The Futurity Trophy Stakes is staged each year at Doncaster racecourse and is for 2 year-olds only.
The Group One race is run over a distance of 1m and is an excellent guide and trial to the following year’s Classics, in particular the 2,000 Guineas and Epsom Derby - backed up in recent years with High Chaparral, Motivator, Authorized, Camelot and, most-recently, Auguste Rodin all winning the William Hill Futurity Trophy before going onto take the Epsom Derby the next season.
While recent winners – Saxon Warrior, Magna Grecia and Kameko, who the race is named after this year - went onto land the 2,000 Guineas the following season.
Trainer Aidan O’Brien has won the race a remarkable 11 times, including in 2022 with Auguste Rodin, who went onto win the Epsom Derby. Ryan Moore is also another jockey making the race his own - with 3 wins since 2017.
Lester Piggott and Pat Eddery remain the winning-most jockeys with 5 wins each.
Here at GeeGeez we take a look back at recent winners and highlights the key stats ahead of the 2025 renewal - run on Saturday 25th October.
Futurity Trophy Winners
2024 - Hotazhell (11/1)
2023 - Aincient Wisdom (5/4 fav)
2022 - Auguste Rodin (9/4 fav)
2021 – Luxembourg (4/6 fav)
2020 - Mac Swiney (12/1)
2019 – Kameko (11/2)
2018 – Magna Grecia (2/1 fav)
2017 – Saxon Warrior (13/8 fav)
2016 – Rivet (11/4)
2015 – Marcel (33/1)
2014 – Elm Park (13/8 fav)
2013 – Kingston Hill (7/2 fav)
2012 – Kingsbarns (15/8 fav)
2011 – Camelot (10/11 fav)
2010 – Casamento (2/1 fav)
2009 – St Nicholas Abbey (13/8 fav)
2008 – Crowded House (7/1)
2007 – Ibn Khaldun (11/4 fav)
2006 – Authorized (25/1)
2005 – Palace Episode (20/1)
2004 – Motivator (6/4 fav)
2003 – American Post (5/6 fav)
2002 – Brian Boru (11/8 fav)
Note: The 2006 renewal was staged at Newbury
Note: The 2019 renewal was staged at Newcastle
Futurity Trophy Betting Trends
20/23 – Had won either 1 or 2 races before
20/23 – Placed favourites
19/23 – Winning distance – 1 ¼ lengths or more
19/23 - Foaled in February or later
19/23 – Finished in the top two last time out
18/23 – Raced within the last 4 weeks
17/23 – Had raced at least twice previously
15/23 – Winning favourites
15/23 – Ran at either the Curragh or Newmarket last time out
15/23 – Won their last race
14/23 – Foaled in either Feb or March
14/23 – Had won over a mile in the past
11/23 – Won by an Irish-based yard
8/23 – Trained by Aidan O’Brien (11 wins in total)
4/23 – Ridden by Andrea Atzeni (won 4 of the last 11)
3/23 - Ridden by Ryan Moore Trainer John Gosden have NEVER won this race
7 of the last 10 winners came between stalls 4-7
6 of the last 10 winners from stalls 4, 6 or 7 (2 each) Aidan O’Brien has won the race 11 times – 1997, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2017, 2018, 2021 & 2022
The average SP in the last 23 runnings is 13/2
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The 40th renewal of the Breeders' Cup in gorgeous Santa Anita was an intense cauldron of high-class action. It always is. But there were differences between the 2023 version and those that went before, as outlined in my five takeaways below...
Scratch That
There was a swathe of non-runners, or scratches as they're known across the pond, over the two days. In fact, even before the Euro runners were due to board their flights, a number were withdrawn. Once on the ground at Santa Anita, over the course of the week further scratches were announced including Aidan O'Brien's Pearls And Rubies and, more materially, River Tiber and Bolshoi Ballet; Classic intended runners Mage, Geaux Rocket Ride and Arcangelo; Dirt Mile second favourite Practical Move; as well as the Jessica Harrington-trained Givemethebeatboys and Archie Watson-trained Bradsell.
The withdrawal, on veterinary advice, of most of these - and due to injuries sustained training by Mage, Geaux Rocket Ride and Practical Move - were a feature of a very troubled build up to the race days. Disturbingly, both Practical Move (cardiac arrest) and Geaux Rocket Ride (displaced condylar fracture, failed to recover from surgery, euthanised) died.
This was fuel to the fire of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), an entity with a strong presence in liberal California and who were making their point outside the racetrack throughout the weekend. A large banner proclaiming "Horses Are Killed Here" greeted racegoers and passing motorists alike and, while "Horses Die Here" might have been more factually accurate, there is no hiding place from this reality when horses are trained on the track.
Here in UK, where most horses are trained at yards not co-located at a racecourse, injuries and fatalities also happen - away from the glare of the general public. Which is to say that we should not assume this is a problem Stateside to which we are immune.
Of course, the racing surface and the medication regime are areas of longstanding concern which are now being addressed, in part at least, as a consequence of HISA, a new entity seeking to unify protocols across America similar to the way BHA oversee here. Even on this, though, HISA has been legally challenged by horsepeople aghast at the fact they might need to change some of their methodologies. Not a strong look, alas.
Back on the track, the vets were omnipresent. Barn inspections, trot ups and trackwork scrutiny were the last acts of a programme of oversight begun in July.
In total there were 16 scratches from Friday's five-race main card, and many more on Saturday. Some were as a consequence of the natural attrition caused by a long season and the general scope for minor mishap in prepping horses for championship races; but many - too many for plenty of observers - were withdrawn at the behest of the on site vets despite protestations from connections. The upshot is certain to be a reluctance to travel next year for some, with costs estimated in the region of $70,000 all told. That's a bitter, and very expensive, pill to swallow for luckless owners and trainers, even those whose pockets are deeper than us mere mortals.
The Chalkfest
In the US, favourites win at a rate close to 40%, a figure nodding to the absence of a meaningful handicap program - instead preferring a large number of (sometimes very high value) claiming-based race conditions - and the erosion in average field size: small fields equal more winning favourites. But, with field sizes holding up fairly well even after the glut of scratches, this Breeders' Cup was the chalkiest* in the forty-year history of the event. [*the 'chalk' is the favourite, a reference to the good old days of boardmen on track - days long gone]
Saturday began with Big Evs winning the Juvenile Turf Sprint at 3.2/1 locally, a fantastic result for the brilliant Mick Appleby and his team. The Juvenile Fillies winner paid 7/1, Juvenile Fillies Turf winner 9.1/1 and the Juvenile winner Fierceness returned just better than 16/1 on track. Then it got top heavy...
The Ryan Moore-ridden and Aidan O'Brien-trained Unquestionable won the Juvenile Turf at 6/4 on the board to close out Friday's quintet of Cup races, and that began an almost unbroken run of success for horses at, or very close to, the top of the wagering lists.
Cody's Wish (more anon), Inspiral, Goodnight Olive, Master Of The Seas, Idiomatic, Auguste Rodin, White Abarrio and Elite Power all paid 3.3/1 or less - indeed, all bar the wide-drawn Master Of The Seas paid 2.6/1 or shorter. The one spot of respite came from 12/1 Turf Sprint winner Nobals so, if you were looking away from the top end and didn't find him, you were in plenty of betting bother. Signing in on that score.
The table below shows that not only was Saturday's card the lowest average mutuel return of any Breeders' Cup for three-year-old-plus races, but also the entire two-day event had the lowest average mutuel return since the meeting was extended to more than seven races (note the gaps in the first six rows of cells).
It was a year for keeping it simple, all right, and personally I was guilty of over-complication, as were many finer judges on site in Arcadia. It's very frustrating when it happens this way; as you can see from the full table above, it doesn't normally happen this way!
Vive Les Euros!
We Europeans, or British and Irish if you prefer, focus almost exclusively on the turf. And that's because the trainers who send horses across do likewise: we know these horses and the very fact that they're sent all that way - some of them even getting to run! - advertises their prospects.
But they don't typically perform so well. British or Irish-trained horses won two of the three Friday turf races, and ran second in the other; and three of the four Saturday turf races, and finished third and fourth in the other. In the races our local horses won, there were also four 1-2 finishes. That is almost unheard of dominance.
