Tag Archive for: Aidan O’Brien

Monday Musings: If you build it…

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Autumn was already setting in on the second Sunday of October last year when the Curragh staged the Paddy Power Irish Cesarewitch, a long-established two-mile handicap, writes Tony Stafford. The race was billed as a Premier Handicap, and it attracted the customary full field of 30, with reserves on the day not getting a run.

The race was won by Line Out, a 79-rated home-bred nine-year-old of the Lillingston Family’s. The victory would have been greeted with many a fond memory of the late Alan, the family fountainhead, whose son Luke and daughter Georgina (formerly Bell) are still very much to be seen around the racecourses and major sales in Ireland and the UK.

Worth £47,200, or its Euro equivalent to the winner last year, it was staged as usual the day after its big Newmarket brother. That race has had multiple name changes over the years, a process that has accelerated more in recent times, just as the prize money on offer has also fluctuated. On that point UK trainers might be entitled to say “alarmingly”, but none of them in any case has found it easy to deprive the Willie Mullins jumpers of their annual winner’s prize when he lines up his squadron of class jumpers every October.

Nicky Henderson managed it last year when the one-time Hughie Morrison grey eight-year-old gelding Buzz with Oisin Murphy (remember him?) galloped past Mullins’ mare Burning Victory, the rest toiling. Mullins had won the three previous editions while Roger Charlton and Morrison had scooped the prize in the two years before that.

I digress. With 30 in last year’s Curragh field, in a race oft considered an afterthought for unsuccessful cross-Irish Sea challengers, or a second division for those that didn’t get in the HQ contest, the truth was probably somewhere in between. True, the relative prize was a clue, but so were the ratings.

Only two of 30 to take part in the Irish Cesarewitch last year were rated 100 or higher. In the Newmarket line-up of 32 the previous day, nine were rated 100 or above.

I promised a look at the recent administrative history of the race, so here goes. In 2017, the last year of a long period of various bookmaking alliances with the race, Betfred carried the banner, and the race was worth £155k to the winning horse. He was Withhold, trained by Roger Charlton for Tony Bloom, chairman of Brighton FC.

The following year, amid the heady atmosphere of the BHA promise of vastly increased support for top staying handicaps, a £1 million Ebor was mooted, though never actually realised. In that context we still had the Dubai £500,000 Cesarewitch in 2018 and the almost unimaginable £307,250 to the Mullins winner Low Sun, was gratefully received by all concerned.

In 2019, though not quite in the half-million bracket, the Emirates Cesarewitch still carried a £217,000 prize for another Willie Mullins hurdler of repute, the classy Stratum landing another nice touch in the race for Bloom, this time at 25-1.

Then came Covid and two major drops in funding as Together For Racing International lent their apparently worthy, if a shade unwieldy, title to the name of the second half of the Autumn Double, as those old-timers still regard it. I’ll tell you in a minute why I should still have been in there with a chance bar Saturday’s bad luck!

But back to money. In the circumstances, to pull up a first prize of £124k to reward the 2020 heroine, Mullins’ Great White Shark, was to be applauded following Covid’s savage interference with the first half of that racing season. To manage only four grand more for last year was less meritorious.

When what remains of only 53 entries in the race on Saturday week turns up on Newmarket Heath, there could be a rare instance of the great race not filling. Newmarket takes a maximum field of 32 – but if they did away with stalls for that one race the track could accommodate the entire 53 comfortably. It was a shock, though, that the Club Godolphin Cesarewitch, by which name it now exists, is worth only £103,000 to this year’s winner, barely a third of what was available just four years ago. It does not seem anywhere near good enough.

Hopefully the much publicised, and subsequently de-anonymised in terms of participants, two days of urgent talks between key industry people in London last week trying to solve racing’s ills will eventually bring some optimism to the sport. I can’t wait for developments. Maybe Matt Chapman can organise a Masked Delegate competition for next weekend’s televising.

Now though I return to the Irish Cesarewitch, because a seismic shift has occurred where that two-mile Premier handicap of 30 runners on the Curragh is concerned. In 2022 it is all of those things, but rather than wait until after its Newmarket senior member has been contested, the now Friends Of The Curragh Irish Cesarewitch took place yesterday with a new €500,000 total fund and with €324,000 to the winner – making it seven times more valuable than in 2021.

Last year, Mullins and Joseph O’Brien each managed to dredge up five candidates from their middle-ranking handicappers for the race and Aidan also sent a couple of his own. Yesterday’s race, however, was a beast of a totally different colour. To understand the transformation in quality, where there were two last year rated 100 or more, yesterday there were 16.

Having experienced the uncertainty many times that goes with waiting to find out if your horse gets in a race, I can imagine the conflicting emotions in the Racing Office at Ballydoyle as the declarations cut-off time approached. In the event, Aidan’s gamble to wait for the race with his three-year-old colt Waterville paid the ultimate dividend.

Waterville had won only once in five starts but, significantly, that was on the one occasion he tried two miles, in a handicap off 84 at Limerick in June. He had only one more run, finishing second in a 1m5f conditions race the following month. Since then, the gamble – of Truss/Kwarteng proportions – was whether the new mark of 99 was enough. When those declarations landed, he was last of 30 to get in the race. You guessed, yesterday he overcame his inexperience, as the 5-1 favourite under Wayne Lordan, to pick up the first prize in a tight finish.

Interestingly, for once the two Cesarewitch races are spaced conveniently. Aidan also entered Waterville, a son of Camelot out of a mare by stamina influence Hernando, in the newly-styled Club Godolphin Cesarewitch. I expect he will now send the now market leader to try to defy his penalty.

The identity of the trainers of the first 15 horses home yesterday was a lexicon of that country’s star handlers, apart from Jim Bolger, who has hardly bothered training stayers for many years.

In finishing order, it was Aidan O’Brien, Willie Mullins x 2, Joseph O’Brien, Dermot Weld, Joseph O’B again, Jessica Harrington, Joseph with the next four, then the sole interloper although a man from a great Irish racing family in the person of Richard Hughes, before a final one more each for Aidan and Joseph and then Ger Lyons. That merely covers the first half. The profile of many of the beaten horses fits them for either Newmarket or the Champion Stayers race at Ascot the following weekend.

I hinted at a frustrating Cambridgeshire. In all the years I tipped for the paper it was one of my most successful races and I loved to stand at the top of the old grandstand and peer down with the binoculars as they approached the last six furlongs while swelling from blobs to finite form.

Watching Dual Identity there yesterday, for much of that now screen-aided nine furlongs, was simply a blueprint for an imminent Cambridgeshire win, so easily was he going. In the Kennett Valley Thoroughbreds colours carried with distinction by Dual Identity’s older teammate Sir Busker in the William Knight stable, it seemed just a case of queueing up to collect as he bossed the much smaller far-side group.

Andrea Atzeni pulled him out quite a long way from home, and with no feasible competition nearby, had no option but to kick him on inside the last two furlongs as he sensed the stands group had the advantage.

While Dual Identity, after striking the front moved inexorably further and further clear of his toiling main rival, the solid block of stands runners was gradually generating the power of the pack. Just as victory looked assured, in the last 50 yards the last few strides brought first one, 25-1 shot Majestic, then on the line a second, Bell Rock, both with 5lb claimers, to head Dual Identity, even though he gave no sign of faltering.

The fascinating point, as ever, will be in the handicapping of the race. Will the BHA handicappers treat it as a single entity, raising the winner a little more than the second and third (by a nose)? Or, rather, will he regard this as two races and have sliding-scale assessments of merit according to relative position on the course?

If the normal standards are to be followed, Dual Identity could represent a handicap certainty next time out. Then again, I thought he was before Saturday having watched the film of Sandown. I told Ed Chamberlin after the race I thought Dual Identity was one of the unluckiest losers of a big handicap I can remember. Of course, that was to forget all those races when half the field on certain days at Ascot, Goodwood, Newmarket, Newbury or indeed Ayr and Doncaster need not have bothered turning up so unequal were ground conditions on either side of those courses!

I’ll be off on Saturday to Ascot to test whether Dusky Lord should have been better rewarded in terms of numbers by the various bodies assessing his brilliant win at Ayr two weeks prior. Roger Varian has him lined up for the Group 3 John Guest Racing Bengough Stakes over six furlongs. If he wins that, Jonathan and the rest of the Dusky Lord partnership will be in clover!

- TS

Monday Musings: Of Ryan, and Raiding Parties

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“It’s a long way to Tipperary”, the first world war British army recruits used to sing as they trudged along the blasted fields of France, writes Tony Stafford. More than a century later, Ryan Moore fitted in an afternoon there sandwiched in between two successful days in Surrey, with a winner apiece at Epsom and Sandown Park.

Tipperary also provided a victory for Aidan O’Brien on Thursday but when the private jet touched down for its second Irish hop for Navan on Saturday, the serious business began. It is, after all, Guineas week – yes April 30th rather than the first Saturday in May - and the barely started flat-race season will be two-fifths of the way through the 2022 Classic races by May Day.

If we needed a sign that O’Brien senior, like his main adversary for the first Classic, Charlie Appleby, has his team in form, then Navan would tell us. Before the meeting Ryan told a mutual friend that all the maidens would run well.

In the event Ryan got on three of O’Brien’s five winners, Aidan matching stay-at-home Paul Nicholls’ tally on the final day of yet another victorious jumps championship at Sandown. Understandably, Nicholls preferred saving his best horses for the two four-runner and one five-runner highly-priced (if not as highly-prized as the swollen jumps pattern would wish) contests largely free from Irish interference. *Note: If you would like a detailed, reasoned evocation of the negative effect on the sport of the ever-growing jumps pattern, read editor Matt Bisogno’s highly informed piece on the subject.

