Donn McClean: Superstardom Awaits For City Of Troy
There’s a lot going on this weekend. There’s the big Champion Chase meeting at Down Royal for starters, and the Charlie Hall Chase meeting at Wetherby, as the National Hunt season ramps up a gear.
It's also the culmination of the Irish turf flat season at The Curragh, with this intriguing three-way go for the apprentices’ title set to go all the way to the wire.
But Stateside, all eyes will be on Del Mar, where the turf and the dirt meet the surf and City Of Troy’s bid for superstardom.
Because, if the Derby winner and Eclipse winner and Juddmonte International winner can add the Breeders’ Cup Classic to his CV, that is exactly what he will achieve.
It has always been the Breeders’ Cup Classic for City Of Troy. That’s why Aidan O’Brien’s colt skipped the Irish Champion Stakes, for which he would have been a short-priced favourite, and the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.
And the Breeders’ Cup Turf was never really on his radar. A mile and a half on, well, turf, would have been much more straightforward than 10 furlongs on dirt, taking on the Americans on their home soil, their home surface.
Victory Would Not Be Extraordinary
Victory in a Breeders’ Cup Turf for City Of Troy would, of course, have been noteworthy. The addition of this race to the Justify colt’s burgeoning CV would have been a significant addition.
But it wouldn't be extraordinary, it wouldn't be unprecedented. Aidan O’Brien has saddled the Breeders’ Cup Turf winner seven times, more times than any other trainer.
European trainers as a collective have won the Turf eight times in the last nine years, and 15 times in the last 19. By contrast, a European-trained horse has won the Breeders’ Cup Classic on dirt just once since it was first run in 1984.
The John Gosden-trained Raven’s Pass did win the Classic in 2008, but that was at Santa Anita in one of the two years in which the Breeders’ Cup non-turf races were run on Pro-Ride, not on traditional American dirt.
Different Story On American Dirt
Pro-ride is a surface that is more like the all-weather surfaces that we have in Britain and Ireland, at Dundalk and Kempton and Lingfield and Newcastle, than it is like American dirt.
It wasn’t wholly surprising that the Classic was won by a European horse that year, and, for good measure, the Aidan O’Brien-trained Henrythenavigator chased Raven’s Pass home to make it a 1-2 for the Europeans.
On American dirt though, different story. The qualities that are required to succeed at the highest level on dirt are different to the qualities that are required to succeed at the highest level on turf.
It’s not quite tennis versus table tennis, or tennis versus squash. It’s more Rugby League versus Rugby Union, but it’s still very different.
The Classic roll of honour tells you so. Raven’s Pass apart, Arcangues is the only horse trained in Europe to win the race. The Andre Fabre-trained Arcangues, who sprang a 133/1 shock under Jerry Bailey at Santa Anita in 1993.
Not Mission Impossible For European Horses
European horses have gone close in the past. The Aidan O’Brien-trained Giant’s Causeway went down by just a neck to Tiznow in the Classic at Churchill Downs in 2000.
And the Godolphin horse Sakhee got even closer to the same Tiznow in the Classic the following year at Belmont Park, getting to within a nose of Jay Robbins’ horse.
Aidan O’Brien went close again in the Classic in 2013, when Declaration Of War came off third best in a three-way go to the line with Mucho Macho Man and Will Take Charge.
Jamie Osborne went close the following year at Santa Anita with Toast Of New York, who failed by a nose to catch Bayern.
So it’s not impossible and it’s not unprecedented, but it’s not easy, and the fact remains that only once in the 40-year history of the Breeders’ Cup has the Classic been won on dirt by a European-trained horse.
Opportunity Knocks For City Of Troy
City Of Troy has plenty in his favour though. For starters, he is obviously an immense talent, the standout European three-year-old middle-distance colt of the year.
He has only been beaten once, in the Guineas on his debut this season, a defeat for which there were excuses, and he has proven that run to be all wrong since by winning the Derby and the Eclipse and the Juddmonte International.
Also, significantly, he was held up in the Derby, but not in the Juddmonte International last time. Ryan Moore allowed him go forward from early at York, he powered clear from the front, and that is an asset that could prove to be a valuable commodity on the dirt on Saturday at Del Mar.
And it goes without saying, he is trained by one of the best trainers in the world and he will be ridden by one of the best riders in the world.
It could be an opportune year too. The opposition may be beatable. Last year’s Classic winner White Abarrio has been beaten twice since and will not line up.
Neither will the Kentucky Derby winner Mystik Dan, who was beaten in the Preakness and in the Belmont since, nor the Preakness Stakes winner Seize The Grey, nor the Belmont winner Dornoch.
Forever Young Is A Major Threat
Fierceness is a player, he battled on well to win the Travers Stakes last time, getting home by a head from Thorpedo Anna, who won a Grade 1 fillies’ contest next time and is odds-on for the Distaff.
But City Of Troy’s biggest danger may be the Japanese horse Forever Young, winner of the UAE Derby at Meydan in March, and beaten a nose and a nose in the Kentucky Derby in May. Also, Fierceness is trained by Yoshito Yahagi, who had two winners at the Del Mar Breeders’ Cup in 2021.
We won’t know for sure how City Of Troy is going to handle the dirt until he actually races on it on Saturday, and the sharpness of his emergence from stall three could be crucial.
But he is by Justify, the Triple Crown hero of 2018, and his training on dirt has reportedly gone well this week. If he can get even close on dirt to the level of performance that he has shown on turf, then that could be good enough.
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