The Juvenile Turf Sprint was a trifecta for the raiders, which if you happened to select the right three of the six Euro participants (or all of them in combination) paid $1,378.40 for a dollar. Or £1,378.40 for a pound 😉
Aidan O'Brien had a meeting to remember even in the absence of River Tiber and Bolshoi Ballet. He still won both races that pair were engaged in (Juvenile Turf and Turf). As I wrote in the Breeders' Cup Compendium report - showing expert hindsight but little foresight - "Aidan’s record in Santa Anita Breeders’ Cups is also (relatively) pedestrian: five wins from 51, and just 3 from 39 since 2012. 2019 was a washout, as was 2014, and there was a single win apiece in 2016, 2013 and 2012. Put another way, Aidan has had just one winner from the last three Santa Anita Breeders’ Cups combined."
Fortunately, I was prudent enough to add a caveat: "Is that a quirk of a small sample size or something more material? In truth, more likely the former than the latter, but it is cause for pause."
That caveat was needed as the Big Guy from Ballydoyle, a nickname absolutely certain not to catch on, saddled two winners, two seconds, a third and a fourth from just eight runners. That, clearly, was a phenomenal performance, with Ryan steering the brace of gold medallists, notably Auguste Rodin in the Turf. It was a ride suggested by many as a genius effort, but it is rare to ride the rail in a US turf race and get the smooth transit he and his horse did; perhaps tellingly, it was French-based Italian Cristian Demuro, riding the Japanese horse Shahryar in America (!), who drifted away from the inside allowing Moore to save all the ground without losing any of the momentum. You make your own luck, as they say, and this was both good and a bit lucky.
Looking at the two-year-old division, it's clear that the North American cohort is a step behind their British and Irish counterparts in 2023, and that largely extends to the seniors, too. It will be interesting to see how the form converges a year from now.
White Abarrio a very grey look
The Breeders' Cup Classic, normally the ninth and final race on the Saturday Cup card, was run seventh in the batting order to accommodate TV schedules; and it delivered a result that, in truth, very few would have hoped for. The sport in the States is desperate to wriggle free of welfare and doping claims and has been unlucky a fair few times recently; but sometimes, as with Ryan in the Turf, you make your own luck.
So it was that Richard Dutrow Jr, warned off for ten years for a litany of medication violations, returned to training in February this year and saddled the Breeders' Cup Classic winner seven months later. To put that into context, Mahmood al Zarooni, the disgraced former Godolphin trainer (remember him?), was banned for eight years by the BHA in 2013: he returned to a more low key conditioner role in the United Arab Emirates in 2021, saddling just nine runners since.
Bizarrely, Dutrow Jr. inherited White Abarrio from Saffie Joseph, another controversial figure. In May this year, shortly before the Kentucky Derby, he was banned from making stakes entries in Kentucky and New York as a result of two of his horses dropping dead within 48 hours of each other; and, though subsequently reinstated, the constraint led to White Abarrio moving barns. Joseph had previously been suspended for 15 days (15 days?!) for another banned substance found in one of his horses in March of this year.
Frankly, the problem here is not with Dutrow Jr. especially, or with Joseph; nor is it with Bob Baffert or any other high profile trainer receiving doping/ medication suspensions. Rather, it is with the authorities which allow such violations to pass with derisory punishments like the one referenced above that scream, "crack on, we don't really care". It is to be hoped HISA will be able to introduce measures that significantly improve the reputation of US racing in this regard.
The Classic itself was an absorbing race, with two fancied speed horses duking it out on the front end until wilting, before the smooth travelling White Abarrio fended off a spirited effort from the Japanese runner Derma Sotogake, who might have won the Kentucky Derby had he not broken poorly and then had a bad trip. This was a massive effort on his first run since, six months later.
Joy and crushing despair for Cody's connections
On Saturday afternoon, the highlight for many at the Breeders' Cup was the tear-jerking heart-warming win of Cody's Wish, who got up in a protracted stretch duel with National Treasure to win the opening Dirt Mile. Cody's Wish is owned by Godolphin but he's named for Cody Dorman, a young man born with Wolf-Hirschhorn Syndrome, a debilitating condition that affects both physical and mental functions.
Cody's Wish was a reason for Cody to look forward, something to enjoy in what must have been an unimaginably difficult life for him and his family. Last year in Keeneland, Cody's Wish won the Dirt Mile and the outpouring of joy was immense; on Saturday, as Cody's horse gutsed it out to best his rival, the emotion surpassed even that of twelve months ago. It was a brilliantly bright day in a life of struggle.
And then, almost unbelievably, on Monday we learned that Cody had suffered a medical incident just a day after Santa Anita which claimed his young life a few weeks shy of his 18th birthday. What a dreadfully awful turn of events. Like everyone else, we send our sympathies and best wishes to Cody's family.
*
The 40th running of the Breeders' Cup was a celebration of the sport of horseracing that encompassed an impossible gamut of emotions. They say life begins at 40; we were reminded that it sometimes doesn't make it that far, and that, at the end of the day, racing is just racing no matter how much joy or pain it brings us.
- Matt
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/BreedersCup_StartingGate_DirtMile_2023.png319830Matt Bisognohttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngMatt Bisogno2023-11-07 17:48:462023-11-08 07:58:14Breeders’ Cup 2023: The Chalky & Scratchy Show
So Auguste Rodin, Aidan O’Brien and Ryan Moore did it, writes Tony Stafford. At the forefront of the Irish stable and its Coolmore ownership team’s £2.7 million return from their trip to Santa Anita, the dual Derby winner emerged as a true champion, not least because of the courage of his trainer.
When the son of Deep Impact trailed home a distant last in the King George and Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot following his odds-on success at the Curragh, the knives were out.
The Derby form is rubbish they said – “when isn’t it?”, you might ask – and even his win dropped to ten furlongs for the Irish Champion Stakes still had its detractors.
But now, fully justifying (more of that word later) the decision to skip Ascot’s Champion Stakes day and the almost certain heavy ground – I sincerely believe the authorities need to do something about that – he came onto fast turf at Santa Anita and showed the sort of instant acceleration that has impressed the Ballydoyle cognoscenti from day one.
As ever with Aidan, the back-up riders are just as vital. Didn’t Padraig Beggy in 2017 and, three years later, Emmet McNamara emerge from the Chorus Line on the home gallops to win the Derby? They partnered back-up horses, Wings Of Eagles (Beggy) and Serpentine for McNamara, only to disappear from view pretty much thereafter, left with just their memories of that incredible career-garnishing achievement.
There was a bit of a Beggy/McNamara element to this year’s Breeders’ Cup, but it wasn’t that Aidan picked from the 70 or so riders that normally partner first and second lots of the incredibly talented team back home.
This time he “borrowed” a young jockey that has quickly got to near the top of the Irish riding tree, from son Joseph. Dylan Browne McMonagle – still only 20 – has ridden 59 winners in Ireland this year from 539 rides, putting him third only behind champion Colin Keane and Billy Lee.
In a year made difficult for Aidan by the long-term injury early in the year sustained by Wayne Lordan, you might have thought the master of Ballydoyle would have cast his net a little wider. From his 105 domestic wins, Ryan Moore has travelled over for 52 from 123 at 42% and ultra-reliable Seamie Heffernan has 32 from 150 at a more than handy 21%. With Wayne eight from 54 in the spring, there’s just 13 to go round. Surely Dylan would have picked up the pieces. He did, one win from nine rides.
His employment by O’Brien in the UK has been even more sparing, just a single ride on Champions Day at Ascot on Broome, and there he was again on Saturday on the same quirky old veteran apparently making up the numbers in the deep Turf field.
At Ascot, over what has become more his distance in the near two-mile Stayers Championship race, he faded to finish sixth of eight. His perceived role at Santa Anita was to help make the running and ensure a decent pace for the favourite. In the end, Dylan’s knowledge of the horse gained from Ascot did not help at the start as the seven-year-old dwelt as the rest of the field hurried on their way.
Maybe it was good fortune, but McMonagle didn’t rest on his laurels, trying to get to the front and Broome was prominent until understandably beginning to weaken as the last turn approached. Inevitably he fell into the laps of still travelling rivals and certainly Frankie Dettori on King Of Steel and Jim Crowley on Mostahdaf took a rapid diversion to the outside to avoid him.
