Nobody has been responsible for more winners of the annual ParisLongchamp epic than France’s 31-time champion trainer. Jon Lees ranks the eight horses saddled by Andre Fabre to win the Arc
Andre Fabre has long been a legend of French racing – and a legend of the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in particular, having won Europe’s richest race a record eight times, starting 35 years ago with Trempolino in 1987.
Fabre, 76, has won the French trainers’ championship a staggering 31 times in the last 35 years, including the most recent title race in 2021.
“Fabre has no serious rival for the title 'France's greatest trainer'," says Racing Post historian John Randall. "He has dominated his colleagues in the quality of his winners like no other trainer before him, not even Francois Mathet."
Nowhere has this pre-eminence been more obvious than in the Qatar-sponsored Arc, and Fabre still has two horses engaged in this Sunday’s edition of the celebrated €5m contest at ParisLongchamp.
Although last year’s Prix Ganay winner Mare Australis and the three-year old True Testament have to be regarded as outside chances, perhaps they should not be too readily dismissed in a race where only two of the last ten winners have been sent off favourite.
Frankie Dettori, meanwhile, holds the record for the most Arc wins by a jockey with six: Lammtarra (1995), Sakhee (2001), Marienbard (2002), Golden Horn (2015), Enable (2017, 2018). He bids for a seventh victory on last year’s winner, the German-trained Torquator Tasso.
1. Peintre Celebre (1997)
Sire: Nureyev
Dam: Peintre Bleue (Alydar)
Jockey: Olivier Peslier
Owner: Daniel Wildenstein
Starting odds: 11-5 favourite
With an official rating of 137, Peintre Celebre is the best horse Fabre has ever trained, although he is one of three official world champions with Hurricane Run (130 in 2005) and Manduro (131 in 2007). An outstanding middle-distance three-year-old, he won the Prix du Jockey Club and Grand Prix de Paris but then suffered the ignominy of being defeated in his Arc warm-up, the Prix Niel, for which he went off at odds of 1-10.
However, he saved his best performance for the Arc, storming away from a top-quality field to score by five lengths from Pilsudski and Borgia. He became only the second horse to complete the Jockey Club-GP de Paris-Arc treble. He retired to Coolmore Stud after an injury put an end to any four-year-old campaign.
2. Hurricane Run (2005)
Sire: Montjeu
Dam: Hold On (Surumu)
Jockey: Kieren Fallon
Owner: Michael Tabor
Starting odds: 11-4
Hurricane Run had been defeated only once in six career starts – and only then in a Prix du Jockey Club reduced in distance to an inadequate 1m2f – when he lined up at Longchamp as a recent Coolmore acquisition. The son of fellow Arc winner Montjeu had regained the winning thread in the Irish Derby and Prix Niel and, though he ran out a commanding winner of the Arc, his victory was not straightforward.
Turning into the straight he was still towards the rear of the field but Kieren Fallon threaded his way through his rivals, finding room up the rail on the inside of eventual fourth Motivator before being punched out to win by two lengths. Hurricane Run added the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes to his G1 haul the following year, when he was a promoted third (on the DQ of original third Deep Impact) in the Arc behind stablemate Rail Link.
3. Trempolino (1987)
Sire: Sharpen Up
Dam: Trephia (Vice Regal)
Jockey: Pat Eddery
Owner: Paul de Moussac/Bruce McNall
Starting odds: 20-1
With a top-class field assembled including the likes of Reference Point, Mtoto, Triptych and Tony Bin, Fabre’s first Arc winner was rated an outsider at 20-1. However, he had been runner-up in the Prix du Jockey Club before winning the Prix Niel and, 12 months after his jockey Pat Eddery had captured a famous victory on Dancing Brave, Trempolino delivered a hat-trick of wins for his rider. Dancing Brave’s track record wasn’t to last as Trempolino scooted clear of his opponents completing the course more than a second faster.
