Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe — this event has finished

Europe's greatest all-aged flat race, the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe draws the finest thoroughbreds and a glamorous international crowd to Paris on the first weekend of October — 4 October 2026 at ParisLongchamp in the Bois de Boulogne. A day of top-class racing wrapped in Parisian style, the Arc is one of the sport's true global occasions, and the city fills with racing fans and autumn tourists alike.

Rooms across Paris get scarce for the weekend, so book early. Stay central — near the Champs-Élysées, the Right Bank or Saint-Germain — and you're a short Métro ride from Longchamp, with the whole of Paris on hand for the trip.

The Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe is the grand climax of the European flat-racing season and the richest turf race on the continent, first run in 1920 and named for the monument at the head of the Champs-Élysées. Staged over 2,400 metres at ParisLongchamp in the Bois de Boulogne on the first weekend of October, it is the ultimate test for the finest middle-distance thoroughbreds, drawing the best of Europe and Japan to the Paris turf.

The roll of honour reads like a history of the sport — Sea-Bird, Mill Reef, Sea The Stars — and the modern era has produced dual winners in Treve, successful in 2013 and 2014, and the great mare Enable, who won in 2017 and 2018. The course itself reopened as ParisLongchamp in 2018 after a sweeping redevelopment, its grandstands looking out across one of the most beautiful racecourses anywhere.

Wrapped in Parisian style and run before a glamorous international crowd, the Arc is one of racing's true global occasions, with a purse of five million euros.