The trigger effect was a nice gap on the inside. If ever you needed to know how much distance a horse can lose in the US when going wide on the bend this was evident as without doing too much, Ryan, having been some way back in seventh or eighth, was able to enter the straight just behind the lead.
The rail runner route was never more famously displayed than by Calvin Borel in his successive Kentucky Derby wins in 2009/2010, and when it works it looks very clever. Ryan confessed there was an element of good fortune in it but, again, to have a horse talented enough to accept the invitation is rare.
Clearly, Aidan O’Brien doesn’t need to employ a rider regularly to appreciate his talent and here we come to the day before when I’m sure McMonagle must have feared the worst when the local veterinary panel deemed River Tiber unfit to run in Friday’s Juvenile Turf race.
O’Brien took it on the chin in a little more restrained manner than Jessica Harrington, there with an owner who had nothing else to show for their trip. Aidan, of course, had back-up once more but, with Ryan Moore’s first pick an absentee, Frankie Dettori was booked for second string Unquestionable with McMonagle on longshot Mountain Bear.
Although only a winner of a maiden race previously, Unquestionable made plenty of friends with his second, a length behind Richard Hannon-trained Rosellion in the Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere at the Arc meeting. Ryan promptly pulled rank leaving Dettori without a mount, unless…
Well, “unless” didn’t happen, and while Ryan came the inside route to get by the Americans in the straight while Dylan went widest of all, collecting with a flying finish the not inconsiderable runner-up prize of £141k as the trainer supplied the one-two.
If the Coolmore partners didn’t have enough pockets to cram the £2.7 million (less deductions!) into by 24 hours later, I’m sure Joseph’s protégé would have been planning what he might be doing with what must have been an unexpected windfall.
European horses once again made the Americans look ordinary in most of the turf races, with Mick Appleby’s Big Evs more than living up to his sprinting prowess back home by giving the home speedsters a lesson in the Juvenile Turf Sprint. If Godolphin had a quietish time of it, the identity of Big Evs’ sire, their first-season sensation Blue Point, would have kept them smiling wherever Sheikh Mo and co were last weekend.
While the two best male and female stars from the Ballydoyle academy were back home munching away unaware of their joint objectives in next year’s 2000 and 1000 Guineas, their paternal relatives, Just FYI in the Juvenile Fillies’ and Hard To Justify in the Juvenile Fillies’ Turf which followed, were adding both lustre and the degree of versatility to their sire.
City Of Troy’s and Opera Singer’s return to action will be awaited with interest. I can tell you, if you are being impatient, the first weekend in May will come around quicker this time than any year previously. Then we can see if my exaggerated comments about City Of Troy are indeed Justified.
- TS
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/AugusteRodin_BreedersCupTurf2023.png319830Tony Staffordhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngTony Stafford2023-11-06 03:09:212023-11-05 22:20:17Monday Musings: They Did It!
Back in the spring, the racing world, both in Europe and the United States, was in a state of panic, writes Tony Stafford. The cause? The belief that horses raised and trained in Japan were becoming impossible to beat when they travel over to Dubai or indeed the United States for the Breeders’ Cup in the late autumn.
This fear was exemplified by the remarkable four-year-old colt Equinox, easy winner of the Dubai Sheema Classic over a mile and a half on Dubai World Cup night at Meydan last March. Soon in the lead he wasn’t remotely bothered to see off Ralph Beckett’s smart colt Westover, winner of last year’s Irish Derby and, more recently, runner-up to Ace Impact in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe three weeks ago.
Equinox was given an official rating as the world’s best racehorse after that performance. Yesterday at Tokyo racecourse, he made his record six wins and two second places in just eight runs, taking his earnings above £10 million. Then again, prizemoney over there is pretty good.
Before Dubai, Equinox’s last win had been in the Japan Cup and that remains his immediate target even though he had been eligible both for the Breeders’ Cup meeting and the Arc. In between Dubai and yesterday, he raced only once, picking up a handy £1.4 million when a narrow winner at Hanshin.
Yesterday’s prize was similarly remunerative and while he had only a narrow margin to spare back in June, there was never a doubt in regular jockey Christophe Lemaire’s mind that he wouldn’t win. He was slowly away, which needed the jockey to alter planned tactics. Coming wide, he took the lead inside the last furlong, then comfortably held off the five-year-old mare Through Seven Seas.
Lemaire has a great relationship with many leading Japanese trainers, so it was no surprise, given his status as one of the top jockeys in France, that when she was aimed at this month’s Arc, he was booked for the ride. Through Seven Seas finished fourth, three lengths behind the winner and barely a length adrift of Westover.
Although that was an excellent run, it didn’t alter the fact that no Japanese-trained horse has ever won Europe’s autumn all-aged middle-distance championship.
The form lines suggest Equinox probably would have broken the duck for Japan had he not been reserved to clean up millions of Yen at home. The Japan Cup is expected to be at his mercy once more in a month’s time.
Equinox’s name on yesterday’s results jolted me into having a look at the Japanese representation in this week’s Breeders’ Cup races at Santa Anita and the Melbourne Cup at Flemington on Saturday week. That left me with the strong conclusion that a fair degree of consultation goes on behind the scenes before overseas plans are confirmed, or should I say permitted?.
I made it that there are nine Japanese horses entered at this stage on Saturday’s card with only one on Friday. There is never more than two in one race. In the Melbourne Cup tomorrow week, there’s just a single Japanese entry,
I’ve noticed several mares are scheduled to take part while all the male horses are entires, with six-year-old Ushba Tesoro a prime contender for Saturday’s Breeders’ Cup Classic. Winner of his last five, that includes a comfortable success, coming from far back, over the Crisfords’ fellow six-year-old Algiers last March in the Dubai World Cup, a race normally a cinch for the American raiders.
He had a soft warm-up, collecting a puny 250 grand for a little exercising of his ageing limbs in a race in the summer, his one run since Dubai. With £7 million already in the bank, another £2.6 million wouldn’t come amiss before he goes off to stud. He’s Japanese-bred on both sides of his pedigree and as such will be in big demand when he does retire.
Last year’s Breeders’ Cup meeting in Keeneland didn’t seem to interest Japanese stables, with just one token unplaced runner on the entire two days of action. The previous year in Del Mar, though, two females were successful, Loves Only You in the Filly and Mare Turf and Marche Lorraine in the Distaff on dirt.
Both were five-year-olds and, interestingly, 50/1 shot Marche Lorraine was ridden by Oisin Murphy, who might not have had such a long-term association with Japan as Lemaire, but he has spent plenty of time there in recent years. Marche Lorraine, incidentally, is by Ushba Tesoro’s sire, Orfevre.
The Japanese horse whose chance I like best is Songline in the Mile on Saturday. Normally this five-year-old mare – yet another one – would be facing a formidable European contingent, but after Paddington’s defection, there’s just two Godolphin UK runners, one each from Charlie Appleby and Saeed bin Suroor, and the French filly Kelina. Clearly the Americans are reacting to the criticism of and danger of injury too on the dirt tracks that have been the foundation of the US sport for more than a century, targeting the increased number of turf opportunities.
The 2021 2000 Guineas runner-up Master Of The Seas has been in decent form this year but I have greater regard for this year’s 1000 heroine Mawj, trained by bin Suroor. She didn’t run between Newmarket in the spring and two weeks ago at Keeneland. Ridden there by Oisin, continuing the association cemented in the season’s first classic, he partnered the filly for a comfortable success in the Grade 1 Queen Elizabeth II Cup.
Songline, though, another multi-million earner, has had an excellent season at home, winning two late spring Grade 1’s in Tokyo before returning from her break with an unlucky nose second also at Tokyo three weeks ago. This is one race where there are two Japanese entries; the other, Win Carnation, was fifth in that Tokyo race, starting 18/1 compared with Songline’s SP of even money.
Charlie Appleby does well at the Breeders’ Cup, especially with his juveniles, and he was delighted when front-running Ancient Wisdom stayed on well to win the Kameko Futurity at Doncaster on Saturday. The significance for Charlie was that it was a first Group 1 winner for the stable since May, and at least it will send him across the water with renewed optimism.
Ancient Wisdom’s previous run had resulted in a stylish, also front-running, win in a Group 3 at Newmarket on Dewhurst Stakes Day. The brave course for next spring would be to tackle City Of Troy, the unquestioned juvenile champion of 2023. As they say, someone needs to do it.
