Classic quest finally on again

“No, no, we surely haven’t,” said Aidan O’Brien, down by the Keeneland quarantine barn at the 2022 Breeders’ Cup, when I asked him his response to an article in the American racing press that claimed European-based trainers had given up running their turf horses in the $6,000,000 Breeders’ Cup Classic.

“Our whole team will be changing over the next couple of years because Galileo has gone,” he said, two years ago, wearing a Ballydoyle blue ‘Justify’ cap with a trio of crowns on it. “We try to adapt with the breed of horse we have and we think this will bring us right back into the dirt races.

“Obviously Galileo is going to be an unbelievable influence still, even in dirt pedigrees, I think.”

O’Brien was right. It’s now six years since the last Ballydoyle-trained horse lined up in the Classic, but that will all change on Saturday November 2 when City Of Troy, by the American Triple Crown winner Justify, out of the Galileo mare Together Forever, contests the now $7,000,000 Longines Breeders’ Cup Classic at Del Mar.

Excitement is building on both sides of the Atlantic. A European winner of the Classic on dirt would be a big deal, not least because it has happened only once before when the Andre Fabre-trained Arcangues (ARKANG!) caused a huge upset at 133/1 at Santa Anita in 1993 (Raven’s Pass, who won the 2008 renewal for John Gosden, did so on the short-lived synthetic surface Pro-Ride).

ITV have confirmed live coverage of the race. The Breeders’ Cup Classic has been moved to the middle of the card, stepping away from the tradition of building towards a crescendo, catering for the European audience (the post-time is scheduled for 21.41 GMT) in the process.

British and Irish bookmakers are running for cover. City Of Troy is now a best-price of 9/4, generally 2/1 and as short as 7/4. Never before has a European-trained horse been this well-fancied for the Classic from this far out.

Third favourite Forever Young, third in the Kentucky Derby, completed his racecourse preparations for the Breeders’ Cup with an easy win in the Japan Dirt Classic at Oi Racecourse last week, but that caused barely a ripple in the markets as bookmakers snipped him half a point to 6/1.

It’s all about City Of Troy.

Out of this world?

For O’Brien and the Coolmore team, there aren’t many worlds left to conquer, unless they start racing on Mars. But the Breeders’ Cup Classic, with its alien surface and monstrous home-bred horses, is the closest thing to an out of this world challenge for a European-based Flat trainer that has been there and done most of it.

O’Brien and the owners are partly in it for the sport, then, but the benefits of having a champion racehorse that triumphed on both turf and dirt are so obvious, with a stallion career in mind, that it helps explain why this has become an itch they desperately want to scratch.

On 17 occasions O’Brien ran a horse in the Breeders’ Cup Classic between 2000 and 2018, with Giant’s Causeway (second in 2000), Henrythenavigator (second on the Pro-Ride in 2008) and Declaration Of War (third in 2013) coming the closest to success.

Not a man to keep on doing things the same way without winning, O’Brien changed his methods in 2018 when Mendelssohn, his last horse to have a shot at the Classic, was campaigned in America throughout his three-year-old season. This was despite an early setback, when he was stone last in Justify’s Kentucky Derby.

Mendelssohn ran well without winning after that, including when finishing fifth in the Classic itself, but he wasn’t top class and O’Brien has waited for the right horse with the right tools and the right credentials for his 18th attempt at Classic glory.

The best dirt horses are quick and the Classic horses, they can sustain that speed over a middle-distance. Flightline, the stunning unbeaten 2022 winner, the best most recent example of that. We don’t know if City Of Troy will handle the dirt, but he’s bred for it, he’s quick and he can certainly sustain his run judging by his best performances on the turf, most notably his all-the-way Juddmonte International victory at York last time.

In what could be an average year for the American horses in the Classic, the stars look to be aligning, and when it comes to preparation there are few trainers as meticulous as O’Brien; the Southwell circus, complete with an American starting bell, where City Of Troy had a very public workout (like Giant’s Causeway and Galileo before him), underlining that.

Aidan O’Brien Breeders’ Cup Classic preps

• Giant’s Causeway – 2nd QEII Ascot September 23 2000
• Black Minnaloushe – 4th Juddmonte International York August 21 2000
• Galileo – 2nd Irish Champion Stakes Leopardstown September 8 2001
• Hawk Wing – 2nd QEII Ascot September 28 2002
• Hold That Tiger – 2nd Woodward Stakes Belmont September 6 2003
• Oratorio – 4th Champion Stakes Newmarket October 15 2005
• George Washington – 1st QEII Ascot September 23 2006
• George Washington – 3rd Prix du Moulin Longchamp September 9 2007
• Henrythenavigator – 2nd QEII Ascot September 27 2008
• Duke Of Marmalade – 7th Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe Longchamp October 5 2008
• Rip Van Winkle – 1st QEII Ascot September 26 2009
• So You Think – 2nd Champion Stakes Ascot October 15 2011
• Declaration Of War – 1st Juddmonte International York August 21 2013
• Gleneagles – 6th QEII Ascot October 17 2015
• Churchill – 3rd QEII Ascot October 21 2017
• War Decree – 1st Dundalk September 29 2017
• Mendelssohn – 3rd Jockey Cup Gold Cup Belmont September 29 2018

Looking at the last stops before the Breeders’ Cup for his 17 Classic runners over the years it’s clear O’Brien has returned to a trusted formula that almost delivered success via Declaration Of War at Santa Anita in 2013.

Beaten just a quarter-of-a-length in third behind Mucho Macho Man in a desperate finish, he was one that got away, and he was one of only two O’Brien-trained Classic hopefuls who have come into the race a fresh horse by way of having all of September and October off the racetrack (the other was Black Minnaloushe, a 51/1 chance in the 2001 Classic at Belmont, where stablemate Galileo finished four places ahead of him in sixth.)

Like City Of Troy, Declaration Of War won the Juddmonte International at York in his last run before his Classic tilt. Like City Of Troy, he was by an American stallion in War Front. The differences are Declaration Of War was a four-year-old and he probably ran in a better Classic. And, of this there is no doubt, City Of Troy is a better horse.

“We try to adapt with the breed of horse we have and we think this will bring us right back into the dirt races,” said O’Brien, two years ago, when the Classic aspiration seemed far-fetched. Now, with the best progeny of the Triple Crown-winning Justify on their side, Coolmore’s American dream has a live chance of becoming reality at long last. City Of Troy. He could be the one.

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