Chris McGrath | Horse Racing Free Tips

This Side Up: A Showcase for Horses Born to Run

Now this, we can all agree, is just what a GI Longines Breeders' Cup Classic should look like. Three of the first four in the Derby, albeit not the one that may ultimately be credited as winner. And besides resolving the questions left open by that processional race at Churchill, they must also pick up the gauntlet thrown down by an older horse whose plain running style should leave no stone of merit unturned. A race, in other words, commensurate with the biggest prize of the American Turf, with the laurels of Horse of the Year very possibly on the line, too.

To connections of the nine involved, then, congratulations. Even in getting to the gate, you've basically achieved everything that drives the perennial investment of billions into the improvement and nurture of the breed. That being so, however, the composition of the field asks some pretty challenging questions of the bloodstock industry.

Sure, it can point to a functioning paradigm in Essential Quality: a son of the elite stallion Tapit, bred by the biggest investor in Turf history from the daughter of a mare bought for $3 million. But the rest of the field does not support perceived commercial values anything like so sturdily.

Favorite Knicks Go has brought Paynter back from brink, his current juveniles having graduated from a book of 34 covers in 2018, but he is still only $7,500–at which fee Hot Rod Charlie's sire Oxbow received just 28 mares this year. Medina Spirit, son of an even cheaper sire in Protonico, famously changed hands for $1,000 as a yearling. Max Player's sire Honor Code, shockingly, barely surpassed even Oxbow's book this spring despite also producing from his first crop the only colt ever to beat the 2021 Horse of the Year.

Art Collector is by one of the most precocious broodmare sires in history, but the yearling market had become so disenchanted with Bernardini that the last crop sold before his death, conceived at $85,000, achieved a median of $38,500. Tripoli is a dirt outlier for Kitten's Joy, whose lack of commercial recognition has long been symptomatic of the witless treatment of turf stallions in Kentucky. Stilleto Boy is by Shackleford, exiled to Korea last year. That leaves Express Train as the only runner, bar Essential Quality, by a stallion with any claim to making sense of the market's operation: Union Rags had a book of 164 last year, though it must be acknowledged that he presumably only maintained that traffic by having his fee halved to $30,000.

If this is our idea of a horse race, then, it vividly rebukes the familiar, dismal disjunction between sales ring and racetrack. Logically, there should be nothing more commercial than breeding winners. But most matings are planned with only one moment in mind: not post time for the Breeders' Cup Classic, but the fall of a gavel.

You can't blame commercial breeders, really. It's a tough business, and a lot of things can go wrong with these delicate young animals. The fault rests with those directing investment, the agents and advisors who would rather urge their wealthy patrons to buy a yearling by the latest unproven rookie than one by an Oxbow or a Paynter.

Filly & Mare Sprint entrant Bella Sofia is by the same sire family as Hot Rod Charlie and Knicks Go | Breeders' Cup/Eclipse Sportswire

Oxbow and Paynter! If you want “run”, well, it runs in the family. These sires are both by Awesome Again out of daughters of the freakish Cee's Song (Seattle Song), also mother of the dual Breeders' Cup Classic winner Tiznow (plus two other Grade II winners) from her serial trysts with Cee's Tizzy. And don't forget that Oxbow's brother Awesome Patriot gave us Bella Sofia, the principal rival to Gamine (Into Mischief) in the GI Filly and Mare Sprint. So here we have three stallions from the same dynasty, all perceived as lacking commercial allure, all with Grade I winners eligible to win on the day that best measures the endeavors of a multi-billion-dollar industry.

Awesome Patriot admittedly earned his chance at stud sooner by pedigree than performance, but the same is true of Outflanker, the Maryland stalwart (by Danzig out of a half-sister to Weekend Surprise) who contested 10 maidens without success–and who surfaces as damsire of Knicks Go.

Bella Sofia was found for just $20,000 at OBS last summer. Knicks Go was co-bred by Sabrina Moore and her mother Angie when they had a total of three mares. And Hot Rod Charlie, as we've often celebrated, was the very last horse sold by the peerless Bill Landes of Hermitage Farm from the families cultivated by his late patron Edward A. Cox, Jr.