The runner-up on Saturday at Doncaster was the David Menuisier colt Devil’s Point, a wonderful result for always-enthusiastic owner Clive Washbourn. The French-born trainer could hardly have gone into the race in better form, having won two stakes races the day before at Chantilly and another double five days earlier at Saint-Cloud, including the Group 1 Criterium International with Sunday. Three of the four winners were two-year-olds.
The main Aidan O’Brien hope on the Santa Anita card has to be dual Derby winner Auguste Rodin who erased the memory of a sub-standard run at Ascot in the King George and Queen Elizabeth Stakes with a smart win in the Irish Champion Stakes at Leopardstown. Fourth that day was King Of Steel, the Epsom runner-up who won for Frankie Dettori in the Champion Stakes at Ascot a couple of weeks ago.
Roger Varian also has the Amo Racing three-year-old entered for the Classic on dirt on Saturday, but I assume he takes on his two-time nemesis, although he did finish third when Auguste was tailed off in the King George behind Hukum. There’s a lot at stake for both these smart horses, their owners and trainers this weekend.
- TS
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/MarcheLorraine_OisinMurphy_BreedersCupDistaff_2021.png319830Tony Staffordhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngTony Stafford2023-10-30 00:23:312023-10-30 00:23:31Monday Musings: The Rising Star of the Rising Sun
Whatever happened to Trials Day? For many years, three weeks before the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe the French conveniently staged a trio of perfectly-framed races principally for the home defence to flex their muscles in preparation for their upcoming day of destiny at (Paris)Longchamp on the first Sunday in October, writes Tony Stafford. It also attracted some of our best candidates to reveal their talents.
One, the Prix Niel, was for three-year-olds; another, for four and upwards was the Prix Foy, these two both at Group 2 level. The third, the Group 1 Prix Vermeille, was and remains for three and up fillies and mares. All three are run over the full Arc distance of 2400 metres (1m4f).
They staged it yesterday as usual, but it was totally over-shadowed by the second day of Irish Champions Weekend, run at the Curragh – no longer it seems with the requirement of the definite article, viz “The” to go before the track name. I find it as incongruous as I do to precede Longchamp with the name of the country’s capital making it most unnecessarily unwieldy.
Why not LondonEpsom? I shouldn’t be irritated but I just can’t help it. In one other regular piece of work I do every day, I even referred to the Matron Stakes as being run at The Curragh. Silly me.
While the two Group 2 races have £65k to the winner, this was seemingly not enough inducement for a challenger from the UK. There were just a couple of Aidan O’Brien pages to accompany his Vermeille contender Warm Heart, winner last time of the Yorkshire Oaks. There, with a mixture of speed and determination under James Doyle, she held off the Frankie Dettori-ridden Free Wind, with Coolmore first string Savethelastdance third.
Warm Heart recovered well enough from her York exertions to join William Haggas’ Sea Silk Road and Joseph O’Brien’s Above The Curve in challenging for the French Group 1 and she came out on top again in another tight finish.
She had a neck in hand of home runner Melo Melo with Sea Silk Road an excellent third at 31/1. This race carried £303k to the winner and brought Aidan O’Brien a 4,000th career victory. He had a few also at the two days at Leopardstown and Curragh, although racegoers (and me) hoping to see the colt I think could be the best juvenile we’ve seen in recent years, City Of Troy, were disappointed as he was withdrawn from the National Stakes owing to the unsuitably slow ground.
Of course, you don’t get to 4,000 winners without making provision for such frustrations, and in what was left as a four-runner race, his colt Henry Longfellow got the Ryan Moore touch as a narrow favourite in the market.
Henry Longfellow, by Dubawi out of Minding, if you please, had won quite impressively on debut, but it was only just enough to convince the bookmakers who considered Bucanero Fuerte, easy winner of the Group 1 Phoenix Stakes last time and an Amo Racing colt trained by Adrian Murray, to be his near equal on the boards.
The team evidently formulated a plan to try to thwart City Of Troy had he been there – and stayed with it to handle the substitute. The trouble was, both pacemaker Cuban Thunder and Bucanero Fuerte went off fast, leaving Ryan to sit behind them as though going out for a Sunday ride on his hack in the park. When he asked for an effort, either the effect was instantaneous, or the other pair were already knackered, but a five length win from the fourth runner Islandsinthestream, a two-length runner-up to Henry last time, and running on for second again, gives the form a solid look.
Elsewhere yesterday, Kyprios’ return to action in the Irish St Leger provided a disappointment. Last year’s champion stayer, held up in rear in another four-runner affair, never quite managed to challenge Roger Varian’s 2022 Doncaster St Leger winner Eldar Eldarov, who was always travelling best. You can expect a major improvement from Kyprios next time and it will be interesting to see the outcome if they reconvene at Ascot next month on our Champions Day.
I went to Ian Williams’ Owners’ Day yesterday and enjoyed some delicious food – yes, the neuralgia has been behaving itself as long as I do likewise. While queueing, I met a man who works for Arena Racing and he was looking forward to Wednesday’s final day of the Racing League, moved from Thursday so the jockeys that have been assigned to the various teams, would not be excluded by having to ride on the normal opening day of this year’s St Leger meeting at Doncaster.
The big race on Saturday is sure to benefit from the non-clash with the Leopardstown segment of last weekend’s Irish spectacular and, with pots of money to be doled out to owners, teams and jockeys, that can only be a good thing.
Some trainers who had been very much against the idea have been virtually forced to go along with it, as quite a few of the regular races in the Calendar have been lost to accommodate the 50-odd heats in the competition.
It’s easy to see why 39 have been entered for the final race on Wednesday as this open-ended affair (top-rated 107) over 1m4f carries a £51k first prize, which compares very well with the two French Group 2 races yesterday. The slight snag is that to get a run, you must convince your team’s manager – in the case of Williams, it’s Jamie Osborne for Wales and the West – that your horse merits inclusion. Late decisions have inevitably caused trainers to miss other equally suitable if less remunerative alternatives.
For those left on the shelf – and it has happened more lately after some less than inspiring early entry figures – there’s always the option of running instead for instance at Bath. The seven races on the same day carry a total win money of £31,000. The Arc/Sky led series was a small step in the right direction, and as my fellow buffet-queuer said, “At least it might bring some younger people in to enjoy racing. There are not many youngsters here, are there?”
Thereby the conundrum. To own a horse takes a lot of money and the profile of owners with Williams is generally of people who either now have or have had their own businesses, made their money, and can afford the expense and can put up with the poor prizemoney.
True, they deserve to be looked after when they go racing, but the younger people that are so eagerly sought to become enthusiasts and regular racegoers are confronted by high entrance fees, even with some junior concessions, and very expensive catering. There are many countries which stage high-class horse racing where costs for the pubic are nowhere near as forbidding.
It was good to see Auguste Rodin add the Irish Champion Stakes to his Derby and Irish Derby wins, never mind his two lapses in the 2,000 Guineas and King George. If he had won the first Classic, instead of running at Leopardstwn on Saturday, he could have been trying to go one better than Camelot, aiming to be the first Triple Crown winner since Nijinsky in 1970, the stated aim for him at the start of the year.
For a short time yesterday, seeing that Doncaster doesn’t begin until Thursday, I wondered why it was only going to be a three-day meeting instead as the usual four.
Checking with the BHA site, though, I saw that, as with the first meeting every year on Town Moor, it will now extend to Sunday, a welcome injection of high-class racing on that day after some pitifully drab two-meeting Sundays in the UK in recent weeks.
The Group 3 Sceptre Stakes for fillies and mares and the Listed Scarbrough Stakes are joined by some lesser quality but competitive handicaps. But what represents a master stroke by the race planners (just a one-week reprieve for you I’m afraid, BHA) is that the Legends’ race for former great jockeys can have a fabulous weekend television and on-the-spot audience. Well done! Credit where it’s due.
- TS
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/WarmHeart_PrixVermeille_Longchamp2023.png319830Tony Staffordhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngTony Stafford2023-09-11 06:11:532023-09-11 06:11:53Monday Musings: Of Champions and Challengers
Now I know what it feels like, writes Tony Stafford. Coming to the end of my eighth decade, I can now honestly tell you what it is to experience pain. Thinking back to my football days, a broken wrist and a regularly sprained ankle were about the size of it.
