Tag Archive for: City Of Troy

Monday Musings: Of Real Racing Heroes

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Less than a year after areas of Southwell racecourse, including the main grandstand and offices, were flooded to a depth of up to three feet, it played host last Friday to a unique presentation, writes Tony Stafford. No racing there, nor even the Big Trucks event that was lined up for the following couple of days, just one group of five horses galloping for a mile around its Tapeta oval.

Yet the mesmeric draw of City Of Troy and four of his lesser stablemates, accompanied by trainer Aidan O’Brien, was sufficient to entice 1,500 people – that was the pre-event estimate but on the ground the feeling was that the figure had been exceeded – to come to see it.

Here were Ryan Moore, Wayne Lordan, Brett Doyle, Rachel Richardson and Dean Gallagher to ride the quintet in advance of City Of Troy’s Breeders’ Cup Classic challenge at Del Mar, California, in November. (Gallagher amazingly so as it was more than 30 years ago that his dad Tommy asked me if I could find him a job in England. I did and he came to Rod Simpson, yet he is still regarded as sufficiently talented and fit to be asked to take his part in a trial of this importance.)

https://twitter.com/RacingTV/status/1837185812837855338

A few years after Dean had been signed as first jockey for the one-time Midlands greengrocer Paul Green, by then a substantial owner, he rode the Francois Doumen-trained Hors La Loi III into second place in the third of Istabraq’s triple Champion Hurdle sequence, Istabraq trained of course by Aidan O’Brien.

There was no Champion Hurdle the following year because of foot and mouth, but when Istabraq went for the four-timer in 2002, he pulled up as Charlie Swan felt he was wrong, a view confirmed by the vet’s post-race inspection. The winner, Hors La Loi III, by now trained by James Fanshawe but ridden still by Gallagher, beat Hughie Morrison’s Marble Arch, a 25/1 shot into second place.

I can throw in another small personal part to this story. I was asked to try to buy Istabraq from the July sale in 1996 and went to the John Gosden yard at Newmarket a couple of days earlier. I was shown the horse by the late John Durkan, Gosden’s assistant at the time, who said: “He’s a lovely horse. I couldn’t recommend him more highly.”

I had a budget from a Saudi prince who wanted the staying 3yo for the King’s Cup in his home country. I stayed in until 36k but Timmy Hyde, bidding for J P McManus, held sway at 38,000 gns.

I was coming back from Keeneland Sales a few years later when I heard a voice from behind me as we walked to change planes in Cincinnati. It was Timmy Hyde. He said: “Tony, you were the under-bidder for Istabraq. I know because I was standing right behind you! It’s just that that f…ing Danny Murphy is telling everyone he was!” He wasn’t.

The obvious next question was: “How high would I have needed to go?” Timmy smiled and said: “We had 100 grand if necessary!” Hardly an underbidder in truth!

The saddest part of the story was that Aidan wasn’t meant to be training the horse, it was John Durkan who would be leaving Gosden to set up his own operation in Ireland. He even came up to the Daily Telegraph’s office in South Quay Plaza, the one between Fleet Street and Canary Wharf, with our photographer Ed Byrne and Conor O’Dwyer.

But then he contracted inoperable cancer and was unable to proceed with his plans. JP McManus gave the horse to Aidan and four consecutive Festival wins, starting with the 2m5f novice and then three Champion Hurdles, earned him a place in jumping folklore, along of course with his owner and trainer. I’ve never forgotten how honest he was about the horse even though if JP had bought him, he would be training him. Istabraq died this summer at the age of 32, much lamented by his owner and family.

JP has stayed mainly in that environment, dominating owners’ championships on either side of the Irish Sea, while O’Brien has been unchallenged on the flat in his homeland and more than a match for Gosden, Hannon and the rest for most years over here.

When interviewed after a big win, Aidan invariably remembers all the people he considers have played a part in the particular horse’s preparation. It’s not about him, everyone else almost.

On Friday, as Pat Keating awaited his boss’s delayed arrival – there was a crash on the way from the airport - replying to his question: “How long <have they been walking around the paddock>? answered “Forty-seven minutes”. Aidan said: “They are set to go then.” Thirty is the usual requirement. The jockeys mounted, setting off around to the far side of the track for the American-style stalls especially brought for the event.

The imperative, apart from City Of Troy working well and acting on the surface, was a fast pace and the short-running duo that broke best, ensured that would happen. Up the straight, the markedly elongated stretch of the Derby winner’s stride not for the first time struck connections Paul Smith, son of Derrick, his son Harry and Mike Dillon, former Ladbrokes man and a close friend.

The workout was the day job. But then we saw the true Aidan. He had a quick post-work de-brief with the jockeys, giving each the chance to comment, but obviously then having the crucial talk with Ryan on how it went.

But then the crowd saw something I doubt even those that travelled from far beyond the East Midlands would have expected. Aidan smiled throughout whenever cornered by a gallop-goer to sign the nice little racecard designed by Nick Craven, one of Weatherbys’ bosses. Each signature, because we are in 2024 and not 2004, had to require a selfie. None of which the personable O’Brien refused.

There was a lengthy television interview for Sky Sports Racing with Jason Weaver, while Brough Scott added his wisdom of many years to the proceedings. Then Aidan spent ages talking to mainly young aspiring journalists, none of whom could believe this giant of racing would give them so much time.

I guess almost an hour and a half after the workout – the pre-event blurb said he would stay for 45 minutes - he went off smiling for the car to the airport, long after Keating, his travelling head lad, had caught his eye and pointed to his watch.

Aidan O’Brien may be no Frankie Dettori but where the Italian has showmanship in the extreme, Aidan has a modesty and innate kindness that you would need to go a long way to see replicated by any public figure.

It could have been a fiasco, but Aidan’s plan to give his horse an awayday must be termed a great success, not least in PR terms. I’m certainly glad I was there to see it. And I know that the final line of people waiting patiently for his signature, selfie and smile, all got their precious reward for their trip. Well done, Southwell, well done Aidan, Ryan and the rest.

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Mentioning Marble Arch in relation to Hors La Loi III and Dean Gallagher reminded me that Hughie Morrison has been around for a good while, too. Not So Sleepy hasn’t been with us for quite as long but he did win first time out as a two-year-old at Nottingham ten years ago and in the following May, won the Dee Stakes, the pre-Derby warm-up for winners Oath and Kris Kin, the latter for Sir Michael Stoute who will retire from training at the end of the season.

Not So Sleepy has raced at least four times in each of the next nine seasons, never once having his flat handicap mark drop below 94 and now, after a wonderful repeat win in a valuable Newbury handicap on Saturday, will surely end his career rated over 100 – he was 99 on Saturday. I’ll be shocked if that has ever happened before.

Hughie trains with a rare sympathetic view of his charges – “Each one that gets injured I feel it so much”, he says. But consequently, few trainers have a comparable facility for extending their horses’ working lives. He won a Group 1 with the stayer Alcazar when that horse was ten years of age, but his achievements with the difficult to manage Not So Sleepy dwarf even that.

He finished in the first four in three Cesarewitch Handicaps and was seventh last year. He also ran in four consecutive Champion Hurdles. Despite not taking up hurdling until the age of seven, his three Grade 1 wins include a dead-heat with previous Champion Hurdle winner Epatante in the Fighting Fifth Hurdle, a feat he followed with a second win in the Newcastle race.

Last December, he won a Grade 1 hurdle at Sandown in a procession, a few days short of his official twelfth birthday. Few horses have achieved half as much as Sleepy. His owner, Lady Blyth, seemed very keen as with Quickthorn recently to ascribe lots of credit to rider Tom Marquand, a sentiment reciprocated in their interviews with Matt Chapman for Sky Sports Racing.

