Ben Linfoot is our man in Del Mar and he sets the scene for City Of Troy’s attempt to land the Breeders’ Cup Classic.
There’s more than $7,000,000 on the line in Saturday’s Longines Breeders’ Cup Classic. Sporting history and racing immortality are also at stake. Can City Of Troy really go and conquer two racing worlds?
His status as a champion on grass is not up for debate. With the bizarre 2000 Guineas flop now consigned to history, here is a horse that came from behind from the dreaded stall one to win the Derby, that defied pace-blunting ground at Sandown in the Coral-Eclipse, that steamrollered a top-class field from the front in the Juddmonte International.
Winning despite adversity, winning in different ways on different types of ground. It should all help City Of Troy when the bell goes for the Breeders’ Cup Classic, but we simply will not know if he will be as effective on the Del Mar dirt until the race is done and won.
We can guess. He looks like a horse that is strong enough to sustain a relentless gallop on such a surface. He has American dirt racing pulsing through his veins. His sire, Justify, was a Triple Crown winner. His grandsire, Scat Daddy, was a dual Grade One winner on dirt. His great grandsire, Johannesburg, was Aidan O’Brien’s last Breeders’ Cup winner on dirt in the Juvenile, 23 years ago this week.
Watching racing at Del Mar on Thursday, the kickback did not look bad. My instinct says he will be fine. But then Steve Andersen looks you in the eye and says ‘this is such an away game and always will be’. The doubts set in.
You think about the magnitude, the sheer size of the task. In four decades of the Breeders’ Cup one European-trained horse has won the Classic on dirt; Arcangues, for Andre Fabre, at odds of 133/1 at Santa Anita in 1993. Jerry Bailey. ‘A huge upset looming here!’ The crowd falls silent as the realisation hits.
Aidan O’Brien, John Magnier, Michael Tabor and Derrick Smith have this shared dream. A dream to have a twin champion of turf and dirt. Seventeen times O’Brien and the Coolmore team have had a runner in the Classic, without success.
George Washington, his only horse to have two goes at the race, died in the Monmouth Park slop after breaking down 100 yards from home in the 2007 Classic. Still the pursuit went on.
Giant’s Causeway, Galileo, Hawk Wing, Henrythenavigator, Rip Van Winkle, So You Think, Declaration Of War, Gleneagles and Churchill, all tried and failed. Some of the Ballydoyle greats. Some got closer than others, with Giant’s Causeway, Henrythenavigator and Declaration Of War running terrific races in defeat.
Earlier in the week I asked Aidan what the driving force behind the ambition was. Of course, he didn’t say the gazillion euros he’ll be worth at stud, but he did say this.
“It’s for everybody. Everybody puts a lot of stuff in, a lot of time, funds, everything, energy. A lot of people all the way from before the foals are born, all the way from Coolmore to Ballydoyle and everyone around that. It’s for them really, everyone who breeds horses, trains horses, does everything with them for them, hopefully some day you have an unbelievable champion. We’ve been lucky to have some great horses, but obviously we have never won the Classic. It’s the toughest race of all, very demanding in every way; mentally and physically, and hopefully some time it might happen, but that’s no guarantee.”
For a trainer who has gone and done pretty much everything in the sport, including what is now 20 Breeders’ Cup wins, this, along with a Triple Crown, is one of the few remaining ambitions to fulfil. O’Brien has almost completed racing. A Breeders’ Cup Classic gets him another step closer to the final boss level.
‘TIZNOW OR NEVER’ David Jennings proudly proclaimed in the Racing Post earlier in the week. Sorry DJ, I had to steal it at some point.
But, whatever happens with City Of Troy on Saturday, O’Brien will be back. The Breeders’ Cup Classic remains the holy grail for Coolmore and if it doesn’t happen for Troy, another colt with a relentless stride and an American dirt pedigree will come along. And if Troy does win, they’ll want to do it again.
Because this is sport and this is the pinnacle. Don’t miss it. Many Breeders’ Cup love affairs started with golden Saturday nights in front of the TV because of horses like City Of Troy. He’s the type of horse that can spark dreams and those horses are special. Let’s enjoy him one final time.
I know. You’re sick of me talking about City Of Troy. I get it and we want an American viewpoint, so I caught up with the Daily Racing Form’s legendary Southern California correspondent, Steve Andersen, to pick his brains on the Breeders’ Cup Classic.
Over to you, Steve.
Aidan O’Brien has had 17 defeats in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, but this does feel a little bit different. There’s certainly a lot of attention devoted to City Of Troy, but whether that translates into a win remains to be seen.
I’m sceptical that he can win the race. It’s such an away game and always will be.
