Frankie Dettori executed the race-winning manoeuvre and then Enable delivered the coup de grâce to win the Qatar Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe at Chantilly.

Many great horses sealed their reputation in the Arc, but others had their fate sealed there. The well which seemed a bottomless source finally run dry as the stars of the summer suddenly wane while comparatively unheralded horses burst those high-flying bubbles.

Dettori had won the Arc four times before, holding the record with six other jockeys, and knew the pitfalls.

Chantilly may lack the steep gradients but it is a mirror image of Epsom with an early left turn before a right-handed bend. Enable was drawn in stall two and Dettori elected to kick from the break.

He had Enable in the front rank, but that meant contending with two of Aidan O’Brien’s five runners in the race, Idaho and Order of St George.

It would be wrong to suggest they were employing team tactics but nor were they going to give Dettori an easy passage.

Around the three-furlong point Dettori could sense himself being caught in a Ballydoyle pincer movement but instead eased Enable back slightly and then dropped in behind and used Idaho and Order of St George as pacemakers until he was ready to rip the heart out of this field.

Enable was still racing keenly but Dettori was able to harness that energy until unleashing it a furlong and a half out and the filly took four lengths out of the rest in about a hundred yards. Cloth of Stars may have closed the winning distance to two and a half lengths, with Ulysses in third, but there was only one star on show and both Dettori and Enable’s trainer, John Gosden, will be hoping that the odyssey continues next year.

Gosden ruled out running Enable again this year but, while a decision on whether she will stay in training next year will ultimately be made by her owner, Prince Khalid Abdullah, he said: "She’s only raced for 10 months of her life.

"She had one little run last November, but really she's only had one season of racing. There would be every reason to keep her in training next year as a four-year-old, particularly with the new Longchamp opening. That would be exciting – to try to win the Arc on two different tracks."

"She showed an impressive turn of foot and acceleration to kill the field. She has amazing ability. Frankie got her in a great position.

He's pretty good for an old jock.”

Dettori was riding in the Arc for the 29th time, having missed the 2013 renewal with a broken ankle that cost him the winning ride on Treve.

But the years sat lightly on his shoulders and one flying dismount later he said: "I said to John last week she’s the best she’s ever been. To keep this filly at one hundred per cent all year is fantastic. I had position A, I knew I had no weight and she stays, so I kicked and she gave me four lengths and the race was over. She's amazing and is an absolute freak. I love her."

O’Brien, who saddled the first three in the Arc last year, fared no better than fourth this time with Order of St George. But the trainer took two more steps to reaching the record of 25 Group or Grade One winners in a year, set by the late Bobby Frankel in 2003, when Happily won the Prix Jean-Luc Lagardère and Rhododendron bloomed once more to win the Prix de l'Opera. O’Brien is now three short of Frankel’s record.

Elsewhere on a stellar card, Battaash blazed home to win the Prix de l'Abbaye for Charlie Hills and Martyn Meade, 24 hours after Dolphin Vista won the Cambridgeshire, trained his first Group One winner with Aclaim in the Prix de la Forêt.