Never a mention of the trainer and the usually forensic Chapman didn’t seem to think of bringing in his name either. Maybe Hughie was being courted and given his rightful credit for the horse’s achievements by ITV, but I have only one television set.

Also Saturday was the final day’s riding for Franny Norton, and he chose Chester, where he has been the “King” for so long, for the farewell. He did it in style, notching a treble, and it would be fitting if the course made him an ambassador for the future, especially at the May meeting.

It was a lovely weekend at any rate for some real racing heroes.

- TS

Monday Musings: Of Lazarus, and the Rogues

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York is my idea of a holiday, writes Tony Stafford. Four days of wonderful racing, dinner in excellent restaurants peopled by friends from the racing world, and accommodation – or rather – home from home, at the elegant town house of Mary and Jim Cannon, midway between the station and the racecourse – not bad eh!

From City Of Troy on the opening day – dry coat after the Juddmonte, unlike sweaty at Sandown, his hardest race by my inexact barometer – to the facile Ebor win of Magical Zoe on Saturday, events flowed into each other. The four days provided a melange of thoughts as I drove home down the A1. The reverie was soon expunged when the diversion took us across to the M1 – in all an extra 48 miles on the journey and around an hour on the time.

But back home, checking the later results, after leaving before the last, I was thrilled that having wished William Knight luck as he arrived with one of his owners just after midday, I saw that he had provided the last-race exacta. His old-timer Sir Busker (12/1), a Group 2 winner on the track two years ago and the stable star for longer than that, beat Dual Identity.

There were two winners on the day, the other being Tom Clover’s Melrose Stakes hero Tabletalk, also at 12/1, that nicely rounded up a great spell for both trainers, and a situation that earlier in the year you would never have thought possible.

William Knight endured a horrific 2023. He’d kicked off with three UK wins by February 8, and went off to Dubai with stable star Sir Busker hoping to get some of the big money on offer. You could predict that maybe the kickback on the dirt track there might prove troublesome. In the case of Sir Busker, it was a piece of turf propelled in his direction that went into an eye, causing serious injury.

He needed an operation straight after and then to convalesce for several months before he could be brought back. William did well to get him ready to run in the autumn and in an upside-down season kept him going through the winter, picking up some place money at Newcastle around the turn of the year.

Then came his “winter break” – April to August – when he returned to Glorious Goodwood three weeks ago, a lovely day out for the Kennet Valley Syndicate that had already collected more than half a million pounds for his career exertions.

But to return to 2023 and the aftermath of Dubai. Knight had three early all-weather wins on the board, but from February 8 to September 12 last year, 171 days, he won just three further races – two in June and one in July.

“I did nothing different to always, but we just couldn’t get going. Thank God we had that little flurry at the end of the year,” he said.

A further ten wins came from September 6 to December 18, a Lazarus-type return from the dead as far as the racing community was concerned, and just in time to have a little confidence going into the yearling sales season.

One of the late winners was the filly Frost At Dawn and after her easy win at Chelmsford in early November, William took the calculated risk of sending her to Dubai – not least with the memory of Sir Busker still fresh in his mind.

But owner Abdulla Al Mansoori’s acceptance of the plan paid handsome dividends. On the fifth of her six runs at Meydan, she out-sprinted the Godolphin odds-on shot Star Of Mystery in the Nad Al Sheba Sprint. Dreams of a win in the £600k-plus championship on Dubai World Cup night did not materialise, but the grey filly had done everyone proud.

Project forward to the 2024 season. As we’ve indicated above, Knight had won only three races in the more than five months of last summer, the seventh win of the year coming on September2.

This year, following Frost At Dawn in March, Knight has won 28 races; one in April, four in May, ten in June, eight in July and with Sir Busker on Saturday, another five in August.

Almost all have come from handicaps – “At least when they run as badly as ours did last year, the handicap marks have to drop.” True enough, but horses like Atlantic Gamble, off a mark of 79 at Kempton winning for the fifth time this season having started the run on 56; and Blenheim Star, three wins starting from 51, is rated 69 with the prospect of more to come.

Always approachable, he can also point with satisfaction to Saturday’s opening race third with the recently gelded Checkandchallenge. A 33/1 shot, he looked the likely winner until a little ring-rustiness allowed a couple of horses to pass him.

If William Knight’s good form has been heartening for me, I’m also chuffed that the Tom Clover stable seems to have ridden out the unexpected (at least to me) of the Rogues Gallery horses.

Tom and wife Jackie brought that syndicate’s Rogue Millennium, a daughter of Dubawi, from a 35k 2yo buy to a £1.6 million guineas sale, in the meantime collecting a couple of stakes races and running well at the top level. Rogue Lightning won valuable handicap sprints, turning an 80k breeze-up acquisition into a £1 million sale to Wathnan Racing, who have kept him with Clover.

Then in the spring came news of a parting of the ways, The Rogue apparently becoming uneasy about another syndicate muscling in on their territory, or that’s how it read at the time.

No sooner had the 2024 Horses in Training book come out in March/April than the 16 horses listed under the Rogues Gallery had been dispersed far and wide – well all around Newmarket anyway. Talk about gratitude. I’ve no idea if Tony Elliott bought the two stars on his own judgment or that of Tom Clover, but I immediately got the dead needle to their horses.

The Thursday before York, I went to Chelmsford and the flashy red vehicle emblazoned with Rogues stuff was parked next to me. If I had been a little more mobile or less conspicuous, I might even have let the tyres down!

Mr Elliott might well be a great bloke and his syndicates do well and are endorsed by a couple of influential figures, but I was delighted when their Rogue Invader finished a place and two lengths behind Fire Flame, albeit himself a beaten favourite, the horse I was there to watch.

On Friday at York, the Clovers ran recent arrival Al Nayyir in the Lonsdale Cup and if he had had another ten yards to travel he would have beaten Vauban rather than lose by a short head. The six-year-old will be one to watch out for in any long-distance race from now on.

They had a winner elsewhere that day and another at Goodwood on Saturday, but the main event came in the Melrose Handicap, now much stronger as the three-year-olds are excluded from the Ebor, which follows later in the card.

Their lightly-raced Tabletalk came through strongly to win comfortably, beating Coolmore’s The Equator, in a faster time than Magical Zoe took to win the Ebor. He can go a long way as can Tom and Jackie, who have matched last year’s tally of 22, even without the rogue element.

Tabletalk was an appropriate winner that I suggested in response to a request for “a winner” from the three lovely Scottish ladies on my table on Saturday. Once something like that wins, you become fair game for the rest of the day. Nice though.

On Wednesday evening in the inevitable Italian restaurant Del Rio, Irish photographer Pat Healy posed the question “Vincent or Aidan?” a conundrum that could never be adequately resolved. That brought the conversation around to the late Gerry Gallagher, Vincent’s long-term traveling head lad.

One year, Vincent, to Pat’s recollection, had five winners at Goodwood and a couple more on his way back home from there and Gerry backed them all.

When he returned to Ballydoyle, he told Vincent that he’d made a nice pot of money and wondered whether he could buy a bit of land there on which to construct a house.

Vincent asked where he had in mind. Gerry said: “There’s a rough patch of land just to the right of the entrance.” Vincent said to leave it with him and after a couple of days called Gerry in and said yes, he could buy it.

Gerry realised it might not have been the greatest idea to tell the trainer how much he’d won, but anyway asked what he wanted. Vincent took a breath and said: “One pound.” The house was duly built and Gerry and his family lived there for the rest of his life.

Two days later, I was sitting down to lunch when Polly Murphy, the lady who always comes to greet visitors to Ballydoyle and takes them to wherever they need to go, sat down next to me.