Where the Irish did challenge, in the £90k to the winner Bet365 Gold Cup (nee Whitbread), they mopped up the prize, via 16/1 shot Hewick, trained by Shark Hanlon. Why he, of the flaming ginger hair, should be called “Shark” remains a mystery to me.

Indeed why he alone should have that designation when so many of his compatriots make an equally skilled job of matching and bettering his exploits by turning equine base metal into gold is probably a case for the Monopolies Commission, assuming of course that his nickname was acquired from his training days. But then it sometimes feels like there are other aspects of Irish stables’ domination of the major British jumps prizes every season that need referring to that body. All else seems to be failing as this year’s early false dawn at Cheltenham soon reverted to the usual bloodbath for the home team.

As a domestic aperitif to their top teams’ coming over at the weekend to Newmarket, there is the small matter of Punchestown, five days starting tomorrow and concluding on the day the 2,000 Guineas welcomes Luxembourg from the Coolmore boys to challenge the two prime Godolphin candidates, red-hot favourite Native Trail and market second-best, Coroebus.

Coroebus’ style had many admirers on the day he and Native Trail both won their 2021 finales, the favourite in the Dewhurst and the back-up in a lesser race.

But Native Trail is the only unbeaten colt of the pair, a distinction shared by Luxembourg and just two others from the 24 that stood their ground before the field is whittled down once more at noon today. I dealt with the case of William Knight’s Checkandchallenge, winner of a deep race at Newcastle last weekend. Coincidentally the other unbeaten colt is also trained in Newmarket, in his case by David Simcock. He is Light Infantry, twice a winner last year, and like Checkandchallenge, a son of the deceased Fast Company.

At the time he was in training as a juvenile with Brian Meehan, Fast Company showed many of the attributes of a potential Classic winner, but after an excellent half-length second in the 2007 Dewhurst behind the following year’s Derby winner, New Approach, he never raced again.

I was a regular on Thursday work mornings at Manton in those days and it was a great disappointment to Brian when Fast Company was sold to Godolphin and sent to be trained by Saeed bin Suroor. If either of these relative longshots wins on Saturday it will be a long-awaited accolade for a horse that had been under-valued for all his stud career despite being in the care of Darley throughout.

In the manner of such things, now Fast Company’s son Checkandchallenge has inevitably been attracting interest from people who could more easily shrug off the disappointment of a below-expectation run in the race – be that fourth or eighth as anything better would be a triumph - than Mr Hetherton whose colours he has carried hitherto.

I recall a last-minute pre-Derby sale by Karl Burke around a decade ago that probably made all the difference financially to his training career which at the time looked to be stalling or probably worse. I hope this very smart, sweet-travelling colt does his owner (whoever he may be on the day) and his talented trainer proud.

I make no apology for interjecting here on the Nicholls plans for Punchestown this year which are miserly in the extreme. Nicholls has never been as enthusiastic a Punchestown challenger as Nicky Henderson – I travelled to see Punjabi at the meeting four years in a row for two wins, a nose second and a pulled up (wind).

At time of writing on Sunday afternoon, Clan Des Obeaux, the impressive Aintree winner, is ranged alongside Allaho, Minella Indo, Galvin and Al Boum Photo in Wednesday’s Punchestown Gold Cup. He is a 3-1 shot, a short-enough price for all the domination of Aintree if that quartet turns up.

The only other possible for the UK jumps champ is Monmiral, slated to take on the two wonderful mares Honeysuckle and Epatante, the latter another Aintree winner, in her case over further. With around €160K to the winner in each of a dozen Grade 1 races over the five days, you would think sending a horse with place chances might be worth the risk even for cautious Paul.

Yet tomorrow’s card, worth in all €735k, hasn’t attracted a single English, Welsh or Scottish challenger. It will be great to watch on Racing TV all week but with the wistful thought that surely things should be different.

Back in the Guineas, Camelot, by Montjeu rather than the more influential Galileo (both sons of Sadler’s Wells) but hardly his inferior in terms of producing Derby winners, is Luxembourg’s sire.

When asked about his abilities, Aidan O’Brien said he has superior speed to Camelot, a horse that just saw off French Fifteen in an epic battle for the 2,000 Guineas ten years ago. He followed up in the Derby and the much-sought third leg of the Triple Crown was denied O’Brien and son Joseph when Camelot lost the St Leger by three-quarters of a length to Encke, a horse trained by the subsequently disgraced Mahmood Al Zarooni for Godolphin.

That was Camelot’s first defeat after five successive wins and prevented the first English Triple Crown since Nijinsky graced the 1970 season for an earlier O’Brien – the revered Vincent.

It's always great when the champion two-year-old gravitates to winning the 2,000 Guineas and after his bloodless Craven Stakes return that is entirely possible. Charlie has the horse with the form, but Luxembourg has the Coolmore badge all over him, not just on the sire’s side, but the dam is by Danehill Dancer, a sprinter that ran in Michael Tabor’s colours but far exceeded his decent racing ability when sent to stud.

The mare Attire provides another major link to the glorious past of Ballydoyle. Ben Sangster, her owner-breeder, is of course a son of the late Robert Sangster whose inheritance from his Vernons Pools-owning father funded the domination of the international bloodstock market in the 1980’s and 90’s. Along with Vincent’s supreme training skills and the business acumen and animal husbandry of Vincent’s son-in-law, John Magnier, they were an unbeatable partnership for more than two decades.

I’m with Luxembourg to prove on Saturday that blood is thicker than form lines and take him and Ryan, not to mention Aidan and the Coolmore team, to beat Native Trail with the underdog Checkandchallenge coming from the pack late on to clinch third. Easy, really, this flat racing.

I have loved the 2021-22 jumps season as my little daily job editing fromthestables.com which involves sharing the thoughts of around 15 trainers, ended with a nice win in the William Hill Radio Naps table. The 2022 summer table started yesterday and we were off to a flier when Rogue Millennium won for Tom Clover at 9/2. Only seven months to go!

- TS

Monday Musings: Very Few Racing Certainties

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As a certain young tennis player showed the world last week, nothing is guaranteed in sport, writes Tony Stafford. Certainly, when Aidan O’Brien assembled the cavalry for their dual skirmishes around the Curragh and on the manicured lawns of Longchamp last weekend, he and the Coolmore owners were expecting more than a single winner.

Okay, so St Mark’s Basilica, forced out of York but now refreshed for the task in the Irish Champion Stakes at Leopardstown on Saturday, did see off the dual threat of top older mare Tarnawa and fellow multiple Group 1-winning three-year-old Poetic Flare, but that is pretty much where it ended.

True, Mother Earth should have won the Matron Stakes on the same day bar being pressed against the rail by 25-1 winner No Speak Alexander, whose rider forced Ryan Moore to ease her close home when short of room. It was only the intervention of second-placed Pearls Galore that prevented the 1,000 Guineas and Prix Rothschild winner from collecting a third Group 1 in the stewards’ room.

Luck in general was hardly on their side over the weekend. Innisfree, one of their best-backed horses at Leopardstown, was poised to collect in the Group 3 when going wrong and having to be pulled up by the same luckless pilot.

But when sending seven individual winners of Group 1 races during the current season for such an important two days’ racing not just in Ireland (Champions Weekend), but also in France (Arc Trials Day) and UK (Saturday’s St Leger), one may be forgiven for expecting at least a few of them to win.

The biggest shock of course was the ending of the explosive victory roll throughout the year of Snowfall, from unconsidered winner of the Musidora in May, through the record-making 18-length romp in the Oaks, nine-length demolition in the Irish version, and latterly a more measured four in York.

Cynics said divide it again and make it two but rather than a multiplying factor, it was the linear reduction that applied. Go from nine to four, take off another five, and you get a first defeat. Teona, third at York and a 28-length disappointment in tenth at Epsom, opted out of the Curragh and a return to the Knavesmire, instead restoring her reputation in a Windsor Listed race. Roger Varian had her primed and the resulting one and a half length (that’s the linear version working to a nicety!) put the 1-5 shot in her place.

The tell-tale stat, as if we needed to illustrate further the law of diminishing Snowfall returns, was the location of La Joconde, a daughter of Frankel and part of the regular team of maids of honour attending the queen on her perambulations around Europe.

La Joconde, a 40-1 shot at Epsom, was 11th of 14 there, beaten 34 lengths. At the Curragh, having first stopped off at Roscommon to break her maiden, she was again 40/1 when sixth, beaten 20 lengths, and the gulf contracted to just under seven lengths at York. Yesterday La Joconde, 44-1 under Hollie Doyle, was only half a length behind her principal in third, so some nice black type for her – well, they needed something on which to reflect favourably!

The Frankie Dettori magic on O’Brien horses – often getting on the Ryan Moore discards – didn’t extend to Doncaster on Saturday, either. With the stable number one in Ireland, Frankie had his first experience of riding one-time Derby favourite High Definition in the St Leger but true to form this disappointing animal proved worst of the quartet from Ballydoyle beating only one home.

The Mediterranean (28/1) in third and Hollie Doyle-ridden Interpretation (shortest of the quartet at 8-1) in fourth did as well as could be expected as Irish Derby winner Hurricane Lane continued his upward climb for William Buick and Charlie Appleby. Mojo Star, second in the Derby to Adayar and unlucky-in-running in Ireland, ran a big race again but was no match for the winner who is right up there at the top of the tree.

High Definition had been favourite for all three earlier starts, but now the plug had been properly pulled and he was relatively friendless at 14’s. In all honesty he should have been double those odds but highly-held reputations earned on the Ballydoyle gallops are not easily relinquished, especially among the bookmakers.

