Every European Flat season narrows to one afternoon at Longchamp. The Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, run over 2,400 metres in the Bois de Boulogne on the first Sunday in October, decides which middle-distance horse is the best in training, and it is studied for weeks by anyone placing punts on the next races. Since 1920 it has grown from a French showcase into the race the world travels for.
A race built to show off French breeding
The Arc was the idea of the Societe d’Encouragement, which wanted a contest to prove the strength of French breeding to the rest of Europe after the First World War. It took its name from the monument at the top of the Champs-Elysees, and was open from the start to horses aged three and upwards from any country. The first running, on 3 October 1920, went to a British-trained colt, Comrade, ridden by Frank Bullock for the Newmarket trainer Peter Gilpin. The French built the stage and a visitor took the opening night.
Longchamp, Chantilly and the fastest Arc
Longchamp has staged almost every running, and the course shapes the race as much as the field does. The false straight and the short run home from the final turn punish any horse ridden too far off the pace. There have been absences: no Arc in 1939 or 1940, the 1943 and 1944 editions at Le Tremblay, and the 2016 and 2017 runningsat Chantilly while Longchamp was rebuilt.
That detour matters, because the quickest time in the race’s history belongs to Found, who covered the trip in 2m 23.61s at Chantilly in 2016 for Aidan O’Brien and Ryan Moore. The Longchamp figure is held separately by Danedream, the German-trained filly who won in 2m 24.49s in 2011, eleven hundredths inside Peintre Celebre’s 1997 mark.
The horses that won it twice
No horse has won the Arc three times. Eight have won it twice: Ksar in 1921 and 1922, Motrico in 1930 and 1932, Corrida in 1936 and 1937, Tantieme in 1950 and 1951, Ribot in 1955 and 1956, Alleged in 1977 and 1978, Treve in 2013 and 2014, and Enable in 2017 and 2018.
Enable came closest to a third, run down inside the final furlong by Waldgeist in 2019. Few winners stay in training long enough to try again, because a win in October usually makes a horse worth more at stud than on the racecourse.
Britain’s 17 winners
British-trained horses have won the Arc 17 times, second only to France. Comrade started it in 1920, followed by Parth in 1923, Migoli in 1948, Mill Reef in 1971 and Rheingold in 1973. Rainbow Quest and Dancing Brave won in consecutive years in 1985 and 1986, Carroll House took the 1989 running, and Lammtarra, Sakhee and Marienbard added three more between 1995 and 2002. The recent record is the strongest of the lot: Workforce in 2010, Golden Horn in 2015, Enable in 2017 and 2018, Alpinista in 2022 and Bluestocking in 2024.
The jockey, trainer and owner records
Frankie Dettori holds the riding record with six wins, from Lammtarra in 1995 to Enable’s second success in 2018, with Sakhee, Marienbard and Golden Horn in between. Olivier Peslier, Pat Eddery, Freddy Head and Jacques Doyasbere are next on four apiece.
Andre Fabre stands alone among trainers on eight, from Trempolinoin 1987 to Waldgeist in 2019, a spread of 32 years no other yard has matched. Marcel Boussac and Khalid Abdullah share the owners’ record on six each, while the Aga Khan family’s silks have won it eight times, most recently with Daryz in 2025.
Why the Arc still settles the argument
Its position in the calendar gives the Arc its authority. It falls after the Guineas, the Derby and the King George, and before the Breeders’ Cup and the Japan Cup, catching horses at the end of a full campaign rather than the start of one. That is why the result carries into everything after it, from stud fees to the horse racing bets struck on the following spring’s Classics.