I told her the story and asked her if it was true, as it was such a heart-warming incident. Polly said: “Do you see the lady sitting at the table behind us, ask her, she’s Gerry’s daughter Trish.” “It is, and while I’m married now, my brother still lives there,” said Trish.  Small world.

-        TS

Roving Reports: Epsom’s Downs

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Even before we set off for two days on Epsom’s rolling downs this year, there’s a problem, writes David Massey. There are always problems when I’m on the firm, it appears, mainly of the IT variety (more of that later) but on this occasion, two weeks before the big event, we have a slightly bigger one.

There are five of us due to travel to Epsom, two of whom, Tim and Paula, are a couple and have been for as long as I’ve known them. And then, a fortnight before the Derby, a date comes through for Paula’s keyhole surgery on her knee. It’s Oaks Day. And if she doesn’t take this date, she’ll be waiting until September, she’s told. It’s not even an argument, she has to have the surgery and so Paula, who spends more time in a certain beauty salon in Mansfield than she does at home, sadly will not be with us this year.

This means we have to recruit at short notice and BMW - Big Martin - steps into the breach. Martin has more Derby tales to tell than anyone I know, and is one of the Top 10 Eaters on a racecourse alive today. The man has hollow legs.

Martin’s favourite Derby tale is one I’ve recounted before, I think, but it’s always worth a retell. “We used to bet up on the Hill back in the day”, he says, “and there’s this one year we’re a bit late, the traffic was bad. In the front of the car we used to have a hooky Lyons Caterers pass - they supplied for the Queen, and the gatemen never stopped you if you had one of those. So anyway, we’ve pulled up, all suited and booted, and the guy on the gate gives us the stop signal.”

“You’re a bit late lads”, he says.

“Yes, bad traffic.”

“I don’t mean that. That Lyons pass is about three years out of date”, he says, pointing at the offending item.

“Look pal, we can stand here arguing if you like about the validity of that pass but we’ve got the Queen’s strawberries covered in the back of the car and they’re going off! She won’t be happy…”

“You’d best get going then lads”, says the gateman, hurrying them through. Unbelievable!

Anyway, I’ve gone a little off-topic here. Bottom line now is that we’re a room short, as Martin can’t really be sharing with Tim. And at this stage, a room near Epsom isn’t going to come cheap.

To the rescue come my friends Claire and Wayne, who live in Addlestone. They’ve always said if I need a spare room I only have to ask, and now seems a good time. Only thing is, they’re off to Berlin for the weekend as it’s Claire’s birthday treat! So I’ve got a four-bedroomed house to myself for the two days! What a result!

We travel, as ever, on the Thursday evening - the last thing you need is M25 traffic on a Friday, Thursday is bad enough - and so, early on the Friday morning at just before 8am, I’m waiting to be picked up for Epsom Racecourse. As Epsom is so expansive, the pick for both days is ridiculously early, 9.30am Friday and 9am Saturday, as the ring managers have a lot of area to cover, and the course want bookmakers in position before the double-deckers start arriving around 11am.

There are two surprises - one, there are less bookmakers in our enclosure than last year (five less, to be exact) and two, IT’S LIKE THE MIDDLE OF BLOODY WINTER HERE!

The last thing that the good lady said to me as I sat in the car Thursday, ready to go, was “are you taking a jumper?” At that point I’d ummed and ahhed about whether to take one or not, with a somewhat mixed forecast, but it turns out the best decision I made all weekend was to get out of the car, go back in the house, upstairs, and fetch my warm blue cotton jumper that is normally reserved for Yarmouth in September. I kid you not when I use the word “freezing” here - it really is cold, grey skies all around, no sign of any sun, and a temperature of 10 degrees. It is not going to get any warmer all day long. Luckily I can disappear to the press tent for a coffee and a bacon sandwich, unlike some of the poor bookmakers who are going to be sat around in the murk outside for the next few hours.

When I reappear around midday, I find Tim and the rest of the team have turned up, and Tim has delved into my bag of wet-weather gear and found my winter coat. Which he’s decided to purloin for himself. Tim, who spends one-sixth of the year in Barbados and does not cope well with English weather the other five-sixths, looks utterly disgusted with proceedings already and we’ve not even had the first race yet.

The whole afternoon is best described thus: the cold weather stops the picknickers, the buses are few and far between, and the ones that turn up are not betting buses. Overall, not great. The only saving grace is the fact that the bookmakers are down in numbers, which matches the custom. There’s really not as many here as you’d like, and crowd numbers are on the small side. Very noticeably so.

As such, results are almost irrelevant given the level of business, but we don’t have a winning favourite all afternoon. Ideally, you’d like these results tomorrow when business will be better. The biggest bet I take all afternoon is £200, from a lad that wanted to back something he called “hammish” in the Coronation Cup. I look for something hammish, anything ham-like on the board, in fact, but it turns out he means Hamish. I assume he’s not Scottish at this point. Regardless, when that one finishes second he leaves his money with us.

As the afternoon goes on and it gets colder, talk inevitably turns towards tonight’s food order. Nando's is the destination of choice, as it caters for all of us (i.e. the fat sods like me and Martin can have chips with our chicken, whilst the healthier brigade - Tim - can have his couscous. Or whatever.)

Saturday morning, 7.45am pick-up. I lock up and push the keys back through the door. It’s supposedly warmer than yesterday, but if it is, it’s not by a lot. The jumper is still on.

The press room is even more packed than yesterday. I must be the only person in there trying to look at Worcester’s afternoon card, but there we go.

Today I find myself right down the end of the line of bookmakers in the Lonsdale Enclosure, often a very good pitch on a day like today. We’re still awaiting three buses turning up which we’re told are all late. Those three buses will be right in front of me when they turn up; sadly for me, they never do. There’s some miscommunication somewhere and my good pitch suddenly looks less good. That’s another massive disadvantage of having to pick at 9am when there’s no crowd or buses - you’re relying on the info you’re given at that point, and if it’s wrong, tough luck.

The crowd are coming in pretty quickly now and at least they are filling the gaps that the buses leave, which is some consolation. The sun is trying to come out. Things are looking up.

A group of young ladies come along and sit near the joint, set up with picnic and prosecco. After a while one of the girls comes over and - this next conversation is 100% how it happened - says to me…

“City Of Troy runs today, doesn’t it? In the Derby?”

I inform her it does, and she wants to back it.

“I was told, back in March, don’t back it first time as it won’t win but back it second time because then he will win.” I ask if the person that told her this information had a quiet Irish accent and said “listen” a lot. Fully expecting her to have a fiver on it, she pulls a card out and has £100 on at 3-1. Her mates all follow suit with twenties and fifties.

Business is slow to get going for the first, with so many people coming to the party quite late, but I still manage to take a grand on the race, most of it on Portsmouth, and when that’s beaten, it’s a good start.

It’s fair to say this is not a racing crowd - you’d not expect it to be, not in this enclosure - but equally I did expect them to be in better spirits than they are, and they really are, in the main, a miserable lot. One lad insists on giving me dog’s abuse after his 50 quid bet on Running Lion gets stuffed - somehow that’s my fault, it seems - and one girl insists I’m trying to cheat her after I charge her 20 quid for her £10 each-way bet. Yes, you read that right.

“I know that a £10 each-way bet is a tenner, not twenty. You’re lying”, she shouts, with some real venom. There’s a queue behind her that I really need to serve. I offer to get the ring inspector involved but all she wants to do is shout at me. Eventually the bloke behind her in the queue intervenes on my behalf and tells her she’s wrong, but I feel really down after the episode. In fact, it rather ruins the afternoon if I’m honest and, after that, I’m not my usual effervescent self. I just want the day to end and to go home.

