It is not too often that you can look back at the result of a race 60 years ago and know that readers today will instantly recognise the name of the winner. In this case the race is the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe and the winner was the brilliant Ribot. Not only did the unbeaten colt win the race as a three-year-old in 1955, but he came back a year later to repeat the feat.

In the history of Italian racing no horse has done more for the sport than Ribot, and it is a great pity that all these years later racing and breeding in that country is at such a low.

Ribot was actually foaled at the National Stud in Newmarket and was bred by Federico Tesio. While his name is most closely associated with the colt, named after a French artist, it was a regret that Tesio died in May of the year that Ribot was a two-year-old. Throughout his career he carried the colours of Lydia Tesio and the Marchese Mario Incisa della Rocchetta.

Raced for three seasons, Ribot ran and won 16 times. He was trained by Ugo Penco and ridden to all his victories by Enrico Camici, but he was so small when he was born that Tesio did not enter him for the classics. In his racing career he only ran outside Italy on three occasions, winning back-to-back Arcs and also capturing the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes.

His first Arc success was as a 9/1 shot and he won with some ease, beating Beau Prince by three lengths but without his rider ever having to resort to the whip. That win would normally have signalled the end of the season for the colt but he went back to Italy where he won the Gran Premio del Jockey Club by 15 lengths, denying the previous year’s winner a repeat success.

After four easy victories in Italy at four, including an eight-length defeat of Tissot in the Gran Premio di Milano, Ribot left Italy for the second time to race abroad, heading to Ascot for the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes. He won the race as an odds-on favourite should. That was in July and he won again in Italy before tackling the Arc for a second time.

In what was considered a much better renewal of the race than a year earlier, Ribot won by twice the distance he had recorded the first time he was victorious in the race, beating Talgo by six lengths. This victory ensured that Timeform accorded him a rating of 142. Putting this into perspective, only 14 horses have ever achieved a rating of 140 or more – considered outstanding by the organisation – and the others are Frankel (147), Sea Bird (145), Brigadier Gerard and Tudor Minstrel 144), Abernant and Windy City (142), Mill Reef (141) and Dancing Brave, Dubai Millennium, Harbinger, Sea The Stars, Shergar and Vaguely Noble, all on 140.

In a career that began on July 4th 1954 and ended with a second success in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe on October 7th 1956, Ribot amassed winnings of £106,515, a then European record by some £22,000. He won his races by an aggregate of 99 lengths, only once being run close when he won the Gran Criterium as a two-year-old by a head when different riding tactics from all his other wins were used.

Ribot stood for a single season in England, at Lord Derby’s Woodland Stud in Newmarket, and this was something of an achievement as the normal policy of the Italian Minister of Agriculture was to insist on stallions completing at least three years at stud there before an export licence would be issued. After that single season he moved to the USA and stayed there until his death at the age of 30.

He developed an aggressive temperament in his later life and needed careful handling. Indeed he displayed a certain quirkiness in his younger days and had to be loaded backwards when he was sent to stud in England as a four-year-old!

At stud he was very successful and was the leading sire in Britain and Ireland (combined) three times, in 1963, 1967 and 1968. Two of his sons, Molvedo and Prince Royal, won the Arc, while his great grandson was Alleged who emulated Ribot when he too won back-to-back Arc de Triomphes in 1977 and 1978. Other eminent runners he sired included Ragusa, Ribocco and Ribero (all winners of the Irish Derby), European classic winners Long Look and Boucher, and leading American runners Tom Rolfe, Arts And Letters and Graustark.