Roll up, roll up, never been this early before. 2026 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe

Can't believe it is that time already. Getting in quick

Daryz 10/1
Minnie Hauk 12/1
Regaleira, any price I like - not quoted

Had to take those odds


Current odds

 

For 2026, you can have 12/1 Minnie Hauk and Daryz followed by 25/1 Byzantine Dream and Diamond Necklace with 33/1 Aventure, Consent, Sosie, Benvenuto Cellini and Bow River. 100/1 Lambourn or Los Angeles anyone?

The Prix Marcel Boussac winner Diamond Necklace ticks the boxes for Urban Sea four generations back; and is a half-sister to Ribblesdale winner Magic Wand (Galileo) and Irish Oaks winner Chicquita (Montjeu). So she might line up next year as a three year old filly with some ‘Oaks’ to her name.

Barney will be along in a moment to give you the statistics... just 51 weeks to wait for the draw...

 

Good article in yesterday's Weekender by Pricewise. He thinks it's a farce that 'supposedly the best race in the World' is run on such a biased track. The problem he sees is that too many races are run on the track over the Saturday and Sunday before the Arc and the idea of saving the better ground for the Sunday only accentuates the advantage of the lower drawn horses.

 

Maybe they should stiffen up the qualification and have fewer runners. I don't know how much the entrance fees are as a % of the prize money

I suppose staggering the stalls could be dangerous

 

I back horses with WTF jockeys that stagger races by going 15 wide every week...

 

I never read the article in the Weekender, so it is probably unfair to comment; however, the argument falls flat in quite a few ways.

Firstly, in recent years the running rail has been moved out quite some considerable distance on the Saturday of the meeting in order to save a strip of ground for Sunday. Almost every year Timeform points out that this leads to inaccurate race distances because they do not move the starting posts and the rail is not placed by any scientific measure and will be different every year. Whether the saved strip of ground is ‘better’ would be debatable since it has the same amount of watering as the ground that is used on Saturday.

Secondly, what was notable this year was the mad rush to get a good position at the start of the race, primarily because the fancied Japanese horses were drawn high. Hence the first couple of furlongs were fast and then it did not slow down until the false straight when the two front runners had clearly had enough and got swamped by the rest of the field. The winner and the runner up were out towards the middle of the track so were probably running on ground that had been used on Saturday but France Galop have an army of workers that repair the track between races.

On Sunday in the closing 10 furlong handicap (15 runners), the easy winner came from stall 3 but the second, third and fourth came from 10, 8 and 6 in a time only fractionally slower than the Prix de l’Opéra where the first four were drawn 4, 5, 7, 6 (12 runners). On Saturday in the closing 12 furlong handicap (18 runners), the easy winner came from stall 8 with the second, third and fourth from 3, 7 and 9 (time 2:44.18 compared to 2:29.17 for the Arc run over 110 yards less). In the Prix de Royallieu the first and second came from stalls 11 and 10 in a 12 runner field where the favourite finished a well beaten seventh behind her pacemaker in sixth; however, that race is two furlongs longer than the Arc and there is a bend before they reach the Arc starting point so there is no mad rush from the gate.

So I think that the draw bias has become a thing because of how this particular race is run and the actions of the jockeys. If I had the time and access to the results, it would be interesting to see what draw bias there is taking into account the results of twelve furlong races with large fields over the season. My suspicion is that there probably would not be one evident because most ordinary French races are run at a married man’s gallop followed by a sprint in the straight so a high draw would be insignificant.

 

There was not a maximum field in 2025 (17 started) and the normal maximum does effectively have a qualification factor as they ballot out the lowest rated horses just the same as we do in Britain in the big sprint handicaps and the Grand National, for example. That is why there are rarely any pacemakers in the Arc because a horse would have to have a high rating to get in the line-up.

 

A lot of the entries are a waste of money then as there must be a lot of horses entered with ratings no where near high enough to qualify. Maybe the owners think/hope that their "no hopers" will suddenly sprout wings

 

Might have been good if you had read it.

As regards your first paragraph I think you missed his point. Whilst I'm sure you are right that the unused ground has been watered as much as the used has been, the used ground will be much more difficult to gallop on than the unused ground as it will be more cut up (no number of workers will make that ground on the outside the equivalent of the unused or less used ground on the inside). Hence giving an advantage to those horses drawn on the inside, who will gallop over less cut up ground in the important early part of the race.