I’m sure every woman past puberty has been doubled up on a regular basis and most sportsmen – none more so than jockeys – accept it as part and parcel of their lives. Sorry Keith - and boxers!
But I’ve poodled along and, despite the odd bit of skin cancer on my face and Type 2 diabetes for the past 15 years which has realistically only involved taking the tablets (and not passing up biscuits and cakes), have had a trouble-free run. My friend George Hill, who has had his share of scary medical issues over the years, always says I’m made of tungsten. The tungsten has run out.
It started a few months ago with a twinge in the corner of the mouth, usually when eating. That developed to such an extent that I went to a dentist to see if there was a problem. Nothing on the X-ray.
The pain got worse – not permanent, just intermittent concentrated bursts for seconds or minutes, often while eating in company with friends at the races or in restaurants with my wife. How embarrassing! Ask the editor!
I finally booked an appointment with the doctor for last Thursday but went to watch Ray Tooth’s Glen Again at Sandown the previous evening. It was after his race, trying to have something in the owners’ room that the pain got unbearable.
The nice guy who monitors the room and likes Chelsea FC and Surrey CCC said: “If you need painkillers go to the First Aid room in the main stand.” I did, to be greeted with a: “Painkillers won’t make a difference. I think I know what you have.”
To my shame, I didn’t take down her name, but this highly capable woman told me that she had been originally a dental nurse and for 30 years a paramedic. She was clearly the boss, working very congenially it seemed with her two male colleagues: “It’s trigeminal neuralgia.” Relief, I know what it is. I’ll tell the doctor tomorrow.
Then I Googled it after I left her room and, for relief, read horror as I realised I will have this condition for the rest of my life.
I slunk to the surgery on Thursday, telling the GP the symptoms and it took about ten seconds for him to repeat the dreaded name. “I’m pretty sure it’s trigeminal neuralgia, but it’s not entirely certain. We’ll prescribe the usual drug for the condition. Start with one a day for a few days, then go to two.
Thursday, Friday, I had one each day. Saturday, I went to Ascot, had the good fortune to be in a box where the food was laid out in glorious, nay luxurious profusion. To that point, all I’d managed to get down me from Wednesday had been a couple of coffees and a diet coke, but anything that involved access to the right-hand side of my mouth was the inevitable trigger for another shooting pain.
On Wednesday evening, post paramedic, I was trying to put away a little soft dessert, to no avail, and recently retired trainer Harry Dunlop hove into view. I was keen to ask him what he was doing now and just as I began, the pain came at maximum force. All I could do was stand there like a moron; mouth open trying to stave off the agony. Kindly, with an apologetic smile, he moved away.
So what is trigeminal neuralgia? It stems from the trigeminal nerve, the biggest nerve in the brain. That sends signals of pain to the face, ear, upper and lower jaw and teeth. When it gets damaged for whatever reason, the neuralgia follows.
The literature says that the sharp pain, like an electric shock, can be induced by talking, smiling, chewing, brushing your teeth, washing your face, a light touch, shaving (or putting on make-up – pass), swallowing, kissing, a cool breeze or air conditioning, head movements, vibrations, such as walking or travelling in a car. If that catalogue wasn’t comprehensive enough, it can happen spontaneously with no trigger at all.
Looks like I’ll have to change many of the things I thought I could do!
The literature suggests it can never be cured, the medication – a smaller dose, but the same that is given to epilepsy patients, great news eh - can help ease or even stave it off for periods, but it’s always lurking in the background. A bit like the tablets I must take for the diabetes.
If you’d have asked me yesterday morning how I felt, it was still at stage one. I was beginning to see why patients with this condition can go into depression or even worse. I won’t. At Ascot, I drank a coffee without incident, but thinking soup would be the only sensible option, I asked if they had any and a nice bowl of tomato was put in front of me.
I needed two goes. The first when I managed three spoonfuls; the second, a third of a bowl, before the wave of pain sailed in. That was game, set and match and after the King George I went straight home.
Yesterday, though, the fourth day of medication and the second with the full daily dose of two tablets, I thought I would try to drink my soup rather than eat in the conventional way, for lunch. That worked. For dinner, a Tesco Fish Pie, spooned minutely so that it took 25 minutes to consume, also went without a problem, although two or three times, the hint was there. So, you pause, take even more care for the positioning of the next morsel. For now, I’m still clear.
The menu is to go back for a blood test tomorrow (Tuesday) and see the doctor again on Thursday week. As I write this, for the first time in weeks I’m feeling optimistic. Maybe the tungsten is still in there somewhere, but boy does it hurt when that shockwave of pain comes!
**
Two years ago, I sat down – eating again, in the days when I could – having a bite before racing at Brighton racecourse and for the first time, met and had a chat with Owen Burrows. He was clearly anxious about his future as Sheikh Hamdan Al Maktoum had recently died and the entire Shadwell Estate Company organisation was very much up in the air.
He told me: “There’s a big meeting in Dubai next week and all the trainers are worried that the Sheikh’s daughter Sheikha Hissa and the rest of the family won’t be inclined or even able to keep it going.”
At that time most of Owen’s horses ran in the blue and white Hamdan livery and with the prospect of massive numbers of mares, horses in training and young stock on their way to market, it was understandable the uncertainty, indeed trepidation, that all the Shadwell trainers were feeling.
Project forward two years to Saturday July 29th 2023 and within 25 minutes, Owen’s older generation horses in the Shadwell ownership collected two big prizes. The four-year-old Alflaila, in his first run since last autumn, made it four wins in a row and six from 13 career, in the £70k to the winner Sky Bet Stakes at York.
Then at Ascot in the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Qipco Stakes, his Hukum picked up almost exactly ten times that in beating last year’s Irish Derby winner Westover after a sustained battle. Jim Crowley, used to winning big races as recently as last year on Baaed, expressed great joy at picking up this massive pot with a six-year-old entire, whose tally over five seasons’ racing is 11 from 17. At six, he matches dual winner Swain and triple heroine Enable, the only previous horses of that age to win the race in its 73-year history.
This was a second flop of the year for Derby and Irish Derby winner Auguste Rodin, whose sudden capitulation before the home turn after which Ryan Moore looked after him, coasting home a long way behind, was a shock, no doubt especially to connections. Minute medical checks will be taken, but Auguste Rodin was not the only disappointment in the race.
Emily Upjohn, who gave Paddington such a brave fight in the Coral-Eclipse at Sandown three weeks earlier, probably left her race on the Esher slopes, and never looked like getting Frankie Dettori a last King George winner, finishing 27 lengths behind the first two in seventh.
The Classic generation form was given a small nudge by King Of Steel, second in the Derby clear of the rest and an easy Royal Ascot winner. For a while it looked as though Kevin Stott was bringing the Amo Racing/ Roger Varian representative with a telling run, but he weakened and had to be content with an honourable third.
Tough stuff this Group 1 racing, especially in soft ground. Hukum is tough and Owen Burrows knows how to keep his golden oldies going.
- TS
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Hukum_KingGeorgeAscot_July2023.jpg319830Tony Staffordhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngTony Stafford2023-07-31 05:40:352024-01-04 20:38:48Monday Musings: A Smack in the Mouth
You would think a €1.25 million pot would be enough to entice raiders from across the water to the Irish Derby, writes Tony Stafford. English connections of six of the nine runners duly did arrive at The Curragh in anticipation of the second Derby win of Auguste Rodin, and some friends and family too, but as far as the horses were concerned, it was a private party for the home team.
A length-and-a-half victory for the 4/11 shot, Aidan O’Brien’s almost obscene 15th success in his principal home Classic, might smack of routine, but routine it definitely was not.
Aidan had five runners, all for the Coolmore boys, and Messrs Tabor and Smith were on hand, along with John Magnier and Georg Von Opel alias Westerberg. Donnacha and Joseph supplied one each, Donnacha’s for the boys, although Joseph’s fifth home – incidentally behind four of his father’s – Up And Under, has Go Racing Ltd as its owner and I’ve no idea who they are or where they come from.