Reappearing at York in May after an interrupted preparation he was a rusty third behind Hurricane Lane in the Dante. Yet there he was next time at the Curragh, again favourite, this time for the Irish Derby, and you could hardly have imagined a less enthusiastic performance: always loitering at the back while Hurricane Lane was again doing their untroubled business while others, notably Mojo Star, were getting hung up in traffic.

The final straw ought to have been the Great Voltigeur back at York, the traditional St Leger trial, when again unbelievably favourite, he mooched into sixth of eight. He was a decent enough juvenile but the glitter has evaporated on the track in his Classic year. It happens to the best of trainers and even Aidan.

Talking of final straws, Hughie Morrison, spitting blood when Sonnyboyliston edged out his rallying Quickthorn for first prize in the Ebor, citing how well handicapped Johnny Murtagh’s horse had been, now has chapter and verse on his side as Murtagh’s stayer collected yesterday’s Irish St Leger. Rated 113, he got the better of 117-rated Twilight Payment to earn the greater part of €300k more to swell his month’s earnings to half a million, Raducanu proportions almost!

Quickthorn beat the 2020 St Leger runner-up Berkshire Rocco, conceding him weight in a conditions race at Salisbury last week, proving much too good despite losing 20 lengths at the start. No doubt he’ll be giving weight to Murtagh’s horse next time!

Appleby and Buick again had the wood on O’Brien and Moore at the Curragh yesterday in the National Stakes when Native Trail saw off Point Lonsdale in a clash of two unbeaten colts. Both had gone through the ring at Tattersalls: Point Lonsdale, by Australia, at the yearling sales when a 575,000gns purchase by MV Magnier. His four wins in a row – a maiden, Listed, Group 3 and Group 2, all with comfort – explained the 8/13 starting price.

But Native Trail, a 210,000gns acquisition from the Craven Breeze-ups this year, had won two, with a narrow success in the Group 2 Superlative Stakes at the July meeting at his home course, suggesting better to come. So it proved, Native Trail overturning the favourite after a short, sharp tussle. He must have moved right to the top of the two-year-old rankings after that.

Hard as the high-profile defeats had been, it must have been even more disappointing that Love and Broome, back in Group 2 company having both added in numerical terms to their top-level success – Love’s Ascot victory had been a little palled by two subsequent third places, admittedly in the King George and Juddmonte – could not convert the lower-level opportunities.

Broome had won the Group 1 Prix de Saint-Cloud but a return to France for his Arc Trial in the Prix Foy proved a disappointment as the Japanese Deep Bond made all in this full dress rehearsal for four-year-olds and up. Anyone fancying a bet on the big race next month would be well served placing a bet on course on the PMU as the hordes of supporters of the Japanese horses always distort even markets on world pool races.

Love’s defeat came from an unlikely source. When my friend Nicolas Clement bought a filly by Derby-winning Galileo stallion Ruler Of The World for Jonathan Barnett he paid the princely sum of €21,000 (his budget was €40k!). Clement has been adamant all along that she is the most promising of his fillies for next year and expects her to make a debut late next month. His reasoning was that Ruler Of The World is a vastly underrated sire.

As the result of yesterday’s Group 2 Blandford Stakes is digested it will show that La Petite Coco was winning for the fourth time in five starts for Paddy Twomey. She got up in the last stride to deny Love, with the third horse three lengths away. Already rated 110, La Petite Coco looks one to follow.

She has been the joint most productive filly by her sire in Ireland, from only a small representation, as he is based in France. Pineapple Express, trained and ridden by father and son Andrew Slattery (x2), was beaten a neck in the 23-runner finale handicap there yesterday. That made in four wins and three seconds in ten 2021 outings for her. I can’t wait to see Jonathan’s filly on the track.

**

In other news, it will hopefully be off to Yarmouth this week, either Wednesday or Thursday, for the three-year-old Dusky Lord, in whom Barnett is a partner along with Theona’s trainer, Roger Varian. I expect Roger to be in a decent mood when I speak to him before the race.

One very sad note was the death of Andy Stewart, owner of Big Buck’s and so many great jumpers, starting with Cenkos, over the past three decades. I knew him from even before he set up the company of that name with which he made his fortune.

We first met when he worked with investment bankers Singer & Friedlander, sponsors of a big chase every year at Uttoxeter. He liked to talk about his team of greyhounds at Hove stadium, with little thought of moving up into horses. That he did and with Paul Nicholls too was a joy for so many, especially the way in which he embraced horse racing and how graciously he treated everyone he met.

  • TS

Monday Musings: The Middle Distance Ranks Are Massing

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Until Wednesday evening in Paris it was all plain sailing for Aidan O’Brien, writes Tony Stafford. He could pick his Group 1 spots for the rest of the year with his team of Classic colts and more plentiful top fillies and wait to see what presumably ineffectual opposition Europe’s other major stables would be able to throw at them.

But then along came Hurricane Lane, only third to lesser-fancied stable-companion Adayar in the Derby at Epsom but subsequently a workmanlike winner in the face of a good late challenge by English-trained Lone Eagle (Martin Meade) in the Irish Derby at The Curragh.

Neither run could have prepared us for the Frankel colt’s storming performance on Bastille Day (14 July) as he ripped away the home team’s barricades <couldn’t help myself> beating the Prix du Jockey Club also-rans with possibly more ease than St Mark’s Basilica had managed a month earlier.

Die-hard traditionalists have already been put in their place in France. In the old days the Jockey Club was 2400 metres (12 furlongs) in line with Epsom and The Curragh and was reduced to its present distance of 2100 metres in 2005.

That move coincided with the moving up to a mile and a half of the great Fête Nationale celebration race on a movable feast of an evening card at Longchamp. The Grand Prix de Paris, until the arrival of the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in 1920, had been the most prestigious and valuable race in France and was run over 3000 metres (15 furlongs), and even 3100 metres for a shorter intervening period.

In 1987, though, it was reduced significantly in distance to 2000 metres (1m2f) and it was at that trip that Saumarez won the 1990 race prior to his victory in the Arc that October. Previously trained to place in the Dee Stakes at Chester by Henry Cecil, Saumarez made Nicolas Clement, who had recently taken over the stable when his father Miguel died, the youngest-ever trainer to win France’s greatest race.

It works for France because, as Hurricane Lane showed so eloquently, a horse could run in and even win either or both the Epsom and Irish Derby, or indeed the Jockey Club, and there would still be time to prepare him for the Grand Prix.

That is just what Charlie Appleby did with such skill and the most notable element of it was how much he had in hand of the William Haggas colt Alenquer whose form with Adayer in the Sandown Classic Trial over ten furlongs in the spring appeared to give him a collateral edge on Hurricane Lane.

Alenquer not only beat Adayer on the Esher slopes but afterwards comfortably won the King Edward VII Stakes at Royal Ascot. But he was put in his place as Hurricane Lane stormed <that verb again!> six lengths clear of Wordsworth, first home of the O’Brien trio. It looked at first appraisal a major improvement on The Curragh but closer inspection reveals that Wordsworth had been beaten slightly further in his home Classic.

So where does that leave Adayer? Well, according to a conversation Charlie Appleby had with a friend who visited his luxurious stables in Newmarket before racing on Saturday, Adayer is fancied to run a very strong race as he faces up to last year’s O’Brien Classic superstar, Love, in Saturday’s King George.

The filly has the edge in the market after her comeback win over an inadequate ten furlongs in the Prince Of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot but Appleby, mindful that the weight-for-age scale favours three-year-olds, is by all accounts confident he will do so. Love concedes 8lb to the Derby hero while William Muir and Chris Grassick’s Coronation Cup hero Pyledriver gives him 11lb. Ascot is also the probable target for Lone Eagle.

Like O’Brien, Appleby is a modest man who often deflects praise to the people around him. Indeed as my friend left, Charlie said, “If you couldn’t train horses from here, where could you?”

Guesses that maybe St Mark’s Basilica might step up in distance on Saturday have been scuppered by his trainer’s single-mindedly pointing him towards the Juddmonte International. Those three days in York next month will also feature the next step towards the stars of Snowfall, following in the footprints of Love from a year ago by taking in the Yorkshire Oaks.

By the way, Jim, get my room ready! I’ll see how my first day back racing on Saturday at Ascot goes and then I might take the liberty of giving you a call. Where have I been? Too busy with all this Covid lark, mate, but I have been thinking of you!

However short a price Love was on what was to prove her last run of 2020 after the easy wins in the 1,000 Guineas and Oaks, the latter by nine lengths, 4-9 will be looking a gift if that is available about Snowfall. Could be 1-5!

Many felt the exaggerated superiority, indeed a UK Classic record-winning margin of 16 lengths, could in part be ascribed to the very testing ground at Epsom. Just as many were predicting that on faster ground in Saturday’s Irish Oaks she might go for economy.

Leading two furlongs out under Ryan Moore, delighted to be riding her for only the second time – he was on board for the shock Musidora win at York on May 12 three weeks before Epsom and that Frankie Dettori benefit – she drew away by eight-and-a-half lengths in majestic style.

As we know, the Coolmore boys like all the boxes ticked and the opportunities covered, but I can categorically tell you that they did not expect her to win at York. Even when she did, the beaten horses’ connections were dreaming up reasons why you could not trust the result.

After all she was rated only a modest 90 on the back of her juvenile exploits, the most memorable apart from winning a small maiden race was the mix up when she wore the wrong colour hat when well behind in the Fillies’ Mile at Newmarket last autumn.