However, I’ll tell you of one other episode on the day that did actually offer some optimism for the future. Sadly, we lost Tears Of A Clown after the 3yo Dash, the green screens going up in front of the stands. One lady asked me what had happened - had the horse died? How had it died? I explained to her in non-emotive language exactly what had happened, and why I thought it had happened. She was very sad about the episode, as you’d expect, but she thanked me for explaining it all to her, and in clear terms.

When the worst happens on a racecourse and we sadly lose horses, and that’s just a fact of our sport, we need to deal with it in an adult fashion and not try and hide anything. Twice this season I’ve heard courses use the phrase “ x is being assessed in the horse ambulance” in an effort to try and lessen the blow for racegoers when clearly that’s not been the case. That has to stop, if we want the transparency the new Horse Pwr initiative is supposed to bring. Be honest with people. They’ll understand.

Anyway, the girls knew. City Of Troy kicks them aside in the Derby, a dreadful result for the books, as it turns out. As the girls pick up, I ask them whether their mystery source has informed them as to whether he’ll win again third time? “Oh yes, he’ll win again.” Who needs form books when you’ve info like this, eh?

Let’s hope the crowd at Ascot is cheerier. See you all next week. Bring a brolly, that’s my tip.

- DM

Monday Musings: Of God and the Alchemist!

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Who is Celia? What is she? Or rather where is she? The one-time lady amateur rider and walk-on or pub-customer extra in Eastenders (and other TV series) played a massive part in my life, writes Tony Stafford. I’m sure she had/has no idea and even the Internet didn’t help me track her down. But Saturday relegated her to the second half of this two-in-one article. You’ll see why shortly.

Having made almost fanatically-extravagant judgment based on his two-year-old performances – the best two-year-old I’ve ever seen, I suggested – the abject failure of City Of Troy in the 2000 Guineas five weeks ago could surely only bring an early hasty rush off to stud. That would have been the normal obvious course of action.

But then his trainer is Aidan O’Brien. Never did he – outwardly, at least – question his horse, just himself for not putting in the required amount of tough work into a potential Classic winner in the weeks leading up to Newmarket.

So, they gathered at Epsom, for some reason suggesting the draw in stall one was a big disadvantage. Why? Didn’t Oath win from there in 1999, causing your correspondent and the Henry Cecil/ Thoroughbred Corporation horse’s groom to dance around in delight. We’d watched his win on the tiny TV screen on the jockeys’ room glass wall just behind the unsaddling circle that has been home to the greats: Nijinsky, Shergar and Galileo himself in 2001, the first of ten winners for Aidan and the Coolmore partners.

Only two of those came before Camelot in 2012, a ten-year gap for O’Brien from High Chaparral in the year after Galileo, but eight of the next 13 giving testimony, if any was needed, of the trainer’s uniqueness.

Two of the Coolmore ownership group also had a bonus win with Pour Moi in 2011, trained by Andre Fabre, putting Sue Magnier (the great Vincent’s daughter) and Michael Tabor ahead of the trainer as the winning-most pair in the race’s 240-year history.

By the time Aidan has finished, he will have set records never to be broken - of that I am sure - as by the time it could be possible, racing will be staged on AI tracks with AI horses - with no trainer or jockey in sight.

First the race. Ryan Moore on the only lightly-backed favourite (3/1 about a horse that was odds-on for the Guineas, “unbelievable”) as Jonno Mills of the Rabbah (Godolphin-lite) operation reflected afterwards, though not before – was allowed to start slowly.

In all his races – the three as a juvenile and the Guineas, he raced towards or at the front. Now, tackling another half-mile, he had to learn on the job, coming from behind as his stablemates Euphoric and the previously unbeaten Los Angeles set a strong pace.

He came down the hill nicely, switched inside early in the straight and had the speed to stride through gaps where an ordinary staying horse might have been less malleable.

Passing Los Angeles between the two and one-furlong poles, he was quickly clear and just needed to be kept going by Ryan (Derby number four for him) to remain almost three lengths ahead of the Bill Gredley/James Fanshawe Lingfield Derby Trial winner Ambiente Friendly.

Third was Los Angeles, six lengths in the end behind his stable-mate and then the two Ahmad Al Sheikh horses, one each for Andrew Balding and Owen Burrows. Sixth, having come from miles back but then looking like he didn't quite get home, was Roger Teal’s Dancing Gemini who must be a banker for a big prize in a Group 1 over ten furlongs.

Bill Gredley, at 91, had to have been hopeful as his colt came there cantering, but Ryan on his inside was always finding that little more speed. Still, it was great that Rab Havlin, parachuted in to replace his Lingfield rider Callum Shepherd, enjoyed such a wonderful ride in a Derby.

Havlin, so often the back-up to Frankie Dettori – did we miss him as he won a couple of races across the Atlantic? I think not - gave his mount an impeccable ride through. Rider was as flawless as his always flamboyant owner had looked resplendent in the paddock in the only bright red trousers on view. You’d probably have had to scour the well-patronised funfair areas on the inside of the track to find a pair to match them!

As I’ve mentioned before, Bill Gredley started life in Poplar, East London, not far from Michael Tabor’s birthplace in Forest Gate – Stratford coming in between. Joining Michael as ever, were his racecourse pals, all of whom he has known since the 1980’s at least, including Maurice Manasseh, even with him for the Florida Derby that Thunder Gulch achieved under 'Money' Mike Smith for D. Wayne Lukas in 1995, before adding the Kentucky Derby, Belmont and Travers later in the year.

Just two years later, having been (as ever, shrewdly as it turns out) identified by John Magnier as a potential partner as the old Robert Sangster/ Vincent O’Brien era at Ballydoyle/Coolmore was starting to unravel, the two-man ownership team won successive 2000 Guineas with Entrepreneur and King Of Kings. I’ll never forget the former as my eldest grandson was born at 3 a.m. the next morning less than an hour’s drive away.

The succession at Coolmore seems firmly in place. MV Magnier does most of the recruiting and brother JP also has plenty to say behind the scenes. John and Sue’s son-in-law David Wachman, a highly successful trainer before retiring as a younger man, is also in the back-up team. David’s young family are all outstanding in the field of equestrianism, so much so that Grandpa John prefers watching their exploits than some of even the biggest race days his horses contest.

Derrick Smith, delighted to be in attendance on Saturday, as he had been in Louisville when Sierra Leone gave the partners a close second on the same evening as the Guineas debacle, has son Paul and enthusiastic grandsons – all there on Saturday - to pass on the baton when the time comes, as it inevitably will.

Meanwhile, also on Saturday, I detected a new element to the possible Tabor succession.

Over the many years I’ve known him, I hasten to say, no more than to chat for the few minutes our paths would have crossed in various winner’s enclosures, Ashley Tabor-King has been almost distracted, enjoying his father’s success but more involved in developing his interest in the music industry. His mother Doreen is a noted supporter of emerging classical musicians, and while Ashley has been largely into pop music, the influence is clear.

Having successfully turned the Global Group, of which he is boss, into the biggest in commercial radio in the UK he has also overseen its many charitable contributions especially to younger disadvantaged people. Now, though, he seems to be taking rather more interest in the sport.

On Saturday, before the Dash, he was looking over the balcony through binoculars aiming to get the focus right, asking where was the start? I pointed back up the track and said: “You’re looking the true professional, can you give me a commentary?”

Then, around an hour later, when the owners were called to the podium to accept the most-desired trophy in UK - some may say, world  - racing, for all its modest value compared with many races elsewhere, Ashley and husband George took their places to the left of the group.

It’s been a joke between us that he might have considered himself a Jonah on the rare times he went to the big events. “You’re not a jinx, you’re a lucky mascot,” to which he replied, “I always thought I was a lucky omen. It was just MV and JP who joked otherwise!”

As he is such a great friend with all the people in the next generation, I’m predicting that this truly engaging man will find that learning about the game his father knows inside out might well appeal as a new challenge for him.

