City Of Troy and the Breeders’ Cup Classic

“We enjoy trying to do something out of the ordinary,” said Coolmore supremo John Magnier after City Of Troy had won the Eclipse. “And, while there’s life in us, we’ll keep trying.”

City Of Troy’s primary objective now is victory in the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Del Mar in southern California on 2^nd November and, were he to achieve that objective, that would be out of the ordinary.

Victory for a European horse in the Breeders’ Cup Classic is not beyond the boundaries of possibility, but history tells you that it is close enough to them. The Classic is run on dirt, the surface on which the American dirt horses race, the surface for which the American dirt horses are bred. There is a subtle difference between the qualities that a racehorse requires in order to be successful on dirt and the qualities that are required in order to be successful on turf. Also, the Breeders’ Cup is a home gig for the Americans. The Europeans have to travel.

The Breeders’ Cup has been going since 1984, and only one European horse has won the Classic on dirt, the Andre Fabre-trained Arcangues, who sprang a 133/1 shock in 1993. John Gosden did win the Classic at Santa Anita in 2008 with Raven’s Pass, but the non-turf Breeders’ Cup races were run that year on Pro-Ride, a synthetic surface that mirrors the attributes of the all-weather surfaces that we have in Britain and Ireland, at Dundalk and Lingfield and Chelmsford and Kempton, more than it does those of traditional American dirt. Pro-Ride was a surface that favoured the European horses.

The Pro-Ride project lasted two years, and the Breeders’ Cup was back on dirt in 2010, which is where it has remained ever since.

Aidan O’Brien has peppered the Breeders’ Cup Classic board with top-class horses, but he has yet to hit the bullseye. Hawk Wing, George Washington, Declaration Of War, So You Think, Henrythenavigator, Gleneagles, Churchill. They all came up short. Even the great Galileo could only finish sixth in 2001.

Giant’s Causeway went mighty close in the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Churchill Downs in 2000, and therein lies the hope. He looked a likely winner as he raced toe-to-toe with Tiznow inside the final furlong but, in the end, he came up a neck short. But Giant’s Causeway was an unusual turf horse in that he was bred for dirt. His sire Storm Cat and his dam Mariah’s Storm were both dirt horses.

Mendelssohn was also essentially bred for dirt and, while he won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf as a two-year-old, his three-year-old season was all about the dirt races. Aidan O’Brien’s colt won the UAE Derby on dirt in Dubai in the spring of his three-year-old season, and he was aimed at the Kentucky Derby. Ryan Moore gave up the winning ride on Saxon Warrior in the 2000 Guineas at Newmarket in order to ride Mendelssohn on the same day in the Kentucky Derby, that’s how important it was.

Despite Mendelssohn’s defeat at Churchill Downs, the dirt project continued. The Scat Daddy colt was placed three times in graded races on dirt after the Kentucky Derby before going back to Churchill Downs for the 2018 Breeders’ Cup Classic the following November, where he finished just fifth behind Accelerate.

Aidan O’Brien hasn’t had a runner in the Breeders’ Cup Classic since Mendelssohn. That’s six years ago, and that’s significant. It’s as if, it can’t be an afterthought. You can’t just go to the Classic at the end of your European season and hope that you can win it. It has to be a plan from a long way out. It’s why City Of Troy is set to eschew the Irish Champion Stakes in two weeks’ time, a race for which he would have been a short-priced favourite.

On the positive side, European horses have gone close in the Breeders’ Cup Classic on dirt since Arcangues. Swain went close in 1998 despite giving away plenty of ground close home. Sakhee went down by a nose to Tiznow in 2001. Toast Of New York was also beaten a nose by Bayern in 2014.

And this year, it appears as if there is no stand-out American dirt horse. There is no American Pharoah, no Flightline. Last year’s Classic winner, White Abarrio, has been well beaten in two runs since. The Kentucky Derby winner and the Preakness Stakes winner were both well beaten in the Belmont Stakes. The Belmont winner, Dornoch, was well beaten in the Travers Stakes. The Travers Stakes winner, Fierceness, an impressive winner of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile last season, is the best of the Americans according to the market, but he only got home by a head in the Travers from the filly Thorpedo Anna, who was taking on the colts for the first time there.

There is also a potentially interesting contender from Japan, Forever Young, who won the UAE Derby at Meydan in March, and who was beaten a nose and the same into third place in the Kentucky Derby. Interestingly, he is trained by Yoshito Yahagi, who had two winners at the Breeders’ Cup meeting at Del Mar in 2021, Loves Only You and Marche Lorraine.

More important than all of that, however, is the horse, City Of Troy: will he have had the right preparation, does he have the right attributes, and is he good enough? You know that his preparation will be fastidiously planned. The Classic has been on his radar for a little while now, and he is trained by one of the best racehorse trainers in the world.

You can’t be certain about his attributes for a white-hot race on dirt, but the indications are positive. The early pace and the power that he showed in the Juddmonte International at York last time are all positives, and one eye on the Classic may have been an influencing factor in the aggressive tactics that Ryan Moore employed there. Power and pace are big assets on dirt.

And he is by Justify, a colossus, a multiple Grade 1 winner on dirt, the most recent American Triple Crown winner.

He could be good enough too. Winner of six of his seven races, the Dewhurst winner, the Derby winner, the Eclipse winner, the Juddmonte International winner. He is the outstanding European horse of 2024 to date. He could be versatile enough to be able to produce on dirt what he has been producing on turf and, if he is, that would be out of the ordinary.

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