As regards your second paragraph, what you say might easily be the case. But it does not account for only 1 of the 42 horses who ran from a double figure draw finishing in the first 3 on Sunday. Did all the highly drawn horses go hell for leather in the first few furlongs in every race on Sunday?

Not sure what your point is in your third paragraph. It is Sunday that is being talked about and it is Sunday that has fresh ground on the inside which the lowly drawn horses are subject to in the early parts of the races. If your 3rd paragraph does say anything it is that the bias is not obvious on the Saturday: why? Aren't you actually saying that Sunday is worse than Saturday?

With your final paragraph I can only say that the statistics on Sunday and indeed the statistics produced by Sir Barney point to the Arc having an unfair draw bias. Pricewise, whose working life depends on this sort of analysis, thinks it does and thinks it's due in part to the releasing of fresh ground on the second day. I think I'd rather believe his hypothesis.

 

Maybe then, they should just not move the rails at all so that they are all racing on used ground. Same as most other meetings

 

I think it's time for innovation in British Racing. The BHA should try to make hay for what should be their crowning glory, The King George and Queen Elizabeth Stakes. It's run midsummer, it's run on a fairer track but it's rather been left to wilt on the vine over the last twenty years or so.

Why instead of plugging next week's Ascot card don't they plug a festival of racing over 7-8 days between Ascot and the following week's Goodwood meeting? You don't have to race every day but a solid chunk of racing over 6 days sold as a package to trainers and racegoers alike? The twin peaks could be the KG and then The Sussex Stakes.

It comes 4/5 weeks after Royal Ascot and 3/4 weeks before York. What's not to like?

I was impressed by the response to the mini NH festival held over 3 days at Windsor and Ascot last season. Build on that.

 

The initial entry date for the Arc is in May, so a lot of the three year olds that are entered have not even run yet or have had just a couple of runs if they are being targeted at the middle distance Classics, which start in June. You would expect that most of the older horses are known quantities but there are always a couple that come good during the season. The initial entry fee is not much so the big operations like Coolmore and Godolphin can enter quite a few. The cost of staying in the race when it gets to the first forfeit stage the week before the race is quite steep so you tend to see 80/90 initial entries cut down to around 25 followed by the addition of the supplementaries who never held an entry. This year showed how inexact a science it is with the runner up having to be added to the race as she was not one of the original dozen or so Coolmore entries.

 

You perhaps did not spot how specific I was when choosing what to put in my last reply. I deliberately only mentioned large field races over ten furlongs or more as many of the races over shorter distances do not attract large fields (so no draw bias evident because hardly any fancied runners in double digit stalls).

On Arc weekend (or any other Longchamp fixture that is more than one day) how many races are actually run at 10 furlongs or more? At the Arc meeting there were 6 on Saturday (18 runners in the closing handicap the largest field by 5; the 3 stayers’ races the only ones using part of the track that features the first furlong of the Arc) and 4 on Sunday (17 runners in the Arc the largest, the other 3 ten furlongs not featuring the first furlong of the Arc). Is the ground really getting torn up that much that it impacts results? As I stated, I think that part of the blame lies with the jockeys early in the race. You may not have noticed that the starting stalls are placed in the middle of the track, not against the running rail so even the horse drawn 1 has to run across ‘used’ ground to get to the ‘new’ ground. The draw bias is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

 

Unfortunately gents, you appear to be viewing British racing in isolation and not how the European pattern system actually works. You cannot just conjure up a new meeting in the middle of the summer and put together loads of races. The Eclipse is probably the reason that the King George VI has suffered in recent times because so many horses seem to be bred to be mile/ten furlong horses these days; hence virtually none of the Classic generation contesting the King George VI with the Eclipse fitting neatly between mile/ten furlong races of Royal Ascot, Goodwood and York.

When Champions Day was created the Champion Stakes was taken from Newmarket (already existed at around the same time so no clash with a similar event) and several of the supporting races were new entities that did not have Group 1 status but they were able to create them because they did not threaten the status of any existing race in France or Ireland. Gradually the prize money and, therefore, status rose over the years in just the same way that Arc Sunday became a card of Group 1 races when originally the only Group 1s were the Arc and the two year old races. The Irish stole a slot in September for their ‘Champions Weekend’ and it would be impossible to move anything in July/August because of the existing European calendar. The British racing authorities were too slow to act and could have had a Champions Weekend in September if they had moved the September Stakes to ‘new’ Ascot.