There has always been a high opinion of the Coolmore owned and Aidan O'Brien trained Luxembourg. Winner of the Futurity (G1) at Doncaster (UK) in October 2021, he finished third first-up for 2022 in the Classic 2000 Guineas (1600m) at Newmarket (UK). Suffering from an issue where he went lame behind, he had a morsel issue and returned for an autumn campaign.

Last start Luxembourg won the Irish Champion Stakes (G1) at Leopardstown and stamped his authority as a very good racehorse.

As O'Brien explained "Everything went according to plan, obviously he was trained very hard for the Champion Stakes, and he had a good bit of ground to make up, so he came over from that race very well and it has been maintenance work since...he seems very happy at the moment"

"We were very happy it was a strong evenly run race which we were hoping that it would be…and that's the way he loves running…he relaxed very well and obviously had to be in a good place to do what he did….it was very competitive it was a solid end to end gallop. Ryan gave him a brilliant ride and he did everything what we hoped he would do"

"The plan was to start in the Guinea's and then the Epsom Derby and comeback to the Irish Derby. We always thought he was a classic middle-distance horse. Obviously, it was his first time in that competitive race over a mile and a quarter and he seemed to get it very well so hopefully we will be looking forward to seeing him going a little bit further. You're never sure until you do it, but he always looked like a horse very comfortable at that middle distance".

"Lovely ground is what he would love. He is a lovely long striding good moving horse he puts himself flat in the ground when he is asked to quicken so obviously nobody wants extremes of going but obviously heavy ground it's a real unknown for everyone we would be delighted with good ground or better".

"We always say the better the race the better horses in it the better it is for everybody – and that is why we are all in this game that we want to be in competitive races win lose or draw we learn and go on from it. Horses are exposed, their weaknesses and their strengths, that's what we look forward to.

The Arc is an unbelievable race – it's the pure test of the middle distance three-year-old…of course in Europe if not the world – it's tough – Longchamp is tough, its tactical they have to stay, it can get any type of ground and everybody is there to win, so there is not an inch given anywhere and it's a very, very tough race. We are always hoping that we have a horse good enough to compete and really, only the special ones win it."