Now the form from last year with Haatem - City Of Troy twice beat him easily - is looking better after the places by Haatem in the 2000 and Irish 2000 Guineas. Rosellion, second at Newmarket, first in Ireland, and Notable Speech, unraced since his win in Newmarket for Charlie Appleby and Godolphin, will be contesting the big mile races. Neither Appleby nor Hannon stopped smiling as they called in on the Coolmore box after the big race – as with almost everyone around the winer’s circle as he came back in.

City of Troy in the Winners' Enclosure at Epsom after winning the 2024 Derby, attended by Ryan Moore and Tony Stafford (right)

City of Troy in the Winners' Enclosure at Epsom after winning the 2024 Derby, attended by Ryan Moore and Tony Stafford (right)

I watched the race just by the winning line – my friend and former Daily Telegraph colleague George Hill reminded me that was where we saw Reference Point’s big win for Henry Cecil – and it gave me plenty of time to get first into that famed circle.

Eventually, everyone crowded in, but somehow, I managed to get close to City Of Troy. Remembering when I went to Coolmore and met Galileo with Harry Taylor and Alan Newman a few years back, I’d stood with my hand on his near-side flank. Here I was able to do a similar thing with City of Troy. While Ryan was cuddling his neck, I pressed my hand gently on the other side. After the horse’s exertions, you might have expected an agitated animal - he was anything but. Whenever I’ve touched one of the horses I’d been involved with as a racing manager or owner in the past straight after a race I’d always come away with a wet hand.

Not on Saturday – it was bone dry, his body warm, but he stayed motionless as the photographers assailed him from the front. Racing finally is back page and television news for the right reasons. As for me, I will never forget that full minute when I touched greatness!

*

Back in the mid-80’s I somehow inveigled a horse for a cup of tea – and an equine replacement of him. He had been designed to be a riding horse, but thankfully, the intervention freed him from that dull fate, allowing him to resume his proper job as a racehorse.

Sent to Rod Simpson, he won a couple of races in the same week, at Folkestone and then Lingfield on a Saturday evening, before finishing fourth in the Lady Riders’ race at Ascot on King George Day. He hadn’t a prayer against some smart, developing three-year-olds from the likes of Barry Hills and Michael Stoute. Fourth then and a spot on the edge of the old Ascot winner’s enclosure was an achievement in the days the race wasn’t a handicap.

I’d been willing to sell before the winning spell started, and the fact that he might still be for sale persuaded Celia Radband to tell a couple of her lady rider friends – in those days quite a small community - about him

I was in the DT office one day when a call came in. "Mr Stafford?", asked Wilf Storey, "I understand you might want to sell Fiefdom", by now a five-year-old, who had been talented enough to finish fifth in the Cambridgeshire for Bruce Hobbs two years before.

He was just about the most polite person I’d ever heard, certainly in the hubbub of a sports room of a national newspaper in those days. He told me his daughters Fiona and Stella had been told by Ms Radband that he would make a lovely jumper. I hadn’t thought of that – his form when he initially started jumping was awful, but anyway.

I had to say, sorry no, adding if I changed my mind he would be my first call. Fiefdom ran well again at Ascot that autumn, after which I decided to call Wilf, offering him at 5k rather than the original 6k.

In the meantime, he’d taken another two of Rodney’s horses after one morning when they played up. I should have them shot, said a furious Rodney. I thought maybe Wilf, primarily a sheep farmer, would take them and the arrangement was duly done.

Within a couple of days, one of the two had indeed been moved on, having almost killed Chris Grant first day on the gallops; but the other one, Santopadre, was fine. These were two of a ten-horse deal I’d done with Malcolm Parrish, whom I first met at the Cashel Palace Hotel, close to Ballydoyle where he was with David O’Brien, who I’d arranged to visit.

David had recently won the Derby with Secreto, beating his father’s El Gran Senor in a massive upset which briefly threatened the stud deal that Sangster/O’Brien had already negotiated. Secreto missed the Irish Derby, El Gran Senor duly won, and the world moved on as imagined.

Also in that Parrish bunch was Brunico, later 2nd in that season’s Triumph Hurdle having been sent to Rod. Two runs later he won the Group 3 Ormonde Stakes at Chester for Terry Ramsden, beating top-class Shahrastani. Santopadre was offered around. I asked Wilf if he had anyone with two grand to buy him. Answer: “no!”

Oliver Grey rode him first time on his last day’s riding in the UK at Musselburgh before going to India. We thought him moderate, but Oliver gave him a tap around the home bend. “He flew,” he said, “so I put the stick down.”

So, the plan had to be three runs, achieved so his rating was a lowly 26 or so – they went down a lot further in those days!

Then, having told me, “Never mind the flat, I’ve never had a novice jump so well", I said there’s a weak race at Hexham coming up. He replied, “I’ve done nothing with him – you told me not to.” Despite his misgivings he won.

He won again in a fair claimer at Newcastle soon afterwards. Now, going from that company into an open juvenile novice with a 10lb penalty might have seemed a step too far, but he gave 15lb and a 15-length beating to Buck Up, a Peter Easterby filly that eventually finished runner-up in the Schweppes Gold Trophy.

Santopadre was fifth in the Triumph for Wilf, three places behind Brunico. His reward? To have him taken away to Simpson. Not by me, but Ramsden had paid many times the initial fee for him and did as he wished.

So to Fiefdom, with Santopadre already in the team. He arrived off the wagon and Wilf’s fears were unfounded. "He’s a great big beauty." He bolted up – well backed – first time at Sedgefield, running off a much lower jumps mark than his 71 on turf. In all he won three Ekbalco Hurdles at Newcastle for Wilf and ended his working days as a rider.

They were the start. In between, with younger daughter Stella doing most of the riding on the Muggleswick gallops, the winners kept flowing, the most important Great Easeby, a £2k purchase unraced from Robert Sangster. He won races all over the place, including the Pertemps Final at Cheltenham.

Another to come from Manton more recently was Card High. I’d watched him being completely outpaced as a juvenile in all his gallops for Brian Meehan and the decision was made between Ben and Guy Sangster, Robert’s sons, to get rid. I made sure I was standing nearby and when I heard the magic words, I was there. “I know someone!” – he won six and only retired last year.
Stella had to withdraw a year or so ago from the action after suffering many bad falls, but fortunately her sister Fiona’s daughter, Siobhan Doolan, was able to step in. I was watching the HIT sale last year and noticed that an Ollie Sangster two-year-old was unsold at 1,000 gns.

I checked with Ollie whether he had left the sale – he hadn’t, “but be quick!”

I was nowhere near, but old sales pal Richard Frisby came to the rescue and did the deal. The horse was called Edgewater Drive, a son of of Dandy Man. At first, the gelding, who had injured a foot before the sale, "could hardly walk up the gallop, never mind run", says Siobhan. Gradually, after several weeks’ careful handling, he was able to break out of a trot.

All that part was unknown to me as I tried to get ten shares sold at £100 each. With good friend Keven Howard trawling the pubs of mid-Essex, between us we must have asked 30 people and managed to sell not one share.

Siobhan got going. She had managed to syndicate the mare Shifter to the same people that had owned Card High – oil rig workers offshore in Scotland - and that mare won twice last year. Many of them eventually joined up as Edgewater Drive gradually came right.

Eighth in a decent mile race at Wetherby on his first run where not quite getting home, everyone was enthused when Shifter won another twice recently as Edgewater Drive had worked nicely behind her up the late Denys Smith’s gallop.

Expectations were bright, then, on Friday at Carlisle and, under a lovely ride from the underrated Paula Muir, Edgewater Drive sailed through a gap and won by almost two lengths. No City Of Troy, but at £100 a pop, pretty good value. If Aidan O’Brien can turn water into wine, Wilf Storey might not be able to do that, but the old alchemist almost turns base metal into gold! And none of it would have happened without Celia Radband.