Having made just $17,000 as a short yearling, Hot Rod Charlie could not reward his shrewd pinhookers past $110,000 despite the subsequent rise of half-brother Mitole (Eskendereya). That's a measure of the commercial renunciation of Oxbow, but at least it allowed his son to fall within reach of a multi-generational partnership, united by ageless enthusiasm, including a bunch of Brown University football alumni headed by the nephew of trainer Doug O'Neill. Some of these boys live and work in San Diego and to bring “Chuck” to their local track, a year after his insolent 94-1 challenge to Essential Quality in the GI Juvenile, offers just the kind of tale our sport could do with telling the outside world right now.

Hot Rod Charlie training at Del Mar | Breeders' Cup/Eclipse Sportswire

But success for Hot Rod Charlie would have no less redemptive potential within the business, too. Son of an exemplary speed-carrying scrapper, he is author of the fastest opening in GI Belmont S. history (and a half eclipsed only by Secretariat) while still locking horns so obstinately in the stretch that it was 11 lengths back to the Preakness winner in third. So bravo to Gainesway for investing in such granite. Apart from anything else, Tapit mares will be a fun match: Cee's Tizzy was by Relaunch, full-brother to Tapit's third dam.

Oxbow, for his part, had plenty of quantity in his early books but not so much quality. Sure, Calumet marches to its own drum, and a lot of commercial breeders will never fall in step. But at least this farm is setting a premium on those assets most eroded by the corner-cutting vices of our industry: constitution, durability, staying power. Because we need to start raising and racing horses that do not depend for their competitive ardor and longevity on medication, but on their genetic inheritance.

It's called the Breeders' Cup, remember. Not the Vendors' Cup. And its climax this year reminds us what we're supposed to be trying to breed. Milton famously ended a sonnet by observing: “They also serve who only stand and wait.” But that's all many horses today are bred to do: to stand on that dais and wait for board to light up. Okay, they have to walk nicely too. But run? A bonus, apparently.

So go get 'em, Chuck!

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This Side Up: A Warning Flare Illuminates Empress Bid

Nobody in our community is more eligible than Ted Bassett to say that he has seen it all before, but something will be attempted Saturday that falls outside even the long experience encompassed by his 100th birthday in just a few days' time. For a Keeneland showpiece that Mr. Bassett helped to inaugurate in 1984, as host to the lady for whom it was named, could well present one of her subjects with the opportunity to complete a unique double.

First, in the backyard of Windsor Castle, William Haggas saddles the unbeaten star of his Newmarket stable, Baaeed (GB) (Sea The Stars {Ire}), in the G1 Queen Elizabeth II S. at Ascot. Then, just a few hours later, he will see whether Cloudy Dawn (Ire) (Kodiac {GB}) can export the GI Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup.

Be in no doubt, an elite prize on either side of the ocean–both honoring one of the patrons of his own yard–is a day's work well within the reach of one of the premier English trainers of his generation. Two weeks ago, Haggas sent out eight winners at five different tracks in one afternoon. That might seem a relatively feasible endeavor in the American system, Jeff Runco having saddled seven state-bred winners on a single card at Charles Town only last week, but it is thought to be unprecedented in Britain. Regardless, you can judge the precision with which Haggas places his horses from the last time he sent Cloudy Dawn into action, at Deauville in August. She was first of four winners either side of the English Channel within 40 minutes, three at Group level, at cumulative odds of 4,252-to-1.

This upgrade for Cloudy Dawn duly implies that her progress must be ongoing. But a race so hospitable to the strengths of European raiders, true to the diplomatic spirit of its creation, also features one whose campaigning invites horsemen on both sides of the water to ponder their collective management of the breed.

For it was only last Saturday that Empress Josephine (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) finished strongly for third in the GI First Lady S. This same formula worked for Ballydoyle 10 years ago with another daughter of Galileo, Together (Ire), who similarly finished strongly for a podium against her seniors before wheeling back to beat fellow sophomores the following weekend. (And Together, moreover, had run in a Group 1 at Newmarket just two weeks before the First Lady.)

Empress Josephine (left), third just last week in the First Lady | Coady

Now this kind of thing has long been a familiar trademark of their record-breaking trainer, Aidan O'Brien. Partly, no doubt, that has been a luxury of his status as primarily a private trainer. Federico Tesio, who was similarly in the business of proving stock for breeding, ruthlessly diverted even elite animals to the service of their workmates as soon as he felt he had established their ceiling. And O'Brien has always said that his employers–renouncing the nervous protection of reputations that once inhibited so many commercial operations–urge him to use the Ballydoyle talent pool as a means of drawing out its deepest genetic resources. John Magnier had plainly decided that the cyclical, dynastic nature of breeding made it a better play, in the long term, to be sure what you had.