After the Epsom and Curragh regal processions there is only one place you would consider for a soft-ground loving but equally comfortable on quicker turf three-year-old filly of her status - the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe. It took me a while – having discarded my European Pattern Races 2021 book with hundreds of others in advance of a hoped-for downsizing move – to work out why she had not been one of the dozen O’Brien horses entered for the Arc.

Six older male horses – Mogul, Broome, Armory, Serpentine, Japan and Inisfree (where’s he been for 20 months?) – are supplemented by Love. The five three-year-olds are the colts St Mark’s Basilica, along with domestic Classic flops Bolshoi Ballet, High Definition and hard-working Van Gogh whose dance in four Classics (the UK and Irish Guineas, when third behind Mac Swiney, and French and Irish Derby) brought that one positive result.

That left room for one filly and, considering Santa Barbara took until last week to gain Grade 1 winning honours in the New York Oaks while four of her supposedly inferior female counterparts beat her to it, the evidence is there. They did indeed think she was far and away the best.

At least that was the case until 3.15 p.m. on the afternoon of May 12. The Arc closed at France Galop’s HQ around four-and-three-quarter hours earlier.  Now they have to wait until September 27 to get her in and pay a heavy penalty to do so.

In all, 101 horses made it. I am sure that date is writ large on the Racing Office wall and, if she enjoys another exhibition round back at the Yorkshire track she first consented to tell her trainer and owners how good she is, the supplementary entry will be made. Chances to win the race do not come along very often.

For all his and his owners’ successes in big races around Europe and in the US, the Arc has proved elusive. Two victories, with four-year-olds Dylan Thomas in 2007 and the brilliant filly Found five years ago, leave him still with a blank to fill. No Ballydoyle three-year-old has won the race since the days of Vincent O’Brien, who took the first of his two Arcs with Alleged in 1977. His second win, doubling up for Lester Piggott the year after followed Ballymoss in 1958, showed once again just how tough a race it is to win.

As mentioned, two O’Brien fillies are entered, Love and Santa Barbara. The latter might continue to make up for her earlier limitations in the Nassau Stakes next week but, as we know, a trio of Classic-winning alternatives, Joan Of Arc, Mother Earth and Empress Josephine, are equally qualified to step in and possibly pick up the Goodwood fillies’ Group 1.

Meanwhile Kevin Ryan has been exploiting the early juvenile Group contests in France with Atomic Force. Beaten first time out and gelded before a win in a small race at Hamilton, Ryan took him to Longchamp last month and he won Group 3 Prix du Bois nicely.

Returning yesterday for the Group 2 Prix Robert Papin, he started 2-1 on and bolted up. He will probably return for the Prix Morny at Deauville next month. Having watched that win the Sky Sports Racing team suggested the Nunthorpe might be an option given how much weight juveniles get from their elders. This year though that could be a hot race if newcomers on the Group 1 sprinting scene like Ed Walker’s Starman and Tim Easterby’s flying filly Winter Power turn up.

- TS

Monday Musings: Boutique Classic

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The Arqana Arc sale, staged every eve of the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe at the company’s Saint-Cloud base, used to be a major source of excitement with several candidates due to run the next day, sometimes even in the big race itself, going through in a real boutique auction, writes Tony Stafford.

It was the model for the much more recent pre-Royal Ascot auction where many of UK racing’s great and good, and many over here from overseas for the week, would be wined and if-not dined, certainly canape’d to their hearts’ content in Kensington Palace Gardens with nary a horse to be seen.

Friends of mine got a great result a few years ago selling a decent handicapper for an embarrassingly-large amount. I hope his new owners were as satisfied in the longer scheme of things as his original partners but I very much doubt they were.

Last October 3, with Covid in full force throughout Europe, a slimmed-down catalogue of 27 horses went virtually “sous le marteau” – I used the translation for hammer as the French for “gavel” is, boringly, gavel, what a let-down!

With absentees, reserves not attained and simply horses unsold or bought back, only 11 changed hands.

Most of those were three-year-olds and in the 43-49 kg mark, translating to 86-108 in UK ratings. The highest price was the €975,000 for Virginia Joy, a German-trained filly that has been exported from France to the USA, and won an optional allowance claiming race last month at Belmont Park for her new owner, Peter Brant.

One oddity and the only obvious jumps prospect was the once-raced (placed third) AQPS gelding Hercule Point, bought for €270,000 by Dan Skelton. I think we should look out for this son of the top French jumps sire, Network.

Two of those sold had in fact performed at ParisLongchamp that afternoon on the first stage of the Arc meeting. Step By Step, a colt, was third in the Qatar Prix Chaudenay. He went for €320,000 and has not been sighted since being bought by Narvick International.

Until yesterday the only other subsequent winner from the batch was King Pacha, €100k worth of three-year-old colt that has been strutting his stuff in Qatar. First time there in January he was second in the Qatar Derby and after a lesser runner-up spot, won a 100 grand race before two later fifth places.

But then there was yesterday, and what was expected to be the second leg of an Aidan O’Brien/Coolmore double 35 minutes after St Mark’s Basilica won the French 2,000 Guineas – forget all that Poule D’Essai stuff!

St Mark’s Basilica was allowed to start at 4-1 in his first run since claiming top 2020 European colt honours having won last year’s Dewhurst. That choice of Classic for his comeback run shows that a fair bit of planning goes into those Ballydoyle Spring pack-shufflings  as St Mark’s Basilica is a son of the top French sire, Siyouni.

After this victory, leading French breeders will be unable to resist him when he goes to stud. A quick look through the list of Aidan’s 192 inmates in Horses In Training shows he is the only Siyouni in the yard. Of course he does have a family connection a few miles down the road at Coolmore stud, the home of Siyouni’s 2020 Arc winner, Sottsass.

It’s been rather long-winded but at last I’m there. Sottsass was trained by Jean-Claude Rouget and that most prolific of French trainers from his base in the west of France is always dangerous in the Classic races on home soil.

Yesterday he had a single runner pitted against Mother Earth and, while the O’Brien filly was anything but disgraced in finishing runner-up in another Classic so soon after Newmarket, she could not match Rouget’s outsider.

Coeursamba is a daughter of The Wow Signal, who raced only at two and won his first three races, including at Royal Ascot, for John Quinn but lost his unbeaten record in the Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere. He was the 7-4 favourite, but finished last of seven behind Gleneagles, the future 2,000 Guineas winner, and promptly retired to stud in France.

Coeursamba won only one of her six races at two, but did enough to earn a rating dead on 100. She dutifully took her place the next day in the Prix Marcel Boussac, and finished fifth to Tiger Tanaka, who was unplaced yesterday.  Then last autumn she had one more run, third behind Lullaby Moon, the Redcar Gold Trophy winner, another also-ran. Lullaby Moon now runs in the ever-more-recognisable Amo Racing colours.

That was one of many private and public deals that have bolstered the strength of Amo’s celebrity football agent, Kia Joorabchian.  A stream of juvenile first-time winners in his purple and white silks have been inevitably attracting attention and quickly propelling trainer George Boughey into the big time.

No doubt they will be going on a shopping spree this week when Arqana stage their breeze-up sale in Doncaster rather than Paris with the Covid recovery trailing behind the UK’s – touch wood and whistle, as Len Baily, brother of Spurs and England footballer Eddie used not only to say but perform with a modest trill.

I worked in Len and middle brother Charlie’s betting shop in Clarence Road, Lower Clapton, before leaving school and passed up an offer to take their partner Sid’s share when he retired – for free.  I’m clinging on to that sort of memory – Len’s whistle – for dear life, still wondering whether I should have been on the other side of the argument for the past 58 years!

Coeursamba, at €400,000 the second most expensive of those Arqana Arc sale graduates, might have started 66-1 but could have been mistaken for the favourite as she quickly asserted over Mother Earth.

Mr Joorabchian doesn’t show many signs that he is finished with his acquisitions. Rossa Ryan, a young jockey who is showing that the best way to go from mid-range to top-level rider is to get on good horses, revealed in a recent interview that his boss has a team of 85, more than 50 of them two-year-olds.

As I said, we’ve seen a few of them and good luck to Kia, a welcome incoming force just as two of the biggest players ever in the UK, Prince Khalid Abdullah and Hamdan Al-Maktoum, have left the scene. As the O’Learys are finding with the Gigginstown House hordes, it’s not easy to rationalise overnight, so I’m sure we’ll be seeing the Frankel and Nashwan colours for years to come until the two bosses’ successors decide on which way they will go with their massive operations.

One disappointment in the “1,000” was the running of King’s Harlequin in the Sam Sangster colours; but that Camelot filly has already far-outweighed her original purchase price of €30k, by Tina Rau and Nicolas Clement as a yearling.

It might not have been what connections had been hoping for yesterday as King’s Harlequin raced too freely and gradually dropped away. Sam, though, is continuing to show signs that he is a chip off the old block and in time could be winning big races in the manner of his father, the late Robert Sangster.

At Windsor on Monday Sam watched on from home as the four-year-old filly Beauty Stone came from last to first off her mark of 69 to win a fillies’ handicap over an extended 11 furlongs by just over six lengths.

A daughter of Australia she had three runs for Charlie Appleby in the Godolphin blue without making any impact. She was a 475,000gns yearling buy but cost only 5,500gns when Sam picked her up when culled at the February horses-in-training sale at Newmarket last year.

She had a busy 2020 when racing resumed winning a small race at the fifth attempt for trainer Tom Ward, chosen as he had been a school-friend of Sam’s brother Max, the youngest of the Sangster siblings.

To show just how good a choice that was, Beauty Stone was completing a hat-trick and winning for the fourth time in all at Windsor. Fancied in the morning, trainer and owner were constantly on the phone with Sam quizzing Tom as to why a filly which had won its last two races could still be available at 20-1 even though she’d been backed.