In the Derby at Epsom, nine of the 14 runners were trained in England. Runner-up King Of Steel gave the winner quite a battle before giving best, and was a full five lengths clear of the rest of the field. Roger Varian’s colt lived up to it in a fluent victory at Royal Ascot in the King Edward VII Stakes. There he had two of the better-fancied runners from Epsom similarly well beaten again.
They were Artistic Star (Ralph Beckett) and Arrest (John and Thady Gosden) and the way they were put in their place by the Epsom runner-up gave a very solid look to the form.
You could see why none of the other, more remote, Derby Day also-rans from the UK took on the re-match. There was more realism in the second challenges of home-team contenders White Birch, third for the John Joseph Murphy stable, and Sprewell (fourth for Jessica Harrington), and unsurprisingly they were the second and third in the betting yesterday and the only two at single-figure odds.
Neither replicated the Epsom form, but in some ways neither did the winner. As had been the case there, where Adelaide River cut out much of the running, he again set the pace. He had been a well-beaten eighth at Epsom, but now it took a long while for the favourite to master him.
Much of the story of the race, though, involved the one Aidan runner not to be involved in the finish. This was San Antonio, a son of Dubawi, who at 16/1 was the second shortest of the Ballydoyle quintet even after he finished as far back as 11th at Epsom.
Here he was galloping happily alongside and just behind Adelaide River with the favourite in customary Irish Derby O’Brien comfort zone, close up, when suddenly four furlongs from home, San Antonio broke down and unseated Wayne Lordan. San Antonio sadly was fatally injured having fractured his right foreleg. Lordan was taken to Tallaght Hospital where last night he was said to be “concussed but fully conscious and able to move all limbs”..
The fall caused interference to the favourite and considerably more to some of those in behind including the two other home hopes, who both ran below par, their riders and trainers blaming the incident.
Ryan Moore certainly thought leaving Auguste Rodin without cover on the outside of the leader was a major contributor to what appeared a workmanlike at best performance. With a strong headwind in the first half of the race, and a tailwind in the straight, leading had been hard work initially and then pegging back the leaders just as difficult in the run home.
Eventually Auguste Rodin got on terms and, with his rider working hard, edged ahead, but Adelaide River, in Moore’s words, having enjoyed “the run of the race”, was even pegging back the favourite, and in no way looking a 33/1 shot.
Covent Garden, 80/1 in third, had been three lengths behind Sprewell in his latest race, the trial the Harrington horse won before Epsom. It was left to Peking Opera (66/1), a disappointment in the Queen’s Vase (1m6f) at the Royal meeting 12 days previously, to take fourth under Tom Marquand.
We’ve been accustomed in recent years of O’Brien multiple representation, especially at Epsom, to see more than one Ballydoyle work jockey step into the limelight: Padraig Beggy (Wings of Eagles, 2017) and Emmet McNamara (Serpentine, 2020) picked up career defining wins in the greatest race in the UK Calendar, but the home boys have stayed home of late.
Now, the five Ballydoyle horses were ridden by the regular trio of Moore, Heffernan and the unfortunate Lordan, while Tom Marquand will be happy to pick up his rider’s share of 50k for the fourth place of Peking Opera. Former Irish champion Declan McDonagh (2006) and more frequently riding nowadays for Joseph, finished third. Not a chalk jockey in sight!
They are clearly taking ever more careful account of jockeyship, something which especially concerns Michael Tabor; and his championing of Moore was the main reason for that appointment after Johnny Murtagh’s time there ended. Ryan has been riding with renewed vigour and enterprise, and at Ascot his energy and tactical awareness were the best we’ve seen from a flat race jockey for a long time. That has filtered through to his regular trips across to Ireland where before racing yesterday, he jointly led the riders’ table on 30 wins.
O’Brien sits second to the Gosdens in the UK trainers’ prizemoney list, having won £2,746,146 against Big John and Little Thady’s [he’s not that little! – Ed.] £3,210,084. At home, before racing yesterday, he was on more than €1.8 million. That has swelled to just a few Euro over the three milion mark, almost three times Joseph’s far from negligible tally in second.
Tabor was fulsome in his praise of his trainer yesterday. It is salutary to relate that it was only a few years ago that the media and those rumour mills, always so prevalent in racing, were predicting that David O’Meara was about to take over at Ballydoyle and that the Coolmore owners were ready to jettison their man.
John Magnier must go down in racing history as the genius who discovered the man to follow his unelated namesake but equally supreme, Vincent O’Brien.
When he retired, Vincent got an honorary doctorate and was forever thereafter described as Dr O’Brien. Maybe somebody can think up an appropriate appellation for Aidan when he allows someone else to win the Derby (nine and counting) and Irish Derby (15). It must be something unique as there’s been nobody like him.
Ryan Moore, so much more at ease with the media nowadays – the natural caution of this private young man having been hard for him to come to terms with - also was fulsome in his praise of the trainer. He said that over the past ten years he had provided so many good horses for him to ride. Auguste Rodin was Ryan’s first winner of the Curragh race, to go with his three at Epsom, two for O’Brien including last month.
The rest of the season is panning out quite nicely for them with such as Irish 2.000 Guineas and St James’s Palace Stakes winner Paddington dominating the mile division for now and, despite his near miss at Ascot in the Commonwealth Cup, top sprint honours can still come the way of Little Big Bear.
As for the two-year-olds, there was a rare reverse in yesterday’s opener when close Ascot third Bucanero Fuerte rallied late to get the better of Aidan’s favourite, Unquestionable, in the Railway Stakes. The pair, both sons of Coolmore’s star young stallion Wootton Bassett, were miles clear of the third-placed His Majesty, who had been a close fourth in the Norfolk Stakes.
That followed two wins at the start of both Friday and Saturday’s Curragh cards, all comfortably achieved. The highlight undoubtedly was the facile all-the-way win of Frankel filly Ylang Ylang on debut on Saturday. This 1.5 million gns buy from Newsells Park Stud had the look of a guaranteed contender for races like the Moyglare Stud Stakes. I was at Chester on Friday night watching another Wootton Bassett colt, owned in partnership by Newsells Park with Jonathan Barnett and trained by Michael Bell.
He ran a promising first race finishing third to Witness Stand who looked very smart. Tom Clover trains that one. It took five hours without stopping to get back from Chester which was just five minutes less than the journey home from Lingfield (one third the distance) on Saturday when a three-hour wait on the M25 put in perspective how lucky I had been with my five hours each way on the M6 on Friday.
It wasn’t entirely a weekend without enterprise by English trainers. Michael Dods sent his top-class sprint handicapper Commanche Falls for the Listed six-furlong race yesterday and was rewarded with a nice payday as he outpaced the local speedsters.
But his chance was there for all to see. Much less obvious were the claims of the Hughie Morrison-trained and Arbib family-owned Stay Alert, a Group 3 winner last year, but only fifth behind Free Will and Rogue Millennium in the Middleton Stakes at York.
In running an excellent second in the Yulang Pretty Polly Stakes on Saturday to the George Boughey favourite Via Sistina, she collected valuable Group 1 placed black type as a 25/1 shot, and can go on from here.
The winner looks a top performer. Boughey has lost one major owner from his yard after a run of unfortunate veterinary issues during Royal Ascot but the way he spoke diplomatically about his former client, wishing him and his family all the best, suggested he has the right temperament for this tricky profession in which he has started out so well.
For the past three years, observers of the British Turf have been all agog awaiting the equalling of the best-known of all Classic records – the late Lester Piggott’s nine Derby wins as a jockey, writes Tony Stafford.
He was kept in suspended animation as Aidan O’Brien was poised on eight as a trainer when outsider Serpentine collected in 2020, just 19 years after Galileo gave him the first victory. When Piggott died on May 29 last year, the record, to his still very active mind, remained intact.
Well, it isn’t any longer and, while Saturday’s extraordinary victory by winter favourite but 2000 Guineas flop Auguste Rodin has prompted the record-compilers to regard Aidan as the joint record-holder, two men actually share the honours with ten.
The first Derby was won by Diomed in 1780. His owner, Sir Charles Bunbury, famously the man who lost the toss with the then Earl of Derby to have the destined-to-be great race named after him, won it again 33 years later.