There was some hope in the United States in the summer that he would come over and run once over here in one of the American prep races, particularly at one of the races in New York.
That was the hope, it would’ve been nice to see him do that rather than go off to Southwell on a weekday.
I think there was a lot more to gain for a trip over here. They know how to ship horses, they travel a lot, fast, in a short period of time, so I think that would’ve been more beneficial.
They didn’t do that and that’s a negative.
He’s meeting a sub-par field by Breeders’ Cup Classic standards, the American older horse Classic division is a wreck. Subsanador went out, some of the horses from the summer aren’t in training anymore. A couple retired. The three-year-old Dornoch is not running. Last year’s Breeders’ Cup Classic winner White Abarrio is barely doing anything right now. He’s out of the picture.
In that regards his assignment is slightly easier. That takes us to the starting gate.
You better break. You don’t have to break on top, but you’ve got to get out and get settled and get comfortable. Ryan Moore knows him that’s a positive.
You worry that if he’s a little bit back and towards the inside there will be that little bit of kickback. You can try and replicate it in a training session, but it’s different in a race. The kickback here is moderate. It’s not like some of these tracks where you see it spraying all over the place. It’s not too bad, but it exists and that’s a factor. The boys who come from behind come back dirty.
That’s a factor to weigh up – if he gets behind will he handle it?
Alternatively, if he were to be forward and be close to the front, could he just be outside of somebody in the clear? He wouldn’t have any cover, but if he’s comfortable enough he may not need it.
The nice thing is he has horses on both sides that tend to run near the front. Highland Falls, the Godolphin who won the Jockey Club Gold Cup at Saratoga, always races near the front, and to his outside he’s got the local horse Mixto who’s a longshot, although he did win over the course and distance here on August 31.
Back at the summer meeting you had to be near the front to be effective. You couldn’t leave yourself with more than four or five lengths to find and expect to win. If he can stay with those guys early and get position, he should be okay. That’s got to happen though.
You don’t want to be seven lengths off the pace in behind and having to decide whether to go wide on the first turn, or waiting to the back stretch in the hope the field spreads out. That’s tricky.
You’ve got a lot of time to the first turn to get into a spot that you like and that’s vital.
There’s only 330 yards from the top of the stretch to the finish. This is a little shorter than some American tracks but there’s plenty of estate homes in the UK with longer driveways than this home run.
It will be interesting to watch, all eyes are on him.
If City Of Troy won the Classic I think it would be highly respected, but it would be a damn shame that his American career lasted two minutes and two seconds. Off to stud and lost for the sake of the sport.
I realise he’s worth zillions and the insurance will be out of this world, but in a perfect scenario he’d have a four-year-old career, taking in races in the Middle East, England and maybe back here for the 2025 Breeders’ Cup Classic that will be here at Del Mar again. That would help American racing.
If he comes in, wins, sweeps the prize and goes off to stud, it won’t move the needle. There’s a College Football game on Saturday when the number three ranked team in the country plays the number four and this will have a hell of a time competing with that.
The sporting landscape in the United States is such that this event will be hurt by College Football like it is every year. From a racing standpoint, we’ve got to used to Flat horses having six, eight, 10 race careers and that’s a shame.
Todd Pletcher’s Fierceness has been the dominant three-year-old, other than in the Kentucky Derby, and I like him for the win. He won the Florida Derby by 13 lengths and he also won the two big races at Saratoga, the Jim Dandy and the Travers. He’s handy and will be tough to beat from post nine, I think he wins the race.
I like Japan’s Forever Young in one of the first two spots. I thought his trial race was really good even though it was a simple trial. I don’t think his Kentucky Derby third is reflective of the way he wants to run, I think he wants to be closer to the front. He’ll also have to deal with the kickback from the inside post.
Those are two I would pick in front of City Of Troy who I think will get third. I do think he’ll be over bet. He looks bonkers low with the English bookmakers at around 5/4.
I wouldn’t leave him out of any exotics though. You have to respect him. I might not lean too heavily on him in certain exactas and trifectas, you’d have to use him the Pick 3, but you wouldn’t single him, I’ll spread him with the others.
My best bet at the Breeders’ Cup is THOUGHT PROCESS in Friday’s Juvenile Fillies’ Turf. The trophy stays in the United States and the first time it comes to California. Course and distance winner twice. Won at Santa Anita in a Grade 3 going a mile.
Of course, we respect Lake Victoria. But Aidan has only won the race once, two years ago with Meditate, and he has a poor record in it otherwise. Americans have won nine of the last 10, always New York and Kentucky states, that can change.