Making a final contact as the filly was being saddled, Sam asked the trainer: “Does she look big?” to which Tom replied: “Looking at her now, maybe?”  I wish I’d heard the story before rather than half an hour after the race, but with her nice pedigree, there’s no doubt that’s another Sangster steal. Sangster the Gangster is back! In a manner of speaking, of course .

 

Monday Musings: Irish Domination

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Where once there was meaningful rivalry, now there is renewed omnipotence. A picture spread through social media early this year of a grinning trainer talking on a mobile phone atop a dead horse has had even more effect than its horrified recipients throughout the horse world could have imagined, writes Tony Stafford.

Up until Cheltenham, the remnants of the Gordon Elliott stables, which had run 321 horses from the time jump racing resumed after the initial stopping through Covid19, was still punching most of its weight under the name if not the supreme control of Mrs Denise Foster.

Traditionally though, every late April/early May the Punchestown Festival has ended any wistful hope that the brash Elliott with his legion of major owners, most notably the O’Leary family’s Gigginstown House Stud, might finally gain a first Irish NH trainers’ championship.

Last week, respectable second place seemed a long way off, that eminence supplanted by the exploits of Henry De Bromhead, he of the surreal Champion Hurdle, Gold Cup and Grand National hat-trick over the previous six weeks.

But now we were in Willie Mullins territory and the week was just perfectly situated to welcome back the trainer’s previously stricken stable jockey. Paul Townend had seen his advantage over the challenging and seemingly unstoppable Rachael Blackmore slip to less than a handful of winners with seven days to go.

Mullins doesn’t do Cross-Country races, of which there are four over the five days of Punchestown, but he does do everything else. And how!

Eight races are staged each day, leaving 36 to go for. Mullins, with five on the opening day and never fewer than three on the four succeeding instalments, put together the unbelievable tally of 19 wins from the available 36 – so more than 50%. He did have 87 runners, very often multiple chances, then, and another 21 of his horses made the first four, that’s 40 win or placed. Place money at the meeting goes down to sixth and he had another ten of those, so altogether 50 in the money.

In all, Mullins’ runners brought back a total haul over the week of €1,470,950. For the season his 182 winners brought almost €5.5 million.

Elliott’s monetary reward for his 155 wins was €2,863,875 at the time of his suspension. Add to that Mrs Foster’s 16 victories in 205 runs from 135 of the Elliott horses was another €412,860.

But the magic which initially lingered after the paper – if not actual – change of control all but died last week. Mrs Foster’s 36 runners at Punchestown brought no wins, three second places, two thirds and a single fourth and a mere total of €52k. Nineteen of her runners either finished outside the first ten or failed to finish.

You would think that everyone associated with the Closutton steamroller would have been delighted, but what was probably the most spectacular of his victories, in terms of style of performance and the circumstances behind it, was a cause of regret for that horse’s connections.

When Mark Smith first moved to his present house in Essex 40 years ago the one-time Foreign Exchange trader met a neighbour who was soon to become his best friend. Mark owned Balasani, a horse that won the Stayers’ Hurdle for Martin Pipe at the Cheltenham Festival, and soon he and his friend, John Coleman, regularly went racing together.

Then a few years back John became gravely ill with cancer by which time he had bought Klassical Dream. Sadly he was never able to see the horse on the track – it raced in the name of his widow Joanne but was a family horse with his two sons and a nephew taking shares. They insisted that Mark should also accept a share.

It was bitter-sweet for the team when Klassical Dream won his maiden hurdle first time up at Leopardstown’s St Stephen’s Day fixture in 2018 and he duly went on to take three Grade 1 prizes, at Leopardstown in February, Cheltenham’s Supreme Novice, and Punchestown’s Champion Novice Hurdle.

The 2019/20 season proved a massive anti-climax, the ante-post Champion Hurdle favourite racing only twice and beaten at odds-on behind less talented stable companions. Cheltenham 2021 was originally on the agenda but that came and went without him, after which the plan was laid for Thursday’s big stayers’ hurdle over three miles. Klassical Dream had never raced over much further than two miles and would have a 487-day absence to overcome.

Mark spoke to Willie a few days before the race and on Thursday morning before leaving home for a funeral of another good friend he tried unsuccessfully to reach the trainer. Mullins left a recorded message when he could and Mark says it was very similar to the previous one.

I’ve heard it and in it Willie says he would be happy if the horse finished in the first six but above all the priority is that he comes home sound. Mark interpreted this to mean the trainer wasn’t sure he would make the first six.

Mark relayed the news to the other owners, and before leaving had what he calls a “suicide throwaway 50 quid” at around 17-1 when he first noticed the price was dropping. He had expected to be home in time to watch the race, but was still at the reception at the off, so watched it on his phone.

In what was described as the biggest gamble of the week, 20-1 down to 5-1, Klassical Dream under Patrick Mullins, and one of four stable-mates in the race, cantered into the lead going to the last hurdle and drew easily clear of Mullins’ James Du Berlais for a nine-length victory.

There was more than a degree of consolation that the horse had come back with such a bang, and not least for winning the €147,500 winner’s prize, but also some irritation that the message might have been a little more accurate.

These words will be written before Mark and the trainer have their next conversation. “I knew I shouldn’t talk to Willie, who has always been so helpful in all our dealings, as I would probably have lost my temper. None of the other owners are racing people in the way John was and of course I am, and their delight at their horse coming back in such a dramatic manner easily outweighs for them any irritation that they might have had a bigger bet if they knew a bit more beforehand”.

The Irish dominated Cheltenham and Aintree and it was the Flat trainers from that side of the wet divide who collected the first two Classics of the season at Newmarket.

First Jim Bolger, 79, and jockey and son-in-law Kevin Manning, 54, took the 2,000 Guineas with brave home-bred Poetic Flare, 16-1 and a son of Dawn Approach, also a Bolger home-bred and winner of the same Classic.

Then yesterday, Aidan O’Brien, a pupil and amateur rider for Bolger before embarking on his own stellar training career, made it seven wins in the 1,000 Guineas. His second string 10-1 shot Mother Earth, ridden by 50-year-old Frankie Dettori, made use of her greater experience to run past long-time race favourite and stable-companion Santa Barbara.

Like Love last year, who came to the “1,000” with three wins from seven juvenile appearances, Mother Earth put in plenty of creditable runs at two but in her case for just one win, although second at the Breeders’ Cup was hardly a negligible effort.

Unlike Love, though, who went on to Epsom and then York for two more emphatic wide-margin Group 1 victories, Mother Earth is being pencilled in for the Irish 1,000. Santa Barbara, who understandably showed signs of greenness - she raced only in one maiden as a two-year-old – goes straight to Epsom.

It was quite a weekend for big numbers and veterans. Bob Baffert, now 68 years old, made it a seventh Kentucky Derby when Medina Spirit, at just over 12-1, made all under John Velazquez, who is in his 50th year. The colt had won only once previously too, so it was stretching credibility after three defeats that he could win the most important three-year-old race of the year in the USA.

But it was even more amazing given that two runs back, in the San Felipe Stakes at Santa Anita, Medina Spirit had been crushed by eight lengths by another Baffert colt, Life Is Good, who was unable through injury to get to Churchill Downs.

The old prototype for winning the “Run For The Roses” was plenty of race-conditioning as a two-year-old, but Medina Spirit didn’t appear until January this year. That was also the starting-point for Life Is Good. That day, Medina Spirit came up short by only three-quarters of a length and he must have been energised when he noticed that his nemesis was not in the field.

Still pictures of the race finish show the Churchill Downs grandstands were packed. I just can’t wait for that to happen here - sooner rather than later I trust!

Monday Musings: Rapid Start Far From Flat

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The two unbeaten favourites didn’t collect the first two Classics of the UK racing season as many, including the bookmakers, were expecting, writes Tony Stafford. Pinatubo was a slightly one-paced third as Kameko gave Andrew Balding a second UK Classic in the 2,000 Guineas, 17 years after Casual Look was his first in the Oaks. Yesterday, Love made it six 1,000 Guineas triumphs for Aidan O’Brien, four in the last six years, as the Roger Charlton filly Quadrilateral also had to be content with third place.

For quite a while in Saturday’s big event, staged behind closed doors of course, it looked as though O’Brien would be celebrating an 11th “2,000” – from back home in Ireland as he left on-course matters to be attended to by his accomplished satellite team. Wichita, turning around last October’s Dewhurst form both with Pinatubo and his lesser-fancied-on-the-day stable companion Arizona, went into what had looked a winning advantage under super-sub Frankie Dettori until close home when the Balding colt was produced fast, late and wide by Oisin Murphy.

The young Irishman might already be the champion jockey, but the first week of the new season, begun eight months after that initial coronation last autumn, suggests he has a new confidence and maturity built no doubt of his great winter success in Japan and elsewhere. A wide range of differing winning rides were showcased over the past few days and Messrs Dettori and Moore, Buick, Doyle and De Sousa clearly have an equal to contend with.

It was Dettori rather than Moore who rode Wichita, possibly because of the relative form in that Dewhurst when Wichita under Ryan got going too late. This time Arizona got his lines wrong and he had already been seen off when he seemed to get unbalanced in the last quarter-mile. Kameko will almost certainly turn up at Epsom now. Balding was keen to run Bangkok in the race last year despite that colt’s possible stamina deficiency. The way Kameko saw out the last uphill stages, he could indeed get the trip around Epsom a month from now.