Others in between enjoyed a quicker repeat win, and sometimes as the decades and centuries wore on, with more than two. Among its winners were kings, princes, noblemen of all levels and Prime Ministers, mostly past. Never would any of those great gentlemen of the realm have considered that a young man born and bred in East Ham, East London would – with his partner – eclipse them all, and within a remarkable 22-year span. Aidan does have nine, but in between, Pour Moi, trained by Andre Fabre, makes ten.
When the first Coolmore triumvirate, instigated more than half a century ago, and founded on Robert Sangster’s Vernon’s Pools money, Vincent O’Brien’s training brilliance, and Vincent’s son-in-law John Magnier’s all-round knowledge of horses and business acumen, was beginning to wane – Royal Academy’s 1990 Breeders’ Cup Mile win under Lester was the final positive - it fell on Magnier to take charge.
Robert had the expense of Manton to take precedence; Vincent was about to retire and son David, who won the Derby with Secreto six years earlier when El Gran Senor was supposed to win for the team – he got the show back on the road in Secreto’s absence at The Curragh, was out of love with training and went to be a wine grower in Europe.
With Vincent leaving, it needed somebody special to take his place at Ballydoyle. Many were surprised at Magnier’s selection, which fell on a young man who had only recently taken out a licence.
A former amateur rider with Jim Bolger, Aidan O’Brien (no relation to Vincent) had joined his wife Anne-Marie (nee Crowley) in her training base where she had followed her father Joe and instantly become champion jumps trainer in Ireland.
Still in her early 20’s, she promptly retired to have their first child Joseph, and Aidan took up the reins, following her as champion over jumps and attracting Magnier’s shrewd notice. Aidan had started with Bolger when Tony McCoy was a young apprentice and Willie Mullins was also in the team.
Even earlier, at least 45 years ago when he was based in White’s Gate, Phoenix Park, Bolger told me that his ambition was to train a stable entirely of his own home-bred horses. How remarkable that he has pretty much achieved that aim and at the same time has been responsible for putting the three most influential individuals (himself and Magnier apart) in UK and Irish racing – the best flat trainer, the outstanding jumps trainer, and the best jump jockey of all time – on the righteous, unwavering path.
Bolger’s wish came so close to happening over the years, brought closer when he sent out homebred Teofilo, then acquired at auction New Approach, both unbeaten champion two-year-old winners of the Dewhurst from the early crops of Galileo, the latter winning the Derby in 2008. These two came at the start of a remarkable spell of five wins in six years. O’Brien has a total of eight, six coming from the next nine years.
It was only the astounding prices commanded that compelled the former accountant to swerve (slightly) from that ambition and accommodate Sheikh Mohammed’s interest. It has ensured that his family’s Redmondstown stud in his home Co Wexford, run by granddaughter Clare Manning (daughter of Una and Kevin Manning) has the resources to continue to thrive.
If identifying the training talent was important to John Magnier, it was even more fundamental to ensure a stream of investment to maintain and, as it proved, improve on what had gone before. Michael Tabor was already owning horses with Neville Callaghan, enjoying big-race success with the likes of Danehill Dancer and Danetime, both sons of Danehill.
Danehill Dancer eventually became a successful stallion at Coolmore and was a great producer and broodmare sire. Meanwhile Tabor was minded to invest with the great US handler and former college basketball coach, D Wayne Lukas, king of the Breeders’ Cup. They promptly won the 1995 Kentucky Derby with Thunder Gulch.
I remember a call the following morning from his then close associate Victor Chandler saying: “Unbelievable. It could only have happened to Michael.” Previously one of the leading figures in racecourse betting activity, and about to cash in his off-course Arthur Prince betting shop empire, this was success right out of left field.
As with all successful men, he didn’t marvel at it, unbelievable as it clearly was to those who knew him best, but he made it a starting point, and while finding his ally in racing with Magnier and Coolmore, his business interests also burgeoned.
His greatest pride is in his family. Son Ashley Tabor-King is founder and boss of the massive and ever-expanding Global broadcasting company which has an on-going programme of projects aimed at giving a helping hand to young people, many from under-privileged backgrounds.
Meanwhile, within the Coolmore family, it wasn’t long before the dividends started. Michael timed his membership with the first Derby success for the trainer and for Galileo, by Sadler’s Wells, son of Northern Dancer, the stallion John Magnier and O’Brien senior convinced Robert Sangster that they had to invest in from US auctions if they wanted to compete on the world stage. Nijinsky and Sadler’s Wells were among the first.
Two equine generations on, recently deceased Galileo is having a similar overwhelming influence on the breed. His son Frankel has developed into the leading stallion for providing Classic horses although, as ever, breeding needs to outcross, and Auguste Rodin is the product of the fantastic multiple Group 1 mare Rhododendron (Galileo – Pivotal mare cross) by the multiple Japanese champion, Deep Impact. Now the Tabor ownership figure stands after Saturday at a mind-boggling ten – from just 23 renewals of the great race.
All through that time, the measured way Michael, John and their long-term associate Derrick Smith – in for the last eight – have modestly taken the success – and respected the unique nature of a race founded 243 years ago and which is yet to have been stopped by Wars, Covid and even would-be horse-racing-ending Animal Rising protesters.
Rightly, the Derby Roll of Honour is a short-cut to an understanding of the history of the sport from its days when a few dozen rich men matched their charges against each other up to the business where massive pots of country wealth have been grafted, with the aim of making their rulers pre-eminent in the annals of turf.
The winner of the Derby is a unique beast. He needs the speed to stay in touch with the pace and again to settle any lingering doubts as they go for home. He requires the adaptability to cope with the bends, cambers, rises and descents over these 12 furlongs of historic Surrey downland, and the resolution and temperament to handle the extraneous demands of a massive crowd that challenges their still only part-developed strength and character.
Derby horses are far from the finished article, but the race has proven to be the perfect test over time. Aidan O’Brien knows what’s needed so, while everyone was cogitating as to whether he was crazy or not after the unexpected flop of Auguste Rodin in the 2000 Guineas, the trainer himself was adamant that he was special; and his word is his bond for Messrs Magnier, Tabor, Smith, their sons and the other members of the ownership team such as Westerberg, the racing operation of auto magnate, Georg von Opel.
I had a fabulous trip with Harry Taylor and Alan Newman to Ballydoyle/Coolmore, I think four years ago now, met Galileo at Coolmore and had a nice look at the O’Brien team on the gallops. The lot we saw – second I think – consisted of 70 and all the jockeys, which included Adrian Maguire and Dean Gallagher to name but two – were instantly identified by name by the trainer.
Likewise, the horses. Afterwards in a quiet moment, I asked Aidan if he ever betted. Now excuse me if I have the number wrong but I’m pretty sure what he said was: “I did at one time when I was with Jim Bolger. My first 15 bets all won. The next one lost and I’ve never had another one since!”
I truly believe no other trainer would have dared run the horse that finished so far back at Newmarket, and Roger Varian for one is wishing he didn’t. Roger was described as looking “gutted” when visiting the boys in the box on Saturday; no wonder, for otherwise his King Of Steel, a 66/1 half-length runner-up on stable and seasonal debut, would have been a near five-length Derby hero.
Varian, who won the St Leger for Derrick Smith’s son Paul with Kingston Hill, is sure to gain further attention for, like O’Brien, he was fulsome in the constant encouragement of his colt’s chances, despite the massive odds.
Aidan might not be a betting man nowadays. The three main Coolmore owners certainly have been. In each case, though, they have transcended their earlier status to the extent that, thanks to Aidan O’Brien, their place in the fabric of the English Turf will be forever as the most important players in the history of the Derby. Nothing more, nothing less!
TS
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/AugusteRodin_Derby_2023.png319830Tony Staffordhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngTony Stafford2023-06-05 04:28:022023-09-19 15:09:11Monday Musings: The Derby’s Record-Breaking Connections
It took a fair amount of thought before Auguste Rodin was confirmed a runner for Saturday’s Vertem Futurity at Doncaster, writes Tony Stafford. I understand for much of the morning Michael Tabor was resigned to his and the rest of the Coolmore partners’ best 2023 Derby candidate missing the race through the predicted heavy ground.
Fortunately, Ryan Moore was on the comfortable opening race winner, Totally Charming for the George Boughey stable, and with the positivity of a successful rider, his report to Aidan O’Brien reduced the potential worry of connections. No doubt the trainer’s own punctilious inspection of the nearside portion on his customary walking the course – largely unoccupied on the first day of the meeting – also figured importantly in the decision.
