Dream Well, winner of last year's French and Irish Derbys, could still be in the line-up for Sunday's Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe Lucien Barriere. Connections are also considering running the son of Sadler's Wells in the Turf Classic at Belmont Park on October 9th.
Alan Cooper, racing manager to the colt's owners, the Niarchos Family, said yesterday: "We've declared him for the Arc and will make a final decision today.
"We have until the 48-hour stage to make up our minds and we will exercise that option."
Cooper is not too concerned about the current wet weather affecting Longchamp.
"He won on ground like that at the Curragh in the Irish Derby," said Cooper.
High-Rise, Dark Moondancer and Courteous were the only defectors at yesterday's declaration stage, leaving a field of 18 for the Longchamp showpiece.
The Arc field may face the softest ground in decades after Gerard Grandchamp, Longchamp's manager, revealed the penetrometer reading was 5.1, the equivalent of heavy ground.
Grandchamp said: "We had a fair amount of rain yesterday and some more this morning, things look brighter now but there could be more rain at the weekend.
"We are hoping that the ground dries out but of course we cannot control the weather."
Grandchamp revealed that the last time the race was run in conditions close to those currently prevailing at the Paris track was in 1977 when the penetrometer reading was 4.8 for the first of Alleged's two victories.
In the current decade, softest conditions came in 1993 when Urban Sea became the most recent filly to win the Arc. That year the penetrometer measurement was 4.4.
Meanwhile, Alain de Royer Dupre fears for his filly Daryaba in the expected conditions.
The Chantilly-based trainer said: "Daryaba can act on soft ground, but when it turns heavy at Longchamp it is like ground you will find at no other track. I think that many of the Arc runners will not be at their best on it."
Royer Dupre also revealed that Dark Moondancer would miss the race, despite rising hopes on Wednesday that the four-year-old would give jockey Pat Eddery his chance of riding a record fifth victory in the race.
"I am still not completely happy with Dark Moondancer," said Royer Dupre.
There will be two German runners in the race. Tiger Hill is the mount of Terence Hellier and Flamingo Road will be ridden be Germany's current champion jockey Andrasch Starke.
Albaran will become the first Norwegian runner in the race for 23 years. He is the mount of 52year-old Janos Tandari, 15 times Scandinavia's champion jockey with more than 2,000 career winners to his credit.