The shortest-priced favourite I think will win is COGBURN in the Turf Sprint. He’ll be hard to beat. He’s so raw, he’ll just go. He’ll go 21 or 21.2 seconds to the opening quarter. I’d say he’s quicker and a better sprinter than Golden Pal.
Del Mar Racetrack, 8.10am, three days to the Breeders’ Cup Classic and a date with destiny for City Of Troy and Ryan Moore. The son of Justify canters his way onto the main track, gleaming as the sun comes up.
Another stone is unturned. The Del Mar starting gates. Aidan O’Brien likes what he sees as City Of Troy breaks smoothly under work rider Rachel Richardson. Job done. Everyone is talking about the first furlong, the first 14 seconds and the importance of early position. But Aidan is going granular, with plenty of thought going into the first two seconds of the Classic.
Races aren’t won in such a small fraction of time, but they can be lost.
Indeed, City Of Troy’s only defeat, in the QIPCO 2000 Guineas back in May, was put down to him getting his heartrate up in the stalls. Back then, O’Brien spoke of not looking under a stone. In the San Diego sunshine, he’s peering under every pebble.
With Troy back in his barn, O’Brien looks relaxed and he starts talking about the differences between American and European starting stalls.
“They look bigger,” he says, widening the gap between his hands. “But when you get inside them they’re not bigger. The sides come closer than our gates do, so horses go into them because they think they’re bigger and then they feel a little more claustrophobic.
“Because everything is to be sharp and quick the feel has to be closer, the sides are closer the gates are closer, so the reaction has to be quicker. In our part of the world the gates are wider, there’s nothing touching them and everything is that fraction slower.
“If you want to make something happen and energy to flow then you get close. Everything sharpens up and that’s the way the American gates are, so they get used to that feel. They feel every vibration when they’re in there and they just come alive.
“That’s the main difference in the gates, really. Then it’s an impulse, they have to jump on impulse, if they think about it, it’s too slow. It’s got to be a reaction when them gates open.”
City Of Troy looked a bit sweaty on Tuesday – “you want them to sweat, sweat is good,” O’Brien says – but after going through the starting stalls he looked relaxed and fully at home as he pranced his way back to the stables.
“He’s really coming alive,” O’Brien went on. “He was very alert at the track this morning and he’s wanting to go forward. He went in the stalls and he was very good. We think we’ve a nice draw and he seems very well.
“We’ve slowly learnt that they have to be quick immediately and then slow down and relax. The quick work is done and we’re just finishing them off by getting them to chill a little bit.
“It’ll have to be a big help [breaking well from the stalls], obviously Ryan can’t do anything about that. Hopefully he won’t miss a beat and he lands where he wants to be, it’s our job to prepare him and Ryan’s job to ride him.”
Finally, I ask O’Brien about the 17 defeats he’s had in the Classic and what he’s done differently with City Of Troy.
He said: “Every time we have a runner we learn from our mistakes, we think, and we keep tweaking a little bit, we work on the stalls and lots of stuff. Each time is an experience and if you can remember your experiences gone by, some time, when you find the right horse and everything goes right you hope that it might happen.
“We’ve enjoyed the journey, hopefully we’ll enjoy the race and everything will go well.”
The meticulous preparation continues. Win, lose or draw come Saturday, it’s hard to think of a stone O’Brien hasn’t looked under in his quest to finally conquer the Breeders’ Cup Classic.
Oisin Murphy: “I do. I think he is a relentless galloper. If they go very fast I think he can probably finish off and if he can get himself on the speed it could be very smooth for him. The most important thing in Ryan’s mind will be to break well and get a good beginning and everything should be pretty straightforward after that. They tend to be well spaced out and if he gets that good beginning he’ll have the speed to travel.”
Frankie Dettori: “I was asked this yesterday, I really don’t know. He is the best horse in Europe, we know that without a doubt. But it depends how he breaks, whether he takes to the kick back. I am not going to speculate. It is not my ride and it’s not my horse. But I am interested to see how he goes. Everyone has got an opinion. I’m as curious as everyone watching. He is bringing something exciting to the race.”
John Gosden: “I talked to Aidan about it at York. You get a good run up the straight before the first bend – I won the mile and quarter race here that used to be called the Del Mar Handicap – and if you’re down on the inside you’ve got to break alertly because if they come across and you get the kickback and that’s the problem, the kickback is the thing. A horse like that if you get a clear run to the first bend and he was travelling well then I doubt they’d catch him. I think he would outclass them. But from where he’s drawn it’s a matter of how alertly he jumps.”
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We’ll have insight from Oisin Murphy, Aidan O’Brien, Charlie Appleby and more, tips from our man in Del Mar, Ben Linfoot, and plenty of additional coverage of the Breeders’ Cup.
