A quartet of Irish-trained classic winners line up in Sunday’s €5 million Qatar Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe bidding to become just the eighth horse from this country to win Europe’s richest race.
It is an all-O’Brien quartet. Minnie Hauk, beaten a head by Daryz in the 2025 Arc, is effectively Aidan O’Brien’s third string on this occasion. His son Joseph saddles this year’s Oaks winner Thundering On. They are part of a 16-runner field that looks well up to Arc par.
Along with the Epsom Derby, France’s greatest race is traditionally one of the twin pillars of European racing and breeding. Epsom’s lustre has been rapidly fading but this is an Arc reassuringly crammed with quality, at least some of which has to do with ground conditions.
A record dry autumn in Paris means the muddy slog so often associated with Longchamp on the first Sunday in October has been avoided. It allows many of the season’s form threads to weave into a mouth-watering championship prospect on the Bois de Boulogne.
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Daryz was a surprise winner 12 months ago but is set to start a hot favourite to become the first colt since Vincent O’Brien’s Alleged (1977-78) to win the Arc back-to-back. Eight horses in all have won it twice.
Disappointing when reportedly not 100 per cent at Ascot in the summer, the Aga Khan star has proved all but unbeatable on home ground at Longchamp. His trainer Francis Graffard is confident fast going will only help the son of 2009 Arc hero Sea The Stars.
He is also the sire of Maltese Cross, runner-up at Epsom, and along with the mare Kalpana, at the top of the English challenge. There is, at this stage, an almost obligatory pair of Japanese runners as well as a single German starter.
The Irish challenge will be spread across the starting gate come 3.05pm Irish time on Sunday. The impact on Diamond Necklace of a widest draw in stall 16 was to upset expectations Ryan Moore would ride her. He has instead switched to the Irish Derby winner Benvenuto Cellini in box one. William Buick will break from 10 on Minnie Hauk.
Thundering On, in contrast, is in a perfect spot in three under new jockey Pierre-Charles Boudot. Along with Christophe Soumillon who is now on Diamond Necklace, Boudot faces a struggle to make the 8.9 that three-year-old fillies carry.
There is a trio of Irish jockeys in the line-up. Oisin Murphy is on the mud-loving Bay City Roller while Ray Dawson is on the lively outsider Saddadd. It is Colin Keane, however, who is likely to fancy his chances most on Kalpana.
The six-time Irish champion was on board Andrew Balding’s mare when she put up one of the performances of the season in July’s King George, beating Daryz’s stable companion Calandagan. She followed up, albeit not impressively, in the Yorkshire Oaks.
It is 55 years since Balding’s father Ian landed an Arc with the legendary Mill Reef. A Kalpana win would be a record seventh for her Juddmonte ownership. Its founder, the late Prince Khalid Abdullah, won the Arc six times, a mark shared with Marcel Boussac, who is remembered in the title of the first of Sunday’s six Group One prizes.
Aidan O’Brien is represented in all of them including with another pair of 2026 classic winners.
Precise takes on the top local mare Aventure in the Prix de l’Opera while True Love runs in the seven-furlong Prix de la Foret. Fozzy Stack’s Thesecretadversary also lines up in the Foret under Soumillon who partnered him to a “Jean Prat” success in the summer.
The Belgian teams up with Joseph O’Brien for Green Empress in the Boussac, but the trainer has opted for Daryz’s jockey Mickael Barzalona for his National winner Folsom Blues in the Lagadere.
Arc weekend starts with a pair of Group One races on Saturday where the year’s outstanding stayer Scandinavia will be short odds to stretch his winning streak to nine in a row in the Prix Du Cadran off at 4pm Irish time.
It is four years since Kyprios put up a wondrous performance to win the Cadran by 20 lengths despite drifting across the track. Scandinavia’s run style is much less extravagant, but he shapes as being at the same elite level as Kyprios. It leaves Willie Mullins’s Mr Hollywood and the other with a formidable task.
The Ballydoyle team run three in the Prix de Royallieu although Francis Graffard’s Sunly looks the one to beat. She fell out of the stalls in the Vermeille, but still looked a potential winner until being wiped out by interference in the straight. A clear run this time will make her hard to beat.
“Sunly hasn’t had a huge amount of racing and if the owners decide to keep her in training maybe this time next year it will be her lining up for the Arc,” the Juddmonte spokesman Barry Mahon said.