Wide courses like Doncaster often provoke differences of opinion and five of the eight jockeys preferred to stay on the far side. That left only three – two for Ballydoyle and the Frankie Dettori-ridden Gosden runner, the heavily-backed second favourite Epictetus, staying stands side, too.
What O’Brien clearly did not want was a slow-run tactical race and Wayne Lordan was deputed to set a solid pace on the rail on well-supported Salt Lake City, ahead of Epictetus and Auguste Rodin. David Probert, on Andrew Balding’s good Newbury winner Stormbuster, fulfilled a similar role on the other side.
As Karl Burke’s Holloway Boy came to the front on his side, Ryan appreciated he needed to make a move and the smooth way he came outside Dettori and eased clear, seemed to signal “race over”.
There was an element, not for the first time this racing season, redolent of the 2014 2,000 Guineas. Just as Night Of Thunder had crossed the entire Rowley Mile that May afternoon before beating John Gosden’s Kingman and O’Brien’s Australia, now Holloway Boy started to head towards the latest would-be Classic stars of the same two stables, from his position at the front of the other group.
Unfortunately, once he got across, Ryan was already off and gone while Epictetus, a son of Kingman, stayed on better than the Burke runner, who was still a decent third. There was also a Night Of Thunder aside, with his son Captain Wierzba finishing sixth for Ralph Beckett.
There can be few better maidens around, at least not one that has raced four times, as the Roger Teal colt, Dancing Magic. Fourth behind Keeneland bound Silver Knott and Epictetus in the Autumn Stakes at Newmarket, he filled the same place when heading up the remaining far side quartet.
We have got to the time in top level breeding and racing in Europe when the direct influence of the deceased Galileo is inevitably waning as his final crops come on stream. While he did have a representative here in Salt Lake City, it was as a broodmare sire that he intruded on the Group 1 race this time.
As the eleventh winner for Aidan O’Brien of the last British Group 1 of the year, beating Sir Henry Cecil’s ten, Auguste Rodin is by the late and equally (as Galileo) lamented Japanese multiple champion Deep Impact, sire of 2,000 Guineas winner Saxon Warrior, out of Rhododendron.
It was something of a risk that few owner-breeding groups would be prepared to undertake to send a top-class Group 1 winning mare to Japan to be covered by a stallion so relatively late in his career. Coolmore did and it was fortuitous as Deep Impact preceded his Irish counterpart by a year in his demise, Auguste Rodin coming from his final crop.
The need for outcrosses for the host of Galileo mares within the Coolmore orbit is a constant search. Rhododendron, of course, like her contemporary and regular adversary within the fold, Hydrangea, was bred to the famed Galileo on a Pivotal cross. Strangely, the two names also belong to my two favourite flowers!
I have a friend with a winning young daughter of Galileo (actually a filly – she won’t pass five until January when she expects her first foal) also from a winning Pivotal mare, who will be delighted how Rhododendron has clicked with a superstar first time up.
His mare has gone to Ten Sovereigns and if the yearlings by him on offer at the October Yearling Sales were anything to go by, he could soon be following the example of fellow Scat Daddy stallions No Nay Never, Caravaggio, US Navy Flag, Sioux Nation and, in the US, unbeaten Triple Crown hero Justify, by producing top runners.
My friend is the banker and businessman Bernard Kantor, the man behind the ten-year Derby sponsorship of Investec. That inevitably meant for him an annual early June encounter with the late Queen and almost as often with Messrs Magnier, Tabor, Smith and O’Brien among many others.
If Bernard is lucky enough to get a colt with his first product of Sans Pretention, a lightly raced staying filly with William Haggas, and resists the temptation to sell him, how he would love to get him into the race that was his annual preoccupation throughout each spring.
As a sire, Galileo often confounded conventional breeding theory when adding unexpected stamina to sprinting fillies off the track. Who is to say that Galileo mares might have a reverse influence, stretching out the distance capabilities of sprint sires like Middle Park and July Cup winner Ten Sovereigns? How the Coolmore boys would love that!
In a previous life, I happened upon the famous Auguste Rodin sculpture of The Thinker in the Rodin Museum in Paris. I just love that image of a naked man so deep in thought and oblivious to anything else. Like racehorse trainers, apart from the nakedness of course.
This probably happened only a year or so after the Arthur Stephenson steeplechaser of that name had won the Gold Cup after the day’s racing was delayed by a sudden snowfall and needed thawing out, and the next year finished third in the Grand National.
*
We get used to Arab owners paying massive money for horses but this year one Dubai owner, who has had an increasing involvement in the sport, has shown when it comes to thinking about it he has the game sorted as much as anyone can.
I first met Ahmad Al Shaikh when he was a constant part of the Sheikh Mohammed entourage in, it must have been the late 1980’s or early 90’s. His role was the official in-house journalist providing domestic reports on the Maktoums’ racing achievements. He’s come a long way since then and has around 20 horses of his own in training now.
Owen Burrows described him as being a “big supporter of my stable” after Hello Deira won a Redcar handicap last month. Earlier in the summer I stood talking to him in the Epsom paddock before the Dash and he introduced me to his friend, saying: “This is Saeed Suhail, he owns the favourite.”
It was only after Desert Crown did indeed win the Derby for Sir Michael Stoute and Richard Kingscote that I realised he hadn’t mentioned his own Derby runner, Hoo Ya Mal, the Andrew Balding trained 150-1 shot who followed the winner home.
He needed to think quickly and within ten days he had parted company with his second cheaply-bought placed horse in the classic, for £1.2 million at the pre-Ascot sale in Kensington Palace Gardens, not bad for a £40k yearling. That was also the yearling purchase price of Khalifa Sat, his previous Derby runner-up with Balding, a 50-1 shot that followed O’Brien’s Serpentine home in 2020.
But on Saturday in France, Ahmad enjoyed his best day in 20 years of racehorse ownership when his colt Dubai Mile, trained by Charlie and Mark Johnston, won the Group 1 Criterium de Saint-Cloud over ten furlongs.
A few years ago, I sat in the dining room with some Johnston owners in Kingsley House, Middleham, feasting on the home-produced beef from their own herd. The same two Group 1 races were featured, and we watched them. I couldn’t help remembering that French Fifteen had won the other Group 1 on the corresponding day in 2011, over a mile.
Ahmad has only a day to collect his thoughts in much the same way he needed to back in early June. He says: “He is in the sale on Tuesday. We will enter him for the Breeders’ Cup on Monday <today> and if we get a good offer, I will sell him.”
So, either it will be another seven-figure return, this time on an even smaller investment of just 20 grand, or a date with Auguste Rodin. I think you can say, Ahmad will be on a winner either way.
Just to gauge how shrewd is this one-time journalist, armed with the proceeds of that big midsummer profit on Hoo Ya Mal, a Book 1 Tattersalls purchase, he was again in action two weeks ago. I’ve looked down the list of all nine days and the 2097 lots (less withdrawals) and encountered the name Ahmad Al Shaikh only once.
That’s not to say he didn’t enlist any of his trainers or associates to act on his behalf in an attempt at sales obfuscation. He doesn’t seem that type to me, though. Book 1 averaged almost 300 grand per yearling: Ahmad bought Lot 164 on the first day, a colt by Almanzor, winner of the French Derby, Champion Stakes and Irish Champion, for just 50,000gns. He buys to try to get a Derby winner. Watch out Aidan, this Thinker and his bargain buys may be coming after you, if not next year, maybe in 2024.
- TS
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/AugusteRodin_VertemFuturity_2022.jpg319830Tony Staffordhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngTony Stafford2022-10-24 08:19:222022-10-24 08:19:23Monday Musings: The Thinker
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There was a swathe of non-runners, or scratches as they're known across the pond, over the two days. In fact, even before the Euro runners were due to board their flights, a number were withdrawn. Once on the ground at Santa Anita, over the course of the week further scratches were announced including Aidan O'Brien's Pearls And Rubies and, more materially, River Tiber and Bolshoi Ballet; Classic intended runners Mage, Geaux Rocket Ride and Arcangelo; Dirt Mile second favourite Practical Move; as well as the Jessica Harrington-trained Givemethebeatboys and Archie Watson-trained Bradsell.
