Pedigree was the key to the puzzle of the 104th Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, as Daryz stayed on strongly to collar Minnie Hauk, the favourite, in the storied green-and-red colours of the late Aga Khan IV, his breeder, who died in February. “He was born for this,” Princess Zahra Aga Khan, his daughter, said. “On both sides, sire and dam, they were Group One winners at the distance, so he was born to get 2,400m and I think it showed.”
Sunday’s race was just the seventh start of Daryz’s career, all in his three-year-old season, and his first at a mile and a half. He is the seventh Arc winner for the racing and breeding operation founded by the third Aga Khan in 1921, a sequence that stretches back to Migoli’s success in 1948, and also the first winner in the green and red silks since the unbeaten Zarkava’s success, with Christophe Soumillon in the saddle, in 2008.