4. Waldgeist (2019)
Sire: Galileo
Dam: Waldlerche (Monsun)
Jockey: Pierre-Charles Boudot
Owner: Gestut Ammerland/Newsells Park
Starting odds: 13-1
With Enable sportingly kept in training by Khalid Abdullah specifically to bid for an unprecedented Arc hat-trick, it was master trainer Fabre – plus a very soft track – that spoiled the party. Three times Waldgeist had finished behind the mare, including in that year’s King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes, and history looked set to be made as Enable cruised into the lead.
To the roar of the crowd, she opened a clear advantage under Frankie Dettori – only for testing conditions to take their toll in the closing stages, allowing Waldgeist to close up the centre of the course and hit the front in the final 50 yards. You could have heard a pin drop.
5. Rail Link (2006)
Sire: Dansili
Dam: Docklands (Theatrical)
Jockey: Stephane Pasquier
Owner: Khalid Abdullah
Starting odds: 8-1
The smallest field assembled since 1941 had only eight runners but was most memorable for the presence of Japanese superstar Deep Impact among the challengers, a mission that attracted thousands of that nation’s enthusiastic fans to Longchamp, almost transformed for a day into an unlikely suburb of Tokyo.
For a brief moment their dreams looked set to be realised as Deep Impact hit the front under Yutaka Take, only to be headed a furlong out by Prix Niel winner Rail Link, who was driven out to win by a neck from Pride with Deep Impact passing the post three-quarters of a length down in third. (Ignominy followed, as the Japanese legend was later disqualified for after testing positive for a banned substance.) According to the market, Rail Link had been only the Fabre stable’s third string, behind Hurricane Run and Shirocco.
6. Carnegie (1994)
Sire: Sadler’s Wells
Dam: Detroit (Riverman)
Jockey: Thierry Jarnet
Owner: Sheikh Mohammed
Starting odds: 3-1 (coupled)
A colt bred to win an Arc being a son of the 1980 race winner Detroit. Fabre saddled five runners, including the Oaks winner Intrepidity (with whom the winner was coupled for betting purposes), and ended up being responsible for the winner, third (Apple Tree) and fifth (Bright Moon).
A three-year-old carrying Sheikh Mohammed’s famous maroon and white silks, Carnegie had been given a traditional French Arc prep, capturing the Prix Niel on his way back from a summer break. He emerged from a pack of contenders in a blanket finish, in which just a length covered the first five across the line, triumphing by a short neck from the previous season’s much lauded French Derby winner Hernando. Intrepidity was only 13th of 20, by the way.
7. Subotica (1992)
Sire: Pampabird
Dam: Terre de Feu (Busted)
Jockey: Thierry Jarnet
Owner: Oliver Lecerf
Starting odds: 9-1
Denied a chance to contest the Arc a year earlier by injury having won the Prix Niel, Subotica was able to put that right as a four-year-old – despite having won only one of his four previous starts in the 1992 campaign. Ranged against him were some classy three-year-olds including 12-length Irish Derby winner St Jovite and Epsom hero Dr Devious – plus unbeaten filly User Friendly, who was sent off favourite. She hit the front with two furlongs to run, only to be quickly joined by Subotica, all out to edge a pulsating duel by a neck.
8. Sagamix (1998)
Sire: Linamix
Dam: Seneca (Sagace)
Jockey: Olivier Peslier
Owner: Jean-Luc Lagardere
Starting odds: 5-2 favourite (coupled)
Prix Niel victor Sagamix arrived at the Arc unbeaten after just three starts, having twice beaten Dream Well, who won both the French and Irish Derbys. Coupled for betting purposes with Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud winner Fragrant Mix, who was in the same ownership, the three-year-old defeated the filly Leggera and German colt Tiger Hill, surging up the middle of the track to score by a neck, thereby completing an Arc hat-trick for jockey Olivier Peslier. Among those well beaten were Dream Well (again) and Epsom Derby winner High-Rise.
For all that abundant promise, however, Sagamix comes bottom of this list as his career fizzled out – he never won again in five starts, including when joining Godolphin as a five-year-old. Perhaps it was hardly surprising, then, that in their book A Century of Champions, largely based on Timeform ratings, respected authors John Randall and Tony Morris rated Sagamix an “inferior” Arc winner.
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