Breeders' Cup Legends: Arcangues

Arcangues wins thet 1993 Breeders' Cup Classic at odds of 133.60-to-1. (Photo by Benoit Photo)
In a series that has spanned 30 years and crowned dozens of champions, one of the most talked about Breeders’ Cup winners is best remembered not for his talent or race record but for the sheer improbability of his victory.
An invader from France making his first start on the dirt, Arcangues shocked the world in 1993 when he won the Breeders’ Cup Classic at odds of 133.60-to-1. The $269.20 payout for a $2 win wager is a Breeders’ Cup record that stands to this day.
Arcangues was a Kentucky-bred but the horse had strong French connections. Owner-breeder Daniel Wildenstein, a French-born art magnate, won the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe four times including with Sagace, Arcangues’s sire, and the late horseman now has a stakes race named for him at Longchamp race course in Paris. Wildenstein’s list of U.S. successes includes wins in the 1989 Breeders’ Cup Mile with Steinlen and the 1984 Turf Classic and Washington D.C. International Stakes with champion filly All Along.
ALL ALONG

Photo by HorsePhotos
Arcangues was born in Kentucky out of Wildenstein’s French mare Albertine in 1988 and was sent to France to begin his racing career, where he made his bow at Saint-Cloud in November 1990.
That first effort was a disappointing 19th-place finish and the colt was shelved for six months, but he returned a winner in June 1991 at Longchamp. Arcangues quickly moved up to stakes company where he won the Group 2 Prix Eugene Adam and placed in three other Group 2 stakes as a sophomore.
As a 4-year-old Arcangues added another Group victory to his tally when winning the Group 3 Prix du Prince d’Orange and finished second in the Group 1 Prix d’Ispahan, but his best year would come in 1993 at age five. Though he spent much of the year finishing out of the money, the horse improved off his ’92 effort in the Prix d’Ispahan and captured his first Group 1 victory in late May.
He completed his European career unplaced but trainer Andre Fabre thought the horse would appreciate a flat course due to lingering back issues. After breezing Arcangues once on the dirt at Wildenstein’s Chantilly training center, the decision was made to send him to California to contest the then-$3-million Breeders’ Cup Classic and try to duplicate Wildenstein’s Breeders’ Cup success with Steinlen.
The field was a formidable one. Top older horses Marquetry, Missionary Ridge, Best Pal and eventual champion Bertrando as well as 1993 Belmont Stakes winner Colonial Affair all lined up in the 13-horse contest, and future sires Kissin Kris and Devil His Due also squared off in the race. Not only was Arcangues off-form and trying dirt for the first time in his U.S. debut, no foreign-based trainer had ever won the Breeders’ Cup Classic and the horse would be without his regular jockey as Jerry Bailey climbed aboard.
"I couldn't understand the instructions (Fabre) gave me in the paddock,” Bailey said to the Baltimore Sun. “I don't even know how to pronounce the horse's name. But sometimes a horse runs best when he is ridden by someone who has never been on him before.”
Indeed he did. Arcangues seemingly had too many obstacles to overcome and left the gate a 133-1 longshot, even higher than the 99-1 shown on the tote board limited to double-digit odds, but the French raider ran the race of his life under Bailey’s expert guidance.
1993 BREEDERS’ CUP CLASSIC

Video courtesy of Breeders’ Cup World Championships
"Since I didn't know the horse – I had never laid eyes on him until I saw him in the paddock – I just let him run along the rail,” Bailey said. “I got more confidence in him as we went along because he started to pick up horses and I still had a lot of horse under me."
Bertrando set the pace while tracked closely by stablemate Marquetry, but the race looked like it belonged to the Pacific Classic and Woodward winner when Marquetry tired as the field turned for home. Arcangues had been winding up from the back of the pack though, and he snuck through between horses in mid-stretch to sweep past Bertrando and capture the biggest win of his career. The $1.56 million winner’s share boosted Arcangues’s lifetime earnings fivefold to more than $1.85 million. The few who bet him to win were rewarded to the tune of $269.20 for every $2 bet.
Bertrando’s connections expressed what many were feeling after watching what announcer Tom Durkin called an “absolutely shocking, impossible victory.”
"My horse absolutely exploded at the quarter-pole and I thought it was all over,” said Bertrando’s jockey Gary Stevens in an interview with the Baltimore Sun. “Then here comes this horse. I had no idea who he was, and he runs right by me."
Bertrando’s trainer Bobby Frankel had a similar reaction.
"I'm really kind of in shock," Frankel said to the Sun. "I guess it just wasn't meant to be … I'm surprised that anybody was able to catch him."
The loss cost Bertrando a Horse of the Year title, which was awarded instead to Breeders’ Cup Turf winner Kotashaan.
After the race it was reported that Arcangues would be retired, but the horse was later sent to Southern California conditioner Richard Mandella, with whom he garnered a win in 1994 John Henry Handicap on turf. The horse was retired to stud after a fifth-place finish in the Hollywood Gold Cup.
Arcangues was purchased by Japanese connections and stood at Stallion Nakamura farm until he passed away in 2006 in Japan. In all he sired 60 percent winners from his 265 starters, but the lasting legacy of Arcangues will undoubtedly be his improbable Breeders’ Cup Classic victory and a Breeders’ Cup win payout that may never be topped.