Daryz won the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe for the second year running at ParisLongchamp on Sunday, beating Bay City Roller, with Diamond Necklace third.
The four-year-old is trained by Francis-Henri Graffard, ridden by Mickael Barzalona and owned by Aga Khan Studs. He had won the race in 2025 and started as favourite to defend it.
The Arc is run over 2,400 metres, a mile and a half, and is the richest prize in European flat racing.
The form guide was the Qatar Prix Foy over the same course last month, where Daryz beat Bay City Roller. The Arc produced the same two horses in the same order.
"To win this kind of race twice proves that Daryz is an exceptional horse," Barzalona said.
The record attached to the win is a specific one. Daryz is the first colt since 1978 to retain the Arc. The previous colt to do it was Alleged, trained by Vincent O'Brien and ridden by Lester Piggott, who won in 1977 and 1978.
Alleged is not, however, the last horse to have retained the Arc. Treve won it in 2013 and 2014. Enable won it in 2017 and 2018. Both were fillies.
The race's list of dual winners now runs to nine: Ksar in 1921 and 1922, Motrico in 1930 and 1932, Corrida in 1936 and 1937, Tantieme in 1950 and 1951, Ribot in 1955 and 1956, Alleged in 1977 and 1978, Treve, Enable, and Daryz.
The 48-year wait is therefore entirely real and also constructed. Three horses have retained the Arc since Alleged, and Daryz is the third of them. The drought he has ended belongs not to the race but to the qualifier, and the qualifier has been doing the work for 48 years.
This newspaper regards the result as the strongest argument yet for sub-dividing achievement. A horse that retains the Arc joins a list of nine. A colt that retains the Arc joins a much shorter one and is the first to do so since 1978, which is a considerably better sentence.
The method generalises without limit. Daryz is also the first horse since Enable to retain the Arc, a gap of eight years. He is the first horse trained by Francis-Henri Graffard to retain the Arc, a gap of the entire history of the race. He is the first horse named Daryz to retain the Arc, a record that cannot be broken and can only be matched by himself.
Our analysts note that it is the sex of the previous two repeat winners that makes the 48 years available. Had Treve or Enable been a colt, Sunday's achievement would have been reported as the first since 2018, and the same horse would have run the same race over the same distance in the same time.
The Department of Unnecessary Research has written to the organisers with the only question outstanding. If the colts' drought stood at 48 years and the fillies' at eight, it would like to know what the horses' drought stood at, and which of the three Daryz was running in.