2025’s Prix de L’Arc de Triomphe: Quality, Strength and Depth

by Roy Brindley, 10 September 2025

Will 2025 be the year Japan finally lands the Qatar Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe?

Ombudsman appears to be the UK’s best Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe hope. @ Getty Images

Key Facts:

• The 2024 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe runner-up is favourite to go one better in 2025.
• Gosden, O’Brien and Fabre all have a strong candidate.
• Croix Du Nord spearheads an impressive four-pronged Japanese assault.

Aventure, the French-trained 2024 Qatar Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe runner-up, is the provisional favourite for the 2025 renewal of the 12-furlong Grade-1 contest. Europe’s richest and most prestigious horse race is scheduled for Sunday, October 5.

The maximum field size for the 2025 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe is 24. Seventy-five horses are among the early entry. History suggests that between a dozen and 20 horses will line up at the start in Paris – including most of the names at the head of the current betting.

During the past decade, half of the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winners have been trained in Britain. The current odds offered by the leading online bookmakers suggest it is unlikely this strike rate will be improved upon in 2025.

Old Arc Hands Have Strong Fancies

Epsom, Irish and Yorkshire Oaks winner Minnie Hauk, trading on 9/2 odds, just half a point bigger in the betting than Aventure, sits second on the ante-post betting lists. On a winners-to-runners basis, her trainer, Aidan O’Brien, has a poor strike-rate, winning the l’Arc only twice before.

Nevertheless, with a profile very similar to that of Enable ahead of her 2017 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe success, and likely to receive weight from all rivals, this five-time winner has outstanding credentials.

⭐️ Superstar – a third consecutive Group One win for Minnie Hauk who captures the Pertemps Network Yorkshire Oaks for team Ballydoyle pic.twitter.com/CTWSUnlHei

— York Racecourse (@yorkracecourse) August 21, 2025

A quartet of horses share third favouritism, available on 12/1 odds: Britain’s best hope, the John and Thady Gosden-trained Ombudsman, is among those. An impressive Group-1 winner over 10 furlongs at Royal Ascot and York and runner-up in the Eclipse, he represents a stable that has won three Arcs during the past ten years.

With eight individual winners since 1987, no trainer has won the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe more times than Andre Fabre. The master French trainer will be represented by Sosie, who finished fourth in last year’s race when starting as the favourite. He, too, is currently priced on 12/1 odds.

The Japanese Arc Dream Is Alive

Japanese trainers have been trying to win the Arc since 1969. During the past two decades, the racing mad nation has brought quality and ever-increasing quantity to Paris to tackle the 2,400-metre challenge.

2025 is no exception. Wary bookmakers quote two Japanese runners on 12/1. The first, Byzantine Dream, has won just one race in Japan and finished last in the country’s 2024 Derby at odds of 60/1.

Thriller!

Byzantine Dream 🇯🇵 and @oismurphy get up to beat Sosie in the Group Two Qatar Prix Foy! 🇫🇷#ビザンチンドリーム | @netkeiba pic.twitter.com/FdEOKImjW5

— At The Races (@AtTheRaces) September 7, 2025

A subsequent victory in a massively valuable 15-furlong Group-2 in Saudi Arabia and narrow success over Sosie in the Qatar Prix Foy (on September 7 – over the Arc’s course and distance) puts Byzantine Dream firmly in the picture.

Nord Is the Best Japanese Challenger Yet

Croix Du Nord has exceptional domestic form but has not travelled overseas before. It has been said many times, but this candidate appears to be the best Japanese-trained horse ever aimed at the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.

A Grade-1 winner at two, runner-up in the Japanese 2000 Guineas on his 2025 debut and then the winner of the Tokyo Yushun (the Japanese Derby) on June 1. Croix Du Nord’s credentials are exceptional.

He has not raced since his Derby triumph. However, Croix Du Nord has arrived in Paris and is stabled at the Chantilly Horse Racing & Training Centre. He is entered in a Group-3 event at Longchamp on September 14 – the Prix Prince Du d’Orange – which will serve as the star’s l’Arc prep race.

Two More From the Land of the Rising Sun

Two other Japanese horses are in the 2025 l’Arc field. Shin Emperor (40/1), contested the race last year – finishing 12th on unsuitably ‘very soft’ ground – and will use the Irish Champion Stakes at Leopardstown on September 13 as his prep run.

Aloho Alii (25/1, eighth in the Japanese 2000 Guineas, four lengths behind Croix Du Nord, completes the nation’s 2025 l’Arc entry. This individual ‘easily’ won a French Group-2 contest at Deauville on his only subsequent start.