Come on in Celia and watch Edgewater Drive win again next time out at Redcar of June 21, unless of course you are at Royal Ascot!

- TS

Monday Musings: Of Bubbles Burst

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When they get beat, the Coolmore Classic hotpots, especially in the 2000 Guineas, they make a proper job of it, writes Tony Stafford. Auguste Rodin’s capitulation a year ago, preceding as it did two Derby victories, had a variety of explanations to soften the apparent finality of it. City Of Troy’s tame drift away from the action from a long way out, may be less easy to explain.

I wasn’t the only one with egg on my face, having championed his two runs on the same piece of Suffolk real estate, albeit a few furlongs apart, last year. The Superlative Stakes win from Haatem was, well, superlative. His Dewhurst romp was a tour de force, leading all the way then sprinting up the last furlong with Haatem again well behind.

So how could Haatem turn that around so emphatically, third behind only previously unbeaten Godolphin horse Notable Speech and his own stable-companion, second favourite Rosallion? Just over three lengths behind Charlie Appleby’s second and William Buick’s first 2000 winner, he was now 13 lengths in front of the odds-on favourite, who trailed in ninth of eleven.

Aidan O’Brien professed himself shocked and so would most of the massive crowd, one which gridlocked the always slow-motion Newmarket High Street for hours before the 1.10 p.m. meeting start. Talk might have been of records but there were a few there when Nijinsky started his Triple Crown journey more than 50 years ago, too, and not quite as many cars either!

The filming media behaved as if they were there to attend a Royal family meltdown or a PM taking his leave in front of Number Ten. Apparently unflappable as he was being saddled, there was a paparazzi feel as the lenses pointed his way right in his eyeline as the final touches were being completed. Agitated Newmarket staff shooed away many of the regular Coolmore supporters across to the other side of the horse path, but the cameras were allowed to stand their ground.

Considering this was a race with several previously unbeaten opponents, including the winner – three for three at Kempton, so making his turf debut – his price was either dangerously short (as it proved) or even a little generous, given the expectations.

If anyone can bring a horse back from such an unexpected reverse, Aidan O’Brien is the man and he has before, but talk of another Frankel now looks fanciful.

It’s four weeks to the Derby and we were all talking in the paddock beforehand that his pedigree is more that of a Derby horse than a Guineas type. We’ll have to see. He’s 8/1 now. Last year after a similar reverse, Auguste Rodin was only 3/1 and we know what happened at Epsom with him!

The Coolmore boys stayed up late on Saturday night to watch the Kentucky Derby in which they had two interests, a 100% involvement in second-favourite Sierra Leone and 75% of the Todd Pletcher-trained Fierceness. Todd’s runner faded away after a prominent start but the Chad Brown trainee Sierra Leone must be rated a very unlucky loser.

Held up on the rail around a dozen lengths behind the pace set by Track Phantom until making a move at the end of the back straight, jockey Tyler Gaffalione found himself in a tight position around the turn and was forced to go very wide.

Meanwhile Mystik Dan under Brian Hernandez made a run for home on the rail while Sierra Leone began his wide, late and rather erratic surge in company with the Japanese-trained Forever Young on his inside.

By the time they reached the post, the camera showed there were pixels between the trio and a verdict of nose, nose in favour of Mystik Dan, trained in Lexington by Kenny McPeek, gained the verdict. That nose makes a massive difference: initially £1.7 million between the two top prizes but also his potential as a stallion when he departs racing, presumably to Coolmore’s US branch, Ashford Stud in Lexington. Ashford is home of the only two Triple Crown winners of the last half century, American Pharoah and City of Troy’s sire Justify. They expected two more – one here and one over there.

It truly was the Maktoum family’s weekend, for after the success of Sheikh Mohammed’s Notable Speech on Saturday, Ahmed Al Maktoum, his younger brother won the 1000 Guineas with 28/1 outsider Elmalka, trained by Roger Varian and ridden by Silvestre De Sousa.

In a wide open market, in contrast to the one-eyed appearance of Saturday’s Classic, the fillies’ equivalent offered the prospect of a quintet of potential winners as they came to the last furlong. Until just before the line, two young overseas trainers were entitled to believe their fillies would win.

Ramatuelle (Christopher Head, France) looked sure to hold on but she was challenged late, initially by Porta Fortuna, Donnacha O’Brien/Tom Marquand, but only too briefly as Elmalka finished fastest of all having trailed the field early in the 16-runner contest.

Two others merit a mention. Fourth under a typical, but in this case just too late, Jamie Spencer ride was the David Menuisier filly Tamfana, while Ylang Ylang kept on well for fifth under Ryan Moore, the Aidan O’Brien inmate not getting the clearest of runs. She’ll be set for running over further, maybe in the Musidora next time at York – just guessing on that one.

Elmalka, a daughter of Kingman, was third previously in the Fred Darling Stakes (or whatever appellation it now goes by) at Newbury, where she had rallied to finish close up behind Folgario and Regal Jubilee. The Fred Darling runner-up also started at 28/1 yesterday but finished well down the field for the Gosdens. No doubt Marco Botti, trainer of Folgario, must have wondered why she wasn’t in the line-up.

Unbeaten in five starts as a juvenile initially in Italy (four wins) and then one in France, trained by Marco’s relative Stefano, she has the Coronation Stakes as her sole entry at this stage. Six races unbeaten will make her an interesting wildcard into that always-significant Royal Ascot midsummer Group 1.

I must thank the Editor for drawing my attention to, and therefore helping me follow, this tortuous link. Back in 2007 the most impressive winner of the Coronation Stakes, and a filly that never raced again, was Indian Ink. Trained by Richard Hannon senior, ridden by Richard Hughes, and in the colours of Raymond Tooth – she won by six lengths slaughtering such as Finsceal Beo, and the rest.

Yesterday, in the colours of Clipper Logistics in the 40k newcomers’ race for 2yo fillies, her daughter River Seine (by Soldier’s Call) ran a highly promising second for Karl Burke to Godolphin’s Mountain Breeze, Buick’s pick of three for Charlie even if she sported the nominally third-choice red cap. River Seine could well make a visit to the scene of her mother’s finest hour, but she will have to find a fair bit to turn yesterday’s form around. Karl Burke will give it a go, no doubt.

Of all the performances over the two days at Newmarket, I have to point to Hughie Morrison’s Ben and Sir Martyn Arbib homebred Stay Alert, who ran away with the 1m1f Dahlia Stakes, tracking the Gosdens’ 6/4 favourite Running Lion into the dip and then drawing away with the rest trailing behind.

Hughie Morrison kept her to high-class opposition last year when her best performance had been a two-length second to Via Sistina in the Pretty Polly Stakes at the Curragh. Most observers thought she was an unlucky loser that day and the subsequent exploits of the winner which precipitated a sale for 2.7 million guineas at last year’s December sale made her the one to beat yesterday.

Via Sistina was bought by Australian interests and has already won and been second, the latter in the Queen Elizabeth Cup at Randwick in Sydney last month. Her debut win at £310k was worth more than either Guineas race and her second place of £454,000 in the QE Cup was only 130 grand short of the combined total of our first two Classics.

If she had won, the prize would have been £1,577,000. No wonder my good friend and one of the most experienced observers of the racing scene here and overseas for many years says, “We’re a laughing stock! Just get rid of off-course bookmakers – they won’t let anyone have a proper bet anyway – and our racing, which is the best in the world, will take off.” 

* Just a note. While talking of bookmakers who won’t take a proper bet, I’ve just received a copy of well-known former Rails bookmaker Stephen Little’s entertaining autobiography. He was someone who did take a bet as “From Bicycle to Bentley” reveals.