As a result, O'Brien has been able to produce breeding stock that repeats its brilliance because it's encased in corresponding hardiness. The most celebrated example among stallions he has made is Giant's Causeway, whose ferrous qualities were such that the aggregate winning distance across his last eight starts–five as winner, three times as runner-up, over different distances and surfaces but all at Group 1/Grade I level–was barely a couple of lengths. But O'Brien has frequently hammered wonderful careers out of fillies, too, by plunging them unsparingly into the forge.

That of Peeping Fawn (Danehill), for instance, was compressed between April and August of her sophomore campaign, and included four starts in maidens. Eleven days after the last of those, she ran third in the G1 Irish 1,000 Guineas–and then second in another Classic, over half a mile farther at Epsom, just FIVE days after that. Time for a break? Forget it. Later that month she was launched on a spree of four Group 1 wins, each more impressive than the last, within 54 days.

All horses are different, naturally, and a genius like O'Brien will clearly tailor his methods to their individual needs. And being totally ignorant of what makes Malathaat (Curlin) tick, for instance, it would be invidious to rebuke her Halley's Comet schedule. In broader terms, however, I think we are all entitled to regret those changes in either the breed or training methods, or both, that nowadays inhibit the way racehorses are campaigned.

Flippant brings a three-race win streak to her first GI test | Coady

We owe nearly all the copper-bottomed influences in postwar American pedigrees to an old school testing of their genetic selection for the kind of robust constitution required to carry speed. Hail to Reason's career notoriously derailed in its first September, but he had already made 18 starts. Nashua won a maiden on debut, in May, and was contesting his second stakes 14 days later.

John Williams, such a precious and enlightening conduit of the best old lore, has always said that this horse was his physical paragon. John will tell you that just looking at Nashua's shoe, even as an ageing stallion, would explain how he had sustained a juvenile championship, 2-1-1 finishes in the Triple Crown, and a Jockey Club Gold Cup over four seconds faster than his first. Eddie Arcaro once told John how he was wondering what to say as Nashua returned from one of his occasional dud works, but before he could say a word Sunny Jim Fitzsimmons had sent him straight back out to do it again. This time Nashua put in a bullet, and he won the Wood Memorial three days later.

Now you may say that it would be reckless to train horses like that today. But I'm not sure O'Brien would agree with you and, if the Thoroughbred really is less resilient today, then that may well reflect a far more culpable recklessness among breeders.

Earlier this week colleague Emma Berry broke the story in TDN Europe that G1 2,000 Guineas and G1 St James's Palace S. winner Poetic Flare (Ire) (Dawn Approach {Ire})–who this spring contested three Classics in 22 days–has been acquired to stand in Japan. Poetic Flare, remember, was bred and trained by Jim Bolger, once mentor to the young O'Brien. And you can be sure Bolger approves what his former protégé is doing with Empress Josephine, as another 2021 Classic winner from the same school of Irish horsemanship.

As a stud prospect, Poetic Flare offered precisely what we need to staunch the genetic losses being suffered by the breed today. Unfortunately, however, European commercial breeders have unanimously written off his sire and none of them, despite the evidence before their eyes, appears to accept that worthwhile strains in a pedigree might filter through regardless. (Ironic, really, when Poetic Flare satisfies the Galileo-Danehill blend they hold so sacred.)

Maybe an imaginative farm in Kentucky might have taken a chance with Poetic Flare, but the environment there would have been no less wholesome. Despite the vogue for importing yearlings from Tattersalls, everyone can see how hard it is even for proven turf stallions, never mind extremely credible new ones, to get commercial traction in the domestic yearling market.

Bassett and The Queen before the 1984 inaugural race in her name | Keeneland photo

Once again, then, the Japanese have been able to consolidate a program that will eventually leave the transatlantic gene pools to repent, too late, of their disastrous recent schism. One keen observer of the breed will surely not need reminding of what has been lost as a result. During the war her father bred a filly named Knight's Daughter, who was exported to Claiborne and a couple of years later delivered a Princequillo colt. His name was Round Table, and he won just the 43 of 66 starts.

By the same token, then, perhaps The Queen will also be glad to see a daughter of Tapit in the Keeneland race run in her name. The Gainesway phenomenon has been given mysteriously little opportunity in Europe, despite a dazzling winner of the historic Cambridgeshire H. from a very small sample of runners. Tapit's stock actually has a pretty respectable record on turf in the U.S., bearing in mind that it's an option typically only even tried for horses appearing short of ability on the main track. Certainly Flippant has been thriving on the grass, and we wish her connections well in a race they would prize dearly.