The 2020 Guineas weekend follows closely the example of its immediate predecessor. Last year there was also a big team of O’Brien colts, including the winner Magna Grecia, and none was by their perennial Classic producer, Galileo. The following afternoon, the 14-1 winner Hermosa, was Galileo’s only representative in their quartet in the fillies’ race. This weekend, again there were four Ballydoyle colts in their race, and none by Galileo. Two, including Wichita, are sons of No Nay Never. As last year, there was a single daughter of Galileo in yesterday’s race, the winner Love. Her four and a quarter length margin must make it pretty much a formality that she will pitch up at Epsom next month.

Love was unusually O’Brien’s only representative yesterday which rather simplified Ryan Moore’s choice. It will surely be hard to prise her from him at Epsom whatever the other Coolmore-owned fillies show at The Curragh and elsewhere in the interim.

With Irish racing resuming at Naas this afternoon, attention will be switching immediately to the Irish Classics next weekend. What with those races, which Ryan will sit out under the 14-day regulations, the Coolmore owners and their trainer will have a clear course to formulate their Derby team and Oaks back-up squad. It would appear that the good weather enjoyed in the UK after which so many big stables, notably Messrs Johnston, Gosden and Balding, have made a flying start on the resumption, has also been kind to Irish trainers.

I know that sometimes in the spring the grass gallops at Ballydoyle have barely been usable by the time of the first month of action. The delayed and truncated first phase should continue to be to the benefit of the more powerful yards and maiden races, just as those in the UK, are already looking like virtual group races, especially on the big tracks.

Aidan O’Brien has 11 runners on today’s opening card, including four in the second event for juveniles, where Lippizaner, who managed a run in one of the Irish Flat meetings squeezed in before the shutdown, is sure to be well fancied. A son of Uncle Mo, he was beaten half a length first time out and the experience, which is his alone in the field, should not be lost on him.

The shutdown has been a contributor to a denial of one of my annual pleasures, a leisurely look at the Horses in Training book which I normally buy during the Cheltenham Festival but forgot to search for at this year’s meeting. The usual fall-back option of Tindalls bookshop in Newmarket High Street has also been ruled out, and inexplicably I waited until last week before thinking to order it on-line.

There are some notable absentees from the book and it has become a growing practice for some of the bigger trainers to follow the example of Richard Fahey who for some years has left out his two-year-olds. John Gosden has joined him in that regard otherwise they both would have revealed teams comfortably beyond 250.

Charlie Appleby, William Haggas, Mark Johnston, Richard Hannon and Andrew Balding all have strings of more than 200 and all five have been quick off the mark, each taking advantage of a one-off new rule instigated by the BHA. In late May trainers wishing to nominate two-year-olds they believed might be suitable to run at Royal Ascot, which begins a week tomorrow, could nominate them and thereby get priority status to avoid elimination with the inevitable over-subscription in the early fixtures.

In all, 163 horses were nominated with Johnston leading the way with 11; Charlie Appleby and Fahey had eight each; Hannon and Archie Watson seven and Haggas five. All those teams have been fast away in all regards but notably with juveniles. The plan, aimed at giving Ascot candidates racecourse experience in the limited time available, has clearly achieved its objective.

Among the trainers with a single nominated juvenile, Hughie Morrison took the chance to run his colt Rooster at Newmarket. Beforehand he was regretting that he hadn’t realised he could have taken him to a track when lockdown rules could apparently have been “legally bent” if not actually transgressed. Rooster should improve on his close seventh behind a clutch of other Ascot-bound youngsters when he reappears.

When I spoke to Hughie before the 1,000 Guineas he was adamant that the 200-1 shot Romsey “would outrun those odds”. In the event Romsey was the only other “finisher” in the 15-horse field apart from Love and, in getting to the line a rapidly-closing fifth, she was only a length and a half behind Quadrilateral. So fast was she moving at that stage, she would surely have passed the favourite in another half furlong. The Racing Post “analysis” which said she “lacked the pace of some but kept on for a good showing” was indeed damning with faint praise. Hughie also could be pleased yesterday with a promising revival for Telecaster, a close third behind Lord North and Elarqam in the Brigadier Gerard Stakes at Haydock despite getting very warm beforehand.

No doubt I’ll be returning to Horses in Training quite a lot in the coming weeks, but just as the long list of Galileo colts and fillies was dominant among the Ballydoyle juveniles for many years, the numerical power of Dubawi among Charlie Appleby’s team is now rivalling it. Last year, when I admit I didn’t really notice it, there were 40 Dubawi juveniles: this year the number has grown to an eye-opening 55. At the same time the yard has gone well past 200, reflecting his upward trajectory ever since taking over the main Godolphin job ten years ago. I’m sure Pinatubo has some more big wins in his locker.

I always look forward to seeing the team of Nicolas Clement, French Fifteen’s trainer, in the book, and he is there as usual with his middling-strength team. Nowadays much of what used to pass for free time for this greatly-admired man is taken up with his role as the head of the French trainers. He confessed that carrying out his duties over the weeks in lockdown and then the changes in the areas in France where racing could be allowed had been very demanding.

This weekend, Nicolas along with everyone in racing had a dreadful shock when his younger brother Christophe, who has been training with great success in the US for many years, suffered a terrible tragedy. On Saturday a Sallee company horsebox, transporting ten Clement horses from Florida to race in New York burst into flames on the New Jersey Turnpike, killing all ten animals. One report suggested that the horsebox had collided with a concrete stanchion. It added that the two drivers attempted to free the horses but were unable to do so.

At the top level, where both Clement brothers have been accustomed to operating on their respective sides of the pond, the rewards can be great. But as this incident graphically and starkly shows, there is often a downside for trainers and owners, though rarely one of quite this horrific finality.

- TS

Jon Shenton: Who to Layoff?

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Under normal circumstances April and May is my favourite time of the year, both in personal “real-life” terms but also through the racing lens, writes Jon Shenton. Usually, as the flat season kicks into gear it is a period when I’d be at my most active in punting terms. This year there is a void, and I’ve as yet not wanted want to fill it with third tier US racing, or whatever other meagre scraps are on offer.

Before we begin, an uber-caveat: the date of the restart of the sport will go a long way to establishing whether data-driven angles have a strong role to play in this years’ flat campaign.

Sadly, it may be smart to keep certain angles in cold storage until the spring of 2021: a truncated campaign will quite likely manifest in all sorts of data anomalies for otherwise robust angles. Let me explain with a specific example.

Many of my favourite angles are early season specific. Several yards are typically fast out of the blocks and others have a more nonchalant approach to the first exchanges in the campaign, in result terms anyway. Avoiding some yards during the initial knockings of the turf season can be a prudent move. A case in point is Tim Easterby: the powerhouse yard has a colossal number of runners throughout the spring and summer months with performance notable by its variance over the course of the season as the below graph illustrates.

It’s not the most exciting data, illustrating only the yard’s win percentage. However, it clearly shows a seasonal variance: Easterby’s performance in April and May is moderate in comparison to the peak summer period. To give a feel for the scale, there are 642 total runners in April alone, so in horse racing terms the sample sizes are broader than most (the yard is also 0-from-29 in March).

Focusing on 2020, what happens now? It is pure speculation but for the sake of this article let’s assume the season starts in July. Ordinarily, this would be peak Tim territory assuming a standard racing calendar. The million dollar question is, would the yard be expected to drop straight into the usual July prolific form or will it build slowly like usual, allowing its animals to develop race fitness through visits to the track, peaking as a yard in September or later? Perhaps we will see neither and the yard will flatten their own curve.

It is very difficult to project with any confidence, especially when placed in the context of every other yard rethinking and rehashing their own usual blueprint, planning for and around a truncated season.

Arguably, all typical trainer patterns could be of limited relevance. I certainly wouldn’t back a usual Easterby July qualifier this year, at least until I had more evidence to show the yard had adapted to the revised topology.

However, we don’t give in that easily at geegeez. Yes, it is true that a data-driven gambler may have to tread carefully; but there is also such a thing as first mover advantage! By cutting through the noise more quickly than most, there may be opportunities to gain utility from the numbers as they happen. Within that, possessing a good understanding of the ‘norm’ is beneficial as it provides a head start in terms of knowing what to look for as racing awakens from its enforced hiatus.

One sensible starting point is to evaluate how trainers perform after a horse has had a long rest from racing. This year, most animals are going to be hitting the track after a sizeable hiatus when the sport re-commences. Knowing the trainers who perform well in these circumstances ought to be of use.

The table below (containing data from horseracebase) shows exactly this: it summarises trainer performance with horses returning after a break of 181 days or longer (UK flat turf races only, 2011-present, SP 20/1 or shorter). The SP cut-off is a personal choice and generally helps sort the wheat from the chaff in my opinion.

The insight is sorted in A/E order (Actual vs. Expected, assessing performance vs. the expectation of the market, 1.00 being par, anything greater being outperformance against market expectation) and a minimum of 100 runs are required to qualify for the table. There are plenty of points to discuss but we will begin with my eye being drawn to the four yards marked in yellow.

These jump off the page, predominantly due to their impressive strike rates around one-in-four win to run ratio. They are also bona fide prime flat racing organisations where value can be hard to come by so merit closer scrutiny.

Given the profile of these yards, it is surprising that the market seems to ever-so-slightly underestimate their lay-off horses: time and again these guys fire in winners after an absence. The length of time off the track is far from detrimental to their chances; in fact, it may be a positive indicator of intent. However, we, as the general punting public still subconsciously prefer the reassurance of a recent run. In the case of the highlighted yards (and several of the others) it is a wise move trying to ignore the long elapsed time between runs.

Taking this concept further, the graph below illustrates the same trainers contained in the original data table above. The red line shows the A/E performance for the horses returning to the track after more than 180 days by trainer, whereas the blue bars shows the A/E for those who have a run during the last 180 days.

In basic terms, virtually all these trainers perform more profitably with lay-off animals than they do with more recent runners (using A/E as the measure). The only three that do not are Messrs Balding, Prescott and Ryan, but even then, the difference in results is virtually negligible.

The left-hand side of the graph indicates those where the variance between the lay-off horses and the race fit animals is most significant. Ballydoyle maestro Aidan O’Brien heads the list. There is some logic in this, at least theoretically. It is not beyond imagination to speculate that a horse travelling across the Irish Sea to the UK is ready for action and means business. Were it not it would be running closer to home, presumably.

However, to satisfy whether that is a fair assertion or not, a comparison with the yard’s Irish return-after-a-break horses should confirm if this is the case.

As can be seen, O’Brien’s travellers outperform their stay-at-home counterparts on every measure. Whilst it is probably not angle material it is certainly worth factoring into big race considerations, especially if the money is down (the record for horses 6/1 or bigger is just 2-from-45 within the UK dataset).

Another trainer highlighted in the table with a large differential between the performance of his lay-off and recent runners is Roger Varian. The Newmarket-based operation is one that, considering its scale and profile, I do not particularly follow or have many related opinions / angles.

However, in the context of his layoff runners there is an interesting edge to consider when runners are evaluated by age.

The table demonstrates that the winning performance level of Varian’s three-year-olds after a break is not as strong as his older horse returners. This could easily be a sample size issue, particularly as the place performance is very consistent. Regardless, the numbers of the four years and older brigade are highly noteworthy.

Taking those four-plus aged horses and evaluating their performance after an absence against the yard’s performance where a run has been more recent, the numbers grow in stature still further by comparison.

Effectively, the table above confirms that the absolute right time to back a Varian horse aged four or older is its first run after an absence.

I dare say that this is the tip of the iceberg and there are plenty of other interesting data-driven nuances in relation to all trainers in the table. A bit of homework for me – or you? – over the next week or two perhaps.

Again, 2020 may prove to be wholly different from recent history given these unique circumstances. Normally, much of the value in these yards horses after a break can be attributed to the likelihood that much of their competition would have had a recent outing: the beady eye of the market is often drawn to those who have provided recent evidence of their well-being rather than those who have been out of sight, out of mind.

This year, especially early in the season, most runners in each race will be racing on the back of a long break. It is conceivable that every yard and every owner will be desperate to get their charges out as early as possible to mitigate some of the economic damage received through the enforced absence.

Consequently, if the phasing of animals having their first run in a while is compressed into a short period of time as there isn’t the luxury of a long campaign, it could be easily argued that the market  will focus more towards the likes of O’Brien, Varian, Gosden and Haggas given their elevated status.

If the mooted Royal Ascot behind closed doors meeting does proceed, virtually every horse will be hitting the track after a long absence. Gosden, O’Brien et al runners could be like moths to a light for punters, even more so than usual, eroding potential value from the lay-off angle.

However, the bottom line is that these yards have proven performance after a lay-off in their locker. Plenty of others do not and those others will have to elevate their game and do something uncharacteristic to their norm to prevail.

Of course, it is conceivable that trainers who build a horse’s fitness through racing will adapt easily. Trainers are generally highly skilled practitioners and should be able to modify their approach to match the situation.

The yards listed in the table below are some of those for whom the first run is typically a sighter; whether things will be different in 2020, time will tell, but it seems prudent to be cautious until evidence to the contrary manifests itself.

It is certainly the case that the performance of runners from these yards after an absence is not meeting market expectation with unhealthy A/E numbers across the board. Again, the table is restricted to runners at 20/1 or shorter (SP), and 100 runners is required to qualify.

In broad terms, unless there is a compelling reason not to, it’s a straightforward decision to pass on entrants from these guys after a hiatus. Naturally, Easterby (Tim) is on here as intimated earlier. It is going to be fascinating to see whether these yards will still be content to play the long game once racing is back.

Personally, I’m not sure how to play things yet. The timing of the resumption will be key in shaping a strategy. With the deferral of four of the Classics it’s looking more and more likely that the resumption date will be mid-summer. Given that, my gut feel is that angle and data-driven wagering of this kind will be fraught with danger. However, where there is a market there will always be an opportunity to find an edge.

One thing is for sure: one of my starting points will be to man-mark the yards in this article when we get going again. By spotting the trainers who are ready to go, or otherwise, there should be plenty of chances to make up for lost time. Who knows, I may even be backing Tim Easterby horses after a prolonged absence. These are strange times, after all!

Stay safe.

- JS

Breeders’ Cup 2019: Five Takeaways

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The 2019 Breeders' Cup returned to Santa Anita for the tenth time. Much of the preamble to the weekend was familiar, then, but this year there was a difference. A near palpable atmosphere of anxiety and introspection pervaded proceedings; and, in spite of forensic levels of veterinary scrutiny, BC36 was not to sail smoothly across its troubled waters. That story, amongst others, is recounted in these five takeways from the meeting.

1 JOSEPH & HIS AMASSING TECHNICOLOR PALMARES

Where were you in your career path when you were 26? For most of us mere mortals, college days were behind us and we were taking our first fledgling steps in a job or career. Joseph Patrick O'Brien, barely past the quarter century, has already summited a career in the saddle which began promisingly but perhaps little more with a piece of a three-way tie for the Irish Champion Apprentice title in 2010.

The following year, he enjoyed Classic success with Roderic O'Connor in the Irish 2000 Guineas, and rode another two UK or Irish Group 1 winners, the last of which was Camelot in the Racing Post Trophy. A fortnight after that Doncaster highlight, O'Brien raised his own bar by scoring aboard St Nicholas Abbey in a Churchill Downs edition of the the Breeders' Cup Turf at the age of 18.

2012 was Joseph's - and Camelot's - year as the pair won the first two legs of the Triple Crown, the 2000 Guineas and Derby, before being cruelly denied victory in the St Leger by a horse trained by the subsequently disgraced Mahmood al Zarooni who admitted charges of using performance enhancing drugs on his horses.

That year, 2012, Joseph proved he could do quantity as well as quality as he won his first Irish Jockeys' Championship, an award he retained with a record score in 2013.

By 2016, still aged just 23 - twenty-three! - he swapped the saddle for the demands of training and, to nobody's surprise, hit the ground running, his first Group 1 win coming in the Moyglare Stud Stakes of the same year with Intricately. [It was rumoured that he had also trained Ivanovich Gorbatov to win the Grade 1 Triumph Hurdle in March that year, but let's stick to published record].

As a trainer, in less than three years and at the age of 26, he already has an Irish Derby, a Melbourne Cup and now a Breeders' Cup win to his name. The game triumph of Iridessa - who bounced out of the stalls from box one and got a great position under Wayne Lordan - in the Filly and Mare Turf on Saturday was Europe's sole victory at the meeting, and made Joseph the youngest trainer to win a Breeders' Cup race.

Naturally, given his prior exploits aboard St Nick, he is also the youngest person to record a Breeders' Cup win as both a jockey and a trainer. The sole other member of that most exclusive of Breeders' Cup clubs is Freddie Head, the French horseman who won two multiple Miles with both Miesque (as a jockey, aged 40 and 41) and Goldikova (as a trainer, aged 61, 62 and 63). Chapeau to Freddie, but Joseph is emerging as an altogether different jus.

 

2 AIDAN OFER'BRIEN

While O'Brien Jr was further enhancing his CV, father Aidan was enduring what might legitimately be dubbed a minor crisis. To some that may sound preposterous, so allow a little context: this year, Aidan has trained 15 Group or Grade 1 winners, last year the international G1 tally was 14; but in 2017 it was 28, in 2016 it was 22 and in 2015 it was 17.

At such rarefied altitude and on such small sample sizes it is perfectly reasonable to account for the differential as the dreaded variance - statistical slings and arrows if you will. And that's probably right enough.

But, in the microcosm of the Breeders' Cup, Aidan has now gone 35 runners without a victory since Mendelssohn prevailed in the opening race at Del Mar, the Juvenile Turf, in 2017. Again, it's a small sample. And he was dealt the rummest of rum deals at the post position draw with almost all of his nine entries exiting a double digit stall.

But Bricks And Mortar won the Turf, with a troubled trip, from nine when Anthony van Dyck lost from five. In the same race, Mount Everest, presumed the pacemaker (which may be incorrect), fluffed the start and was never nearer than at the line. Uni won the Mile from stall 11 where Circus Maximus was drawn nine; Just Wonderful missed the kick and was never nearer than fifth in the Filly and Mare Turf from stall 11; Tango and Etoile, drawn eight and 14 respectively, finished eighth and tenth having both broken moderately and struggled to get track position; Arizona, drawn 12 in the Juvenile Turf, was slow at the gate and never nearer than his final position of fifth; Fort Myers ran respectably in seventh from 13 in the same race, though he too was no better than tenth as they passed the stands first time; and King Neptune actually broke alertly in the Juvenile Turf Sprint but wasn't persisted with for a position and entered the turn in seventh place before finishing eleventh.

What is the recurring theme? In fairness, there are two, and one of them is the draw, which is out of the hands of the trainer. The other is the number of times Aidan's horses - again, in fairness, most European horses - broke slowly and were simply in a borderline insurmountable position on a tight inner turf track which was riding like lightning. Even when the races were a little more tactical on the turf, a slow start meant as many as a dozen horses in a 4 x 3 or 3 x 4 phalanx ahead: it is very, very difficult to overcome a pedestrian beginning.

Aidan quite rightly says that he spends all year trying to get horses to settle and relax, and that is the way to win European races. But if a horse doesn't have early tactical toe in order to secure a position, it is almost game over in double-digit US fields. It has been suggested that perhaps he should use American jockeys who are more accustomed to pinging a horse from the gate but, firstly, it's not necessarily something a jockey can influence especially, and secondly, the local lads would generally need to take care not to spurn their bread and butter.

While chatting with one New York punter the somewhat harsh soubriquet Aidan Ofer'Brien was coined, ofer meaning zero for, as in zero for 35 since Mendelssohn in 2017. It is fantastic, and likely extremely important, that Ballydoyle continue to send top division horses to the meeting - it would be an event lighter on entries, far less interesting from a European perspective, and less compelling as a wagering proposition, too, if he didn't - but if they are to be more than making up the numbers, gate speed 101 looks in order. Here's hoping the peerless trainer of his generation reverts to his longer-term type at Keeneland in 2020.

 

3 THE TRACKS

It doesn't matter where you are in the world, if your horse is unsuited to conditions it is unlikely to win. So let's discuss the tracks, the already mentioned in despatches turf course first.

It was lightning fast. They haven't had meaningful rain in LA for six months, a fact evidenced by the desperately unfortunate wildfires that are raging in the north of the state. Sure they've watered the course and continued to hydrate it. But the temperatures have been 30C+ for much of the past fortnight and before. The water table is non-existent. It was suggested by a Clockers' Corner wag that, when going to inspect the turf track in white shoes, the horseman in question returned with green soles. Well that's one way to make brown turf look green!

Of course that's almost certainly just bluster - as easy on the ear as it is - but the fact remains that if you don't have a horse that can handle Bath firm, you probably don't have a horse for the race when the Cup heads west.

Another point on the turf track, specifically in relation to the Juvenile Turf Sprint. In its inaugural running in 2017 (on the undercard), Declarationofpeace - for Aidan O'Brien, in the opening race on the Saturday - led home a Euro superfecta from 'our' only four entries. The winner had the best Euro form around a turn, and was slowly away in a race run too fast, the pace collapsing.

Last year, when none of the Euro entries had winning form around a turn, we did no better than third. This year, although Europe did even less well, the best finisher - fifth-placed Dr Simpson, a rank outsider on the US tote at close to 60/1 - was two from two on turning tracks, by seven lengths at Chester and then in a Group 3 against the boys. She is also a fast starter. Although she wasn't good enough to win, that's the sort of horse you want for this gig. If Dr Simpson's trainer, Tom Dascombe, had sent lightning breaker and turning track specialist Kachy across, he would have been seriously interesting in the Turf Sprint.

In bigger fields and at longer trips, it is often the 'best trip' - that is, the horse which gets least interference excluding front runners whose record is terrible, that wins. There is so much traffic and misfortune to factor into pricing these races up from a value perspective that they are almost a blanket 'no bet'. The sensible approach to hardier punters is to back an American horse with a British bookmaker and hope for a good trip. Races like the Mile are peppered with big-priced winners through their history, Tourist (US horse, 11/1 US tote, 33/1 UK books), Karakontie (French, 29/1 US tote, 16/1 UK books) and Court Vision (US, 64/1 US tote, 50/1 UK books) being three since only 2011 in that particular event.

The DIRT track had been harrowed very deep, and rode slow. The Classic was a truly run race and it was won in a time of 2:02.80. The previous Santa Anita Classic, in 2016, was won in a time of 2:00.11, and the Santa Anita Classic's before that in 1:59.88, 2:00.72, 2:00.11, 2:00.32 (Zenyatta, Pro-Ride), 1:59.27 (Raven's Pass, Pro-Ride), 1:59.88, 2:00.83, and 2:00.40.

Appreciative that this is labouring the point but, to spell it out, the 2019 Classic was two seconds - something like eight lengths - slower than the next slowest of seven Santa Anita dirt Classics, excluding the slightly quicker Pro-Ride surface which was controversially installed and even more controversially ripped up again in and around 2008/9.

And yet Vino Rosso was given a legit number for his win. Timeform US had him on 133, six spots higher than the next best winner at the meeting; Beyer had him at 111, a point behind Mitole (his closest pursuer on the Timeform numbers). That's by way of reaffirming the slowness of the track.

There were good reasons for that, which we'll get to. But what it meant in racing terms was that it was extremely difficult to win from off the pace. You still needed stamina and no little class to get the job done, but only one horse - Blue Prize - was able to win from some way off the pace across the seven dirt races.

The best parallel for British and Irish bettors is that the surface was something akin to Southwell: deep, with serious kickback, where early speed is sustained more often than not and very little comes from far back. This year's Breeders' Cup was, for a lot of dirt race entries, like coming from a fast track qualifier at Lingfield, Chelmsford or Kempton to Finals Day on the Rolleston beach.

It was a necessary step to harrow the course that deep but, in many racing ways, an unsatisfactory one.

 

4 WELFARE

Here's why it was necessary. California is a liberal state and a perfect example of the emerging anti-racing sentiment we are seeing in Britain and in other jurisdictions around the world, notably Scandinavia. There is a war raging between traditionalists and revisionists inside of racing. It's a lop-sided skirmish outside of the bubble.

Governor Gavin Newsom in September called racing at Santa Anita "a disgrace". Newsom wasn't pulling any punches in this New York Times article where he was quoted as saying,

“What happened last year was unacceptable, and all of the excuses be damned. We own that going into the next season, and we’re going to have to do something about it. I’ll tell you, talk about a sport whose time is up unless they reform. That’s horse racing. Incredible abuses to these precious animals and the willingness to just to spit these animals out and literally take their lives is a disgrace.”

That was in response to news that more than thirty horses had been put down as a result of injuries sustained either training or racing at the Arcadia track. Despite the trash talk style (notably, emotive language like "precious animals"), there is plenty of substance behind this soundbite, politicians on both sides of the Atlantic now tapping into an animal welfare zeitgeist among their constituents. Indeed, California's senior Senator, Dianne Feinstein, is of the same view and has publicly expressed it.

That's obviously bad news for racing.

What is worse is that some of the reasons for fatalities may have been avoidable. I see three main factors as conspiring: a fashion for breeding precocity and speed at the expense of durability and stamina; over-training young horses whose limbs cannot yet sustain the level of work demanded of them; and the increasingly sophisticated use of medication to patch up injuries and/or supplement punishing training regimes.

Clearly I'm not a vet and I present the above as no more than conjecture - my take, if you like. I'd very much welcome an educated rebuffal of any or all from any reader qualified to do that.

For me there are two bottom lines on the racing welfare debate. Firstly, whilst fatalities are inevitable - a point racing has to defend explicitly and unequivocally - the current levels are very likely unsustainable. And not just in California, or even America as a whole.

Second, this is an extremely complex debate peppered with flexible morality codes. Anyone who feels vehemently one way or the other probably hasn't given the subject enough thought.

 

5 WHERE NEXT (LITERALLY) FOR BC?

It was in the aftermath of Governor Newsom's comments that extensive vetting was implemented ahead of this year's Breeders' Cup. That led to the high profile scratchings of Imperial Hint, Fleeting and Suedois among others, on veterinary advice. Last year at Churchill Downs, Polydream, favourite for the Mile at the time, was withdrawn under similar circumstances.

Thus, naturally but even more than ever, organisers were praying for an incident- and injury-free Breeders' Cup. They almost got it.

Going into the Classic, the final race of 14 across two absorbing days of pageantry and sport, horsemen and administrators alike would have been justifiably feeling like a job well done. Alas, for racing just now it seems, if it wasn't for bad luck it wouldn't have any luck at all.

The perfect Mongolian Saturday... in Kentucky

The perfect Mongolian Saturday... in Kentucky. But not in Santa Anita

In amongst the millionaires and the billionaires and the silent powers of horse racing exist an ownership group called the Mongolian Stable and their trainer, Enebish Ganbat. They love their racing, are passionate about it, and share their passion with anyone who feels similarly. In 2015 at Keeneland, they enjoyed their greatest day as Mongolian Saturday won the Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint. He raced without Lasix, the near ubiquitous diuretic said to restrict the likelihood of a horse bleeding. He was the only horse in the field not to receive it.

These guys don't sit in a box quaffing Veuve; they are out in the cheap seats in full national dress posing for pictures and glad-handing anyone and everyone. They, and people like them, are what the sport needs.

In the Classic, they had sportingly supplemented Mongolian Groom, who had beaten Classic favourite McKinzie over the Santa Anita track in their respective final preps, and who it should be noted did run on Lasix.

Their horse broke well and was second throughout the first mile, a length off pace-setting War Of Will, with last day foe McKinzie right there as well. But disaster struck for Mongolian Groom, Mongolian Stable, Ganbat, the Breeders' Cup and American racing, as the horse suffered an injury to his left hind leg which could not be treated. Very sadly, he was taken into the horse ambulance and euthanized.

It was deeply distressing on so many counts, primarily for connections, whose love of the game and for their animals is more transparent than most top tier ownership collectives; and all the more so that the ramifications of this event, as another inquest will inevitably be held, will overshadow their own feelings of loss.

The next Breeders' Cup is in Keeneland, far from the madding Californian crowd, then nominally at Del Mar in 2021. But Del Mar is in Southern California, and Churchill Downs may again be on standby as it was reported to be earlier this year in case matters at Santa Anita became irreconcilable.

So yes, Keeneland and Del Mar have been officially unveiled for 2020 and 2021, but will the Breeders' Cup return to Santa Anita in 2022, as was widely expected? Indeed, in light of the political firestorm expected to play out in the state, the question may be whether the Breeders' Cup will ever return to Santa Anita.