The foreword is by his long-time friend Sir Mark Prescott and it’s published by Pen and Sword Books in Barnsley S70 2AS. My pal Sir Rupert Mackeson has been instrumental in getting Pen and Sword to fill what had become an alarming gap in the production of books with a horse racing theme. Well done, Rupert. As much of it overlaps my time in racing, for me it’s a great reminder of those wonderful days.

  - TS

Monday Musings: Troy Worth Weight in Gold

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There was a space next to me for Aidan O’Brien to slide into as we had a late lunch on Saturday, delayed by the excitements we’d just seen on the track, writes Tony Stafford. To my observation that I’d written that City Of Troy was the best two-year-old I’d ever seen, performance-wise, after the Superlative Stakes back in July, Aidan simply said: “He is”, adding, “I know you did, I read that in your column again last week”.

Ever generous with his comments, I’m sure ITV viewers would have heard the same sentiment a little earlier, but like many other people I was at the time too carried up in the euphoria of seeing a performance so rare in a championship race. Even some of the great horses have made hard work of winning the Dewhurst Stakes on their way to 2000 Guineas or Derby triumph the following year.

Frankel comes immediately to mind as one that didn’t struggle, having comfortably beaten O’Brien’s Roderic O’Connor (Irish 2000 Guineas winner the following May) in his Dewhurst on his fourth start of a 14-race unbeaten career. Two other Group 1 winners were his victims in his first three two-year-old appearances.

Nathaniel (two King Georges) gave him a tussle on debut on Newmarket’s July Course while O’Brien’s Treasure Beach (Irish Derby) was only third when they met in the Royal Lodge immediately before the Dewhurst. These were notable early scalps for the colt that brought such lustre to the end of Sir Henry Cecil’s epic career, and to Prince Khalid Abdullah’s Juddmonte Farms.

That Frankel is the yardstick to which City Of Troy has aspiration to be measured was immediately and inevitably emphasised as Michael Tabor and Derrick Smith called Saturday’s winner “our Frankel”. If Aidan and Ryan Moore are to be believed, he is.

They waited for Ryan to report back after finishing second in the opener behind one of two smart Charlie Appleby winning juveniles on the day before taking the final fateful step to run. Ryan said, confounding the relatively quick time, which he explained was due to the strong following wind, that the ground was deep and holding.

A quick consultation between trainer and Messrs Tabor and Smith resulted in the decision to let him take his chance. As Michael said: “He can only lose”, a throwback to the 2000 Guineas debacle for subsequent dual Derby and Irish Champion Stakes winner Auguste Rodin. It isn’t the races you lose that count, but those you win. Now they know he can handle deep ground.

Of course, I wasn’t by any means the only media observer of the July humbling of subsequent Vintage Stakes winner Haatem to express extravagant comments. On Racing TV, Nick Luck’s first words as Ryan pulled up the son of US Triple Crown winner and Coolmore stallion Justify were: “Find me a better two-year-old and I don’t think you will. Not this year anyway.”

On his programme on the channel yesterday morning, he had Hughie Morrison, Racing Post’s Lee Mottershead, and recently retired jockey Louis Steward, and all three agreed with the presenter that here was a horse out of the ordinary.

Luck confessed that as the year went on and various other options rather than the conventional UK Classic format were being mentioned, with the Middle Park and Kentucky Derby as tentative plans, and I quote, “I cashed in my Guineas and Derby bets”. Silly Nick!

Back to Aidan, and when you think that he and the Coolmore partners have won a joint-record eight Dewhurst Stakes, six of them since 2013, for him to consider City Of Troy unquestionably the best, that is some recommendation indeed.

As we munched away, he explained, “We’ve never been able to get him tired and that hasn’t ever been the case with any of our horses before him”. To go back and watch the last furlong of his three runs – on debut at the Curragh challenged in the form the furlong pole but pushed out before going away for a comfortable victory; on the July Course exploding clear of decent opposition; and now, when asked, again surging away going up to the line, without ever seeing a hint of interruption in his perfect stride pattern in any of them.

 

Sectional times by furlong for the Dewhurst Stakes field, the winner accelerating impressively away on soft ground

 

It’s one thing to do it on fast summer going, quite another to replicate it on deep ground, but as he sailed along happily in front, initially at a steady gallop and then one marginally increased by Ryan before a quickening between the penultimate and final furlongs, the gulf in class was starkly evident.

As with Frankel in his 2000 Guineas, when the fringe performers were catching him to a minor degree at the line after the verdict was long decided, so it was on Saturday. Willie Ryan, a Derby winning jockey in his younger days and long-time observer of all the greats with a close up of Frankel’s career and more recently all the best Godolphin horses in Charlie Appleby’s yard, was adamant. “I know the Rowley Mile is a great front-runner’s track, so Ryan was right to dictate, but to do it like that in any championship race, and especially the Dewhurst, was very special.”

Justify may have won the 2018 Triple Crown in the US, as had another Coolmore America stallion, American Pharoah, two years earlier, but the equivalent feat has yet to have been achieved here since Nijinsky and Vincent O’Brien from the same yard in 1970. Camelot went close for the team in 2012, winning the 2000 Guineas and Derby before finishing runner-up in the St Leger, but if ever a pedigree suggested they can finally end the long wait for another, City Of Troy surely has it.

Galileo’s final crop of two-year-olds this year signals an imminent end of a golden era for Coolmore and the partners’ trainer, but he leaves Frankel as his top successor. Inevitably, Galileo appears prominently in City Of Troy’s pedigree and increasingly we will see the Justify on Galileo mares cross as it becomes obvious how effective it is, with so many high-class racemares the great champion has bequeathed the operation. Like his ill-fated but still highly influential sire Scat Daddy before him, Justify, who was bred by John Gunther, produces top-class turf horses.

With eight three-year-olds and a dozen juveniles to represent him in 2023 from Ballydoyle, the results have been spectacular already. City Of Troy’s exploits against the boys have been almost mirrored by Opera Singer, five-length winner of the Group 1 Prix Marcel Boussac at the Arc meeting two weekends ago. She is by Justify out of a mare by Sadler’s Wells, of course the sire of Galileo.

City Of Troy’s dam, Together Forever, had already produced four classy winners before City Of Troy. She is by Galileo and if that wasn’t evidence enough, her mother was by Theatrical, another noted stamina influence.

The year of 2024 promises to be tremendously exciting with potential dreams of the first Triple Crown for 54 years. Whereas Frankel did not get the opportunity to show that he would have been just as superior to all-comers at a mile and a half – the ten furlongs and 56 yards of the fast York track in an easy demolition of his Juddmonte International Stakes rivals on penultimate start was the furthest he attempted - I’m sure City Of Troy will tackle that longer trip. Hopefully that will happen at Epsom on the first Saturday of June.

As media director Richard Henry observed to fellow Coolmore executive Christy Grassick as they walked towards the winner’s circle straight after witnessing the sublime performance of their stable star, “Now we know what we’ll be thinking about through the winter”. Clearly, he cannot wait for the first Saturday in May.

Neither can I!

- TS

Monday Musings: Newmarket 875

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If you arrange an outdoor promotional event in Newmarket in the summer, the morning of the July Cup, you would think, would be the ideal time, writes Tony Stafford. Judging by the light summer dresses and shirtsleeves on view in the High Street earlier on Saturday morning, the decision by Hanako and Roger Varian to launch Hanako’s luxury new fashion brand Newmarket 875 at Carlburg stables in Bury Road that morning was perfectly logical.

The July meeting 2022 had been conducted in the middle of one of the many heatwaves of last summer. By contrast, last week thunderstorms randomly struck all over the country, but as I drove up to the yard the weather was clear and l was just able to sneak a last spot in the car park.

