round. The job of stallion man is quite a subtle one."

"He'll put on weight and you'll notice a big difference by January and the Route des Etalons [Normandy Stallion Trail], while even in a month he'll have begun to change."

The Chehboub and Stempniak families have already been on one memorable journey with Ace Impact.
Now it's up to 'the Sun King' to take them on another.