Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe — Complete Guide
The World Championship of Thoroughbreds
The Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe is the undisputed championship race of European Flat racing, run every autumn at ParisLongchamp in the Bois de Boulogne on the western edge of Paris. Contested over 2,400 metres (1m4f) by the best three-year-olds and upwards, the Arc pulls together Classic winners, older champions, and international raiders from Britain, Ireland, Japan and beyond into a single mile-and-a-half showdown, and its result routinely settles the Horse of the Year debate across the continent. With prize money of €5,000,000 (US$5,400,000, at an indicative rate of €1 = US$1.08) in 2025, it is Europe's richest Flat race, and its name recalls the nearby Arc de Triomphe monument on the Champs-Élysées.
The race itself is only the final act of a full weekend of top-level sport. Arc weekend now runs across Saturday and Sunday at ParisLongchamp, with seven Gr.1 races and four Gr.2 races staged across the two days alongside valuable sales races and the Qatar Arabian World Cup, the world's richest race for purebred Arabian horses. Saturday sets up the weekend with staying tests and juvenile trials; Sunday builds to a crescendo of Gr.1 races before the Arc itself closes the card. Several of the weekend's races double as automatic qualifiers for the Breeders' Cup at the end of October.
This guide covers the race's history and origins, what the Arc itself involves, a full day-by-day breakdown of the 2025 racecard, and some of the race's most notable winners and records.
History and Origins
The Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe was established in 1920 by Comte Pierre-Marie de Contades, president of the Société d'Encouragement, partly as a commemoration of the recently ended First World War and the French soldiers who fought in it. It was designed from the outset as an all-aged weight-for-age race that would draw the best middle-distance horses from across Europe to a single decisive contest, rather than being restricted to one generation as the Classics are.
The race has been run at Longchamp Racecourse (now ParisLongchamp) for almost its entire history, with one notable exception: when Longchamp closed for major redevelopment, the Arc moved to Chantilly Racecourse for the 2016 and 2017 runnings before returning to a rebuilt Longchamp in 2018. Since 2008, the race has carried title sponsorship from Qatar, and it is now widely regarded as the de facto World Championship of thoroughbred racing, broadcast in more than 60 countries and drawing around 35,000 spectators to ParisLongchamp each year.
Arc weekend itself has grown steadily around the race over the decades. The Prix de l'Abbaye de Longchamp and the Prix du Moulin de Longchamp were both added in 1957 to mark the track's centenary, while further Group races were added to the Saturday and Sunday cards through the second half of the twentieth century until the meeting reached its current shape: a genuine two-day festival built around, rather than simply preceding, the Arc itself.
The Race Itself
The Arc is a Gr.1 race open to thoroughbreds aged three years and older, run over 2,400 metres on ParisLongchamp's round course, which favours balance and a well-timed run down its long home straight. It is scheduled for the first Sunday in October each year. The 2025 renewal carried total prize money of €5,000,000 (US$5,400,000), split €2,857,000 (US$3,086,000) to the winner, €1,143,000 (US$1,234,000) to second, €571,500 (US$617,000) to third, €285,500 (US$308,000) to fourth and €143,000 (US$154,000) to fifth — figures that make it comfortably the richest race run on turf in Europe.
Because it is open to older horses as well as three-year-olds, and to fillies and mares as well as colts, the Arc regularly produces match-ups between Derby winners, Oaks winners, and the best older milers and middle-distance horses of the day, run off level weights bar the standard sex and age allowances. That breadth of eligibility, combined with the prize money and prestige on offer, is what has made it Europe's benchmark race for over a century. A win in the Arc is also widely treated as the clearest single marker of that season's Horse of the Year across Europe, ahead of any other individual result, and a strong run in defeat can still define a horse's reputation for years afterwards.
Arc Weekend — Saturday's Undercard
Saturday at ParisLongchamp is built around stamina, headlined by the Prix du Cadran over 4,000 metres — the French equivalent of Royal Ascot's Gold Cup — alongside a Gr.1 test for fillies and mares over an extended trip in the Prix de Royallieu.
Gr.2 Prix Chaudenay (€200,000 (US$216,000) | 3,000m | 2025 Winner: Tennessee Stud / Joseph Patrick O'Brien)
Gr.1 Prix du Cadran (€300,000 (US$324,000) | 4,000m | 2025 Winner: Caballo De Mar / George Scott)
Critérium d'Automne (€260,000 (US$281,000) | 1,600m | 2025 Winner: Cape Orator / Ralph Beckett)
Gr.2 Prix Daniel Wildenstein (€183,000 (US$198,000) | 1,600m | 2025 Winner: Ridari / Mikel Delzangles)
Gr.1 Prix de Royallieu (€300,000 (US$324,000) | 2,800m | 2025 Winner: Consent / Sir Mark Prescott)
Gr.2 Prix Dollar (€183,000 (US$198,000) | 1,950m | 2025 Winner: First Look / André Fabre)
Arc Day — The Supporting Card
Sunday builds towards the Arc itself through a run of Gr.1 races either side of it, opening with the 2YO Critériums and closing with the Prix de l'Opéra and Prix de la Forêt either side of the Arc's traditional afternoon slot.
Gr.1 Prix Marcel Boussac (€400,000 (US$432,000) | 1,600m | 2025 Winner: Diamond Necklace / Aidan O'Brien)
Gr.1 Prix Jean-Luc Lagardère (€400,000 (US$432,000) | 1,400m | 2025 Winner: Puerto Rico / Aidan O'Brien)
Gr.1 Prix de l'Abbaye de Longchamp (€350,000 (US$378,000) | 1,000m | 2025 Winner: Asfoora / Henry Dwyer)
Gr.1 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe (€5,000,000 (US$5,400,000) | 2,400m | 2025 Winner: Daryz / Francis Graffard)
Gr.1 Prix de l'Opéra (€500,000 (US$540,000) | 2,000m | 2025 Winner: Barnavara / Jessica Harrington)
Gr.1 Prix de la Forêt (€350,000 (US$378,000) | 1,400m | 2025 Winner: Maranoa Charlie / Christopher Head)
Daryz's win, ridden by Mickael Barzalona for trainer Francis Graffard, came from a field including runner-up Minnie Hauk (Aidan O'Brien) and third-placed Sosie (André Fabre), on ground officially rated very soft after heavy rain across the weekend.
Notable Winners and Records
Several horses have won the Arc more than once: Alleged (1977, 1978), Ribot (1955, 1956), Tantième (1950, 1951), Corrida (1936, 1937) and Treve, who in 2013 and 2014 became the first filly to win back-to-back runnings since Corrida. Ribot's 1956 victory is remembered as one of the widest winning margins in the race's history, while Sea Bird's six-length demolition of a strong field in 1965 is still regarded by many as the single greatest performance in the race's history.
Japanese-trained challengers have come close without ever winning: El Condor Pasa finished second in 1999, and Orfevre was runner-up in both 2012 and 2013, with Japanese-trained runners a regular and increasingly deep-fielded presence in the race every October since.
The most recent decade has been dominated by Aidan O'Brien's Ballydoyle operation and Godolphin at various points, alongside standout individual champions: Golden Horn (2015), Enable (2017, 2018), Waldgeist (2019), Sottsass (2020), Torquator Tasso (2021), Alpinista (2022), Ace Impact (2023, unbeaten in six starts) and Bluestocking (2024) all preceded Daryz's 2025 victory, with Juddmonte's colours — carried to victory by Bluestocking in 2024 — among the most successful in the race's modern history.