How Longchamp's great leap forward redrew the map of world racing - with the help of a Hollywood icon

The Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe stands tall as Europe’s pre-eminent weight-for-age race.

With its €5 million purse, it is by some distance the most valuable race on the continent. It has been officially recognised as the world’s top-rated race in five of the last eight years, and the international make-up of its field is enhanced by the compelling annual storyline of Japan’s obsession with winning on the first Sunday in October. In essence, the Arc has it all.

But that wasn’t always the case. In its early years, having risen from the rubble of the Great War in 1920 with the aim of becoming the world’s premier international contest, those initial ambitions seemed laughable, the race utterly dominated by the home team.