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The City Of Troy gilets have had an upgrade. Aidan O’Brien means business in dark sunglasses and American Pharoah baseball cap. City Of Troy leads out the Ballydoyle battalion in California as he stretches his legs for the first time at Del Mar.
Joseph O’Brien is in attendance but has no Troy gilet. Aidan and Ryan Moore both sport them proudly as the son of Justify does a couple of gentle canters on the dirt track under Rachel Richardson. Everyone seems happy. He’s moving well. A little sweat around the neck appears to be of no concern.
Aidan stops for a chat. “He’s good, he just did a gentle canter around, Alan led him, Rachel rode him and everyone seemed very happy.”
But the draw in three in the Breeders’ Cup Classic is a quandary. It appears good on paper but if you’re slow from there and the American horses out wider – Fierceness is drawn in 10 – get out and on the sharp end, it could be game over very quickly.
Yet O’Brien is adamant their tactics will be to fight fire with fire and a prominent early sit looks absolutely key to City Of Troy’s chance.
“I think we’re happy [with the draw],” O’Brien went on. “Obviously there’s no secret that City will go forward and see where that will be and Ryan will decide from there.
“We think we’ve done everything we can, he went to York and went forward, he went to Southwell and the pace was much stronger than it was at York.
“Everything is done. We think we have looked under every stone we can but obviously a day at the races what happens is there’s sometimes a stone we didn’t look under. We think we’ve done as much as we can, we will see what happens and Ryan can make his own mind up.”
The first furlong isn’t the only question mark facing City Of Troy. A champion on turf in Europe, this is his first ever go racing on the dirt.
His pedigree offers great hope. By Justify, a Triple Crown winner, who was by Scat Daddy, a dual Grade 1 winner on dirt, who was by Johannesburg, who won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile on dirt for O’Brien at Belmont Park 23 years and two days ago.
It’s a bloodline that O’Brien is pinning his faith in.
“That was the dream when the boss went and got Justify, we didn’t think we’d get him but we got him, and it’s the dream to have a horse that can do grass and dirt.
“It makes it very exciting for us. We thought Justify was just the most incredible horse to do what he did at three, a Triple Crown winner having not raced at two, incredible.
“We think City has a lot of his qualities and obviously he’s out of a great Galileo mare as well.
“This is the most fierce race that any thoroughbred can be tested in and obviously he’s only a three-year-old.
“The Classics are the ultimate test early on and the Classic is the ultimate test at the end of the year. That’s what the Classics are there for, they have to have speed, stamina, and he’s done that.
“He’s been trained very hard for the Classics through the summer and then he’s come here on a different continent, different ground, different surface, race and pace, there’s so many different things.”
The countdown is on, four days to go. A simple leg stretch for City Of Troy on track each morning this week, each one likely garnering more interest than the last.
“He’s going to canter four days out here, he’s an awful lot to overcome but what gives us hope is we think he’s the best horse we’ve ever had and we have had horses that ran very well in it before. Ryan is vastly experienced. It’s a dream, dreams don’t always come true, but we are happy with where we are at the moment and we don’t think we could’ve done anymore.”
There it is again. A reiteration of the ‘best horse we’ve ever had’. The faith is unwavering, the confidence infectious. We’re getting to the stage where O’Brien has done all he can. The rest is up to Moore and Troy, in what could be the swansong of all swansongs.
Combining Sporting Life’s instinctive eye for profit with Timeform’s unrivalled racing data and analysis, Sporting Life Plus is now available to all logged-in readers.
To access all the content on these pages, readers simply have to log in to the Sporting Life website and click on the Sporting Life Plus icon at the top of the Racing page.
If you’re yet to create an account, you can sign up for FREE and gain access not only to the Sporting Life Plus features and cards, but also some exclusive content throughout a huge week in racing.
We’ll have insight from Oisin Murphy, Aidan O’Brien, Charlie Appleby and more, tips from our man in Del Mar, Ben Linfoot, and plenty of additional coverage of the Breeders’ Cup.
In addition, you can use the same log-in details to access ITV7, Super6, and Sky Bet.
2023 (Santa Anita): Auguste Rodin, Inspiral, Master Of The Seas, Unquestionable, Big Evs
2022 (Keeneland): Meditate, Mischief Magic, Victoria Road, Tuesday, Modern Games, Rebel’s Romance
2021 (Del Mar): Modern Games, Space Blues, Yibir
2020 (Keeneland): Glass Slippers, Audarya, Order Of Australia, Tarnawa
2019 (Santa Anita): Iridessa
2018 (Churchill Downs): Line Of Duty, Expert Eye, Enable
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