The sun was still making an appearance, but as I approached the marquee where Hanako was steeling herself to address her audience, suddenly the heavens opened. Within seconds, a torrential downpour had stable and catering staff scrambling to close any possible ingress from the elements, while the brand founder fluently delivered her reasons for the creation of her project.

Hanako explained that from the age of 14 back home in Japan, she had been involved with horses, riding as a show jumper. At 18 she decided to come to England, aiming to develop her skill with the animals she loved. Over the last 25 years, latterly married to one of the world’s leading trainers, she has been closely involved, observing horse racing all over the world.

Her conclusion of that lengthy experience is that this is a pivotal time for horse racing. American racing, she says, is suffering from drug and medication issues. UK and Irish racing have funding issues and are also hampered by a declining work force, while France, despite boasting the best prizemoney in Europe, finds it difficult to attract domestic owners.

It was almost with embarrassment that she concluded that the only country where racing is thriving is her homeland. Prize money is in a level of its own and their home-bred horses are more than a match for any from the remaining principal racing and breeding locations. The Varians had a lightning trip last week to the northernmost Japanese island of Hokkaido, home of the famed Shadai and Northern stud farms.

On Monday and Tuesday, Japan’s Select yearling and foal sales were staged and up to 1,000 registered buyers were attempting to secure one of these potentially top-class animals, yearlings on Monday and foals on Tuesday. Each would-be bidder was required to have his finances in place beforehand, so there would be no chance of a repeat of the embarrassing and much-publicised non-payment issues that befell Tattersalls last year.

Roger Varian said: “It was my first time at the sale, although I have been to Japan around a dozen times before. The yearling sale was not unlike Tattersalls, except that the lots were easier to find, ranged in a near numerical order rather than randomly all around the sale.

“The foal sale on Tuesday was very different. Around 250 were catalogued, and each stood with its mother, loosely in numerical order. More astute buyers had the chance to view the respective foals’ sires at the nearby stud farms beforehand. Then, by looking at the mare and foal together, they could get a good idea of how that foal might develop physically,” he said.

Back home in Newmarket, Hanako has, with designer Joe Baker, developed a high-end clothing range with a Newmarket theme, along with luxury accessories, aimed to reflect the glamorous nature of horse racing and breeding in the town.

Examples of the beautifully crafted shirts and other clothing items were ranged around the marquee, interspersed with some imaginatively designed belts, shoe-horns, handbags and the like, all with a horse theme. Hanako was quick to emphasise how important sustainability has been in the creation of the concept.

It is hoped that Harrods, Selfridges, and other leading stores in the UK will stock Newmarket 875 products, although in the meantime they can be viewed and bought on the website, newmarket875.com. The ambitious project will then be aimed at New York, Paris, and other fashion hotspots around the world. Hanako firmly believes horse racing in the UK has plenty to be proud of and hopes Newmarket 875 will become an emblem of that proud tradition.

*

Back down at the July Course, something happened that might well reignite the age-old debate about whether the weight-for-age scale is of relevance in the present day. Framed in the distant past and only minutely modified since, weight for age still stands to tell us when three-year-old, four-year-old and even older horses cease to receive a concession from older generations in such races.

Often, when the three-year-olds keep winning condition races in the middle of the season against their elders, admittedly on a sliding and less generous scale as the year progresses, calls are made for its revision or even removal.

Interestingly, I was told by one emerging trainer a few weeks back that the unraced two-year-old filly he was running that afternoon had worked better than an 86-rated older horse.

I took that to mean a four-year-old – but it could have been a year younger. That said, to achieve that result was astonishing and I’m not sure that the rookie trainer concerned had consulted the scale to get the full implications of the gallop.

Anyway, she won nicely, even though only third in the betting in a field of five behind a previous promising debut runner-up and a penalised previous winner. She is set for a step up in grade next time.

But on Saturday we had a moment when a second run, this time in a Listed contest, Newmarket’s Superlative Stakes, threatens to blow the entire WFA scale into the water.

Once-raced City Of Troy, impressive on debut in a maiden at The Curragh, lined up as a well-backed 4/6 shot for the Coolmore partners, amid concerns that the heavy if intermittent rains of the previous few days, plus the sudden torrent I just avoided up the road at 11 a.m. might have made the ground unsuitable.

But, as Aidan O’Brien chatted with Christy Grassick and Paul Smith along with Ryan Moore beforehand, he said that the ground there was still better than is customary, say, for the National Stakes at The Curragh in September.

Cue relief all round: after all, Aidan has won 11 National Stakes, albeit none of the last six. He’s also behind namesake Vincent who has 15 and gets to have the race named after him nowadays, reasonably enough.

The Superlative Stakes was won with a breathtaking burst of speed by City Of Troy, who after duelling for the lead from the off, was let loose by Ryan coming into the last furlong and a half and stormed – he really did storm, I promise you – to a six and a half length verdict, with daylight second.

Handily, on that card, apart from the six-furlong Group 1 July Cup, won in similarly impressive fashion by Commonwealth Cup winner Shaquille, there were two more seven-furlong contests, both handicaps. The winning time of the Group 1 race was, understandably, the best by a second in relation to standard times, while the three contests over an extra furlong were completed in similar times, all very respectably.

First, there was a three-year-old 0-100 handicap, won nicely by the filly Naomi Lapaglia, carrying 8st 4lb in a time 2.82 seconds above standard. Then came the Superlative and City Of Troy, shouldering 9st 3lb and clocking 0.11 seconds slower.

Finally, the Bunbury Cup, a Heritage Handicap with a storied history, was won by Ralph Beckett’s 6yo Biggles, ridden by Ryan Moore, coming home in a time 0.33 seconds faster than City Of Troy. He, coincidentally, carried the same weight as the, erm, superlative Superlative winner.

I asked a few friends who keep up their interest in racing day to day and they all know a fair bit about the sport and have all gone racing with me many times. The question was: What’s the weight for age between 2yo’s and older horses at 7f in the first half (just) of July. To a man they replied, “About a stone.” I answered that, if that were the case, then to run almost an identical performance to the Bunbury Cup winner would have been meritorious.

The reaction when I told them it was 38lb in the first half of July and 35lb thereafter (8lb less against 3yos), was stunned silence. No doubt the scale is probably a shade outdated. Two-year-olds traditionally had their first chance of a run over seven furlongs in the Chesham Stakes at Royal Ascot. Nowadays a lot more stoutly bred animals are precocious as well and more ready to run over the trip than in earlier days.

But cutting to the chase, that was a monstrous performance. City Of Troy has been allotted an early RPR in the Racing Post, of course always open to alteration and downright fudge, which exceeds that given to Thursday’s fluent Group 2 6f July Stakes winner Jasour, trained by Clive Cox, by 8lb.

Inevitably, thoughts projected to the other track and May next year for City of Troy. Aidan remarked before the race, he hadn’t really thought him a big horse until he stood into him. As he returned to unsaddle, amid the sort of buzz of excitement only rarely experienced on a British racecourse, he seemed to have grown another hand taller!

The best news for the Coolmore boys was that this colt is a son of their unbeaten Triple Crown-winning US-based Ashford stud stallion, Justify. Long-range optimism even for the Derby must be included, too,  with the knowledge that Justify won the 12f Belmont Stakes on the most galloping track in North America after making all the running.

O’Brien and Ryan Moore might have initially found a trip yesterday to France proving frustrating as His Majesty, placed in his last two runs at Group 2, made it a hat-trick in second. But it was another Justify runner, this time four-length Christopher Head filly Ramatuelle, who impressed. After sprinting well clear in City Of Troy fashion in the Prix Robert Papin at Chantilly, she has serious claims of being the best juvenile in France so far this year.

  • TS