PARIS (AP) Treve put on an impressive burst of speed in the final straight to outclass the field and win the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe by five lengths on Sunday.
Race favorite Orfevre beat Intello by a neck to take second place in the world's richest turf contest.Kizuna and Penglai Pavilion finished fourth and fifth, respectively.
Treve overcame a difficult draw, breaking from stall 15. The 3-year-old French filly ran most of the race on the outside and hardly seemed in contention at the halfway stage, stuck in 14th place. But she made her move about 600 meters from home to take the lead and then irresistibly pulled away in the final straight.
"Until now, we didn't ask much from her," Treve's trainer Christiane Head-Maarek said. "Today, she really showed she's a champion because the race didn't go well for her. ... I thought she had six gears but today she put the seventh gear on. And when she left, she won so easily."
Treve covered the soft ground of the 2,400-meter Longchamp racecourse in 2 minutes, 32.04 seconds.
A 5.9-1 shot ridden by Thierry Jarnet, Treve is now undefeated in five races. She also won the Prix de Diane in June and Prix Vermeille last month.
"It was magical today because I had the luck to ride a great champion," Jarnet said.
Jarnet was picked to ride Treve after Frankie Dettori fractured his right ankle in a fall on Wednesday. The 46-year-old jockey also won the Arc with Subotica in 1992 and Carnegie in 1994.
Sunday's 92nd running of the Arc featured 17 horses from the start.
Japan hoped Orfevre would deliver the country's first Arc victory after narrowly losing to Solemia last year, but the gulf in class between Treve and the other horses was simply too big.
"When I saw Treve advancing, I followed her," Orfevre jockey Christophe Soumillon said. "With the effort she made, I thought I could catch up with her in the last 200 or 300 meters. But she is an extraordinary filly."