We can't all benefit from the length of perspective shared by Mr. Bassett and The Queen of England, now approaching a combined 195 years. But maybe Empress Josephine or Flippant, between them, can at least get a few people to see a slightly bigger picture.

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Major Boost to Farr-Sighted Program

It is still relatively early days in his Turf adventure. But no matter how much Paul Farr can build on what is fast becoming a pretty serious commitment, he may never experience a more succinct sample of its ups and downs–and how bewilderingly entwined those tend to be–than his debut involvement in a graded stakes.

That came just a few days ago, in the GIII Iroquois S. at Churchill: the first chance to bank starting points for a certain race staged on the same track next May. Time to start dreaming. Unfortunately Magnolia Midnight (Midnight Storm), a Colonial Downs maiden winner owned in partnership by his Titletown Racing Stables, dropped right out to finish last behind Major General (Constitution). On the other hand, the exciting winner happens to be the first foal out of an unraced daughter of Uncle Mo, No Mo Lemons, Farr had acquired from the estate of the late Gerry Dilger for just $70,000 at Keeneland last November.

That could obviously prove a pretty sensational bargain, if Major General can continue along the Derby trail the way he has started. No Mo Lemons, after all, is still only six and Farr has already sounded out WinStar about sending her back to Constitution next spring, to breed a sibling to Major General. But the spectrum of horseracing fortunes extends far wider even than the gulf dividing the two Iroquois runners in which Farr had some kind of stake.

For back in the spring No Mo Lemons had already promised an early dividend on her purchase, when delivering the foal she was carrying at the sale. Dilger could scarcely have chosen a more fashionable young stallion for her first cover.

No Mo Lemons with her 2021 Practical Joke filly | Courtesy Paul Farr

“So she produced this beautiful Practical Joke filly,” Farr relates. “I mean, just gorgeous. And, in fact, one of the main reasons I bought her had been the difficulty I'd had, along with some of the syndicates I was in, trying to bid on Practical Joke yearlings the prior September and October. They kept going for crazy prices, or what I thought crazy at the time. Of course, his progeny have meanwhile been performing on the track as well. But when I kept being outbid, I thought, 'Screw this, I'm going to go a little farther back in the timeline and buy a mare in foal to him instead.' And I liked this one's whole page and, of course, everything that Gerry Dilger had done over the past many, many years.”

Sure enough, the Practical Joke filly was an immediate standout among the 10 foals delivered by the Titletown mares with Sally Lockhart at Ballyrankin Stud. But then disaster struck.

“With that new rotavirus strain that popped in the Lexington area, at the beginning of the year, we had both the mare and her filly in quarantine for three weeks at Rood and Riddle,” Farr says. “And actually, we had just about got the foal over the parasitic infection–only for her then to spike an infection in her knee. We did everything we could. We tried several different cocktails of antibiotics. But when they're so young, they can't really do that aggressive a treatment. And finally the recommendation came from the vet that there was nothing more we could do, and we had to make the very hard decision that she shouldn't suffer anymore.”

Farr remembers, with bitter affection, kissing the little filly on the head in those last days; and subsequently visiting No Mo Lemons at Ballyrankin, which is just a mile up the road from the clinic. During the miserable period of confinement, the mare had exuded maternal dismay; a distraught, helpless sense that her foal, gated off within their cramped quarantine stall, was not in a good place. It was gratifying now to sense an almost palpable relief in the mare, that the shared ordeal was over.

And if Farr couldn't have been given a more painful reminder of the perils that may always lurk among Thoroughbreds, even after you have shown the most astute judgement, then it's not as though he needed any schooling in the merits of spreading risk. In his business life, that had long been his governing instinct.

It was actually in leading former employer PPL Corp's acquisition of two major Kentucky utilities, around a decade ago, that Farr was first introduced to the lifeblood of the Bluegrass. Several members of the management teams at those utilities were in syndicates together, claiming horses, and Farr saw the fun they were having. After a stint at the reins of a spin-off merchant power generation business, a buyout put Farr in a position to develop his nascent interest.

Paul and Kym Farr just before the Iroquois | Courtesy Paul Farr

“I was in a business very much oriented to risk management,” Farr explains. “So I felt pretty comfortable with the concept of spreading your risk with different trainers, different partnership groups, much as you do different assets in different locations. So while I'm still getting my legs under, I'm okay with managing exposