Monday Musings: It’s Coolmore’s Classic, but not as we thought…

How fitting. City of Troy does have an Achilles (Ancient Greek hero of the Trojan wars) heel, writes Tony Stafford. Not an arrow shot from a bow out of the packed stands at Del Mar on Saturday night, just a different surface and a slow exit that consigned him to being the latest non-winner for Ballydoyle of the Breeders’ Cup Classic.

It had been in the expectation of watching City Of Troy win the 2000 Guineas – he didn’t, of course – that Michael Tabor stayed in Europe on the first Saturday in May when he previously insisted he would always go to Kentucky in preference to Newmarket if the boys had an authentic contender for the Run for the Roses.

He changed that life choice this year such was the confidence emanating from the Aidan O’Brien camp, just as he had a few weeks earlier. Then, he made a first-ever trip to Dubai for the Sheema Classic where the 2023 Derby winner Auguste Rodin had one of those off-days that sprinkle his card.

The Coolmore team had two big chances in the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs – one in their name, Sierra Leone, carrying the dark  blue of John Magnier, and also Fierceness, the favourite, who although owned by Mike Repole’s stable, the Coolmore team had acquired some of the racing and more importantly breeding interests, just as they had their two Triple Crown-winning stallions American Pharoah and Justify towards the end of their racing careers.

The pair were fancied to complete the 1-2 in Kentucky and Sierra Leone surely should have won in front of Derrick Smith, one of the partners, had he kept at all straight rather than doing his imitation of a naughty schoolboy.

Three noses crossed the line in concert, and it was indeed by a nose that outsider Mystik Dan held on while Japan’s Forever Young was the same distance away in a regularly impeded third place. Most people thought the second and third places should have been reversed. Fierceness, the 2023 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner, was a non-competitive 15th with no apparent excuse.

In between May and November, Sierra Leone had been beaten three times, albeit close up in the places in Grade 1 races at Saratoga: not his track, said trainer Chad Brown. Fierceness won two of those races, the Jim Dandy in July and the Travers in August, for Todd Pletcher to lay claim to being the best of the Classic crop.

On Saturday, half a dozen or so horses went off in a group at a suicidal pace in what was the fastest first half-mile ever for a Breeders’ Cup Classic. Fierceness sat just behind the front rank, while Sierra Leone was for a while almost dancing step by step with City Of Troy.

The Irish challenger in the first Magnier silks merely plodded along, but Sierra Leone in the vibrant pink second livery made rapid ground. Fierceness, with the utmost gallantry, led three furlongs from home as his fellow front-runners ran out of puff, and turned into the stretch in front; but his old adversary was full of running and won readily. Fierceness deserves the utmost respect for keeping on for second.

The Breeders’ Cup Classic has been something of a Holy Grail for O’Brien and his owners, and he and the team will have to brush themselves down and revert to winning the big races in Europe. Not that he’s a mug at this meeting, two winners on Friday propelling him to 20 and the equal of almost but not quite retired D Wayne Lukas whose Kentucky Derby win for Michael Tabor in 1995 with Thunder Gulch was the catalyst that helped forge the alliance with John Magnier.

Those two nice wins on Friday, with Lake Victoria in the Juvenile Fillies Turf over a mile and the Juvenile Turf for colts and geldings at the same trip with Henri Matisse, both owed plenty to Ryan Moore’s coolness under pressure. Lake Victoria could easily have been a victim of the inevitable first bend crowding around this tight turf course as she got knocked back a worrying few lengths.

Patient as ever, Moore bided his time and burst through to lead in the closing stages. The filly showed that the mile of the 1000 Guineas next year will not worry her. In between the seven-furlong Moyglare and Friday, she outclassed the opposition when dropping to six furlongs for the Cheveley Park Stakes at Newmarket. Probably the only thing to stop her will be another of the O’Brien fillies, like for instance Fairy Godmother, who hasn’t been seen since Royal Ascot.

That marvellous Friday was the filling between two less agreeable moments for Aidan. While preparing his Del Mar team, 19 hours further forward on the international time scale, over in Australia the veterinary panel adjudicating on which horses should pass fit to run in tomorrow’s Melbourne Cup, ruled that the unbeaten Jan Breughel could not.

Jan Breughel last raced in the St Leger, beating fellow O’Brien Galileo colt Illinois, when still looking to have a fair bit to learn about racing. As Hughie Morrison can testify when a similar pre-race fate befell his 2018 runner-up Marmelo in preparation for the 2019 renewal, it was a crushing setback.

As was the case last week, Hughie’s vets totally disagreed with the verdict, but there is no recourse. Aidan was visibly fuming and while the Coolmore coffers can withstand the odd reverse of this kind, it’s no less galling than for a team like Morrison’s with the cost of sending horse and staff and keeping them there for several weeks being so excessive.

The man wheeled out to explain the situation was none other than Jamie Stier, the head of the temporary Australianising of the BHA at the end of the last decade. Few mourned his departure from our shores, but beware, he’s still very much out there helping to run Racing Victoria. One horse happily that did pass the scanners and “gait-evaluators” is Brian Ellison’s Onesmoothoperator, winner of the Northumberland Plate and now the Geelong Cup last week which entails 2lb extra in the Melbourne Cup. I’d love him to win the £2.35 million and I’m sure Brian will still talk to everyone if he does!

The worst moment for me of the weekend was to hear than Brian Meehan’s Jayarebe had collapsed and died after sustaining a heart attack while finishing what must have been an ultra-brave seventh place in the Turf race that immediately preceded the Classic.

Brian had plotted a masterful programme for the three-year-old, winning three of his five races and looked to have an exceptional chance. He ran an usually sluggish race, starting slowly and never getting close to the front, which became wholly understandable in the awful circumstances.

In a year when his stock has gone a long way towards where it was at the time of his two previous Breeders’ Cup Turf wins with Red Rocks and Dangerous Midge, this will be a tough blow for Brian to overcome. Let’s hope the new intake Sam Sangster acquired for the various syndicates he manages will bring another star for Meehan to work his magic on.

Talking of magic, it’s hard to believe that it’s coming up to 30 years since Kim Bailey pulled off the Gold Cup (Master Oats) and Champion Hurdle (Alderbrook) double in 1995. Kim continues to show a sure touch especially with his training of staying chasers and at Ascot on Saturday, he brought out second-season chaser Chianti Classico to win his comeback race, the Sodexho Live! Gold Cup with a pillar-to-post victory off top weight,

It's strange not to see the bustling style of David Bass on the Bailey horses but Tom Bellamy seems to have the regular gig now. He's much more a "let the horse do the work"-type pilot and it's looking good and working well so far.

Once Chianti Classico settled in the lead it was almost like a flashback to a few years back in the same race when Vindication came back from a break to win this nice prize. At age seven, Chianti Classico is the perfect profile of a Coral Gold Cup (Hennessy etc) winner at Newbury next month.

-        TS

Other Recent Posts by This Author:

• Monday Musings: Superpowers
• Monday Musings: Blank
• Monday Musings: Ritual
• Monday Musings: A Little Bit of Politics
• Monday Musings: Sistina’s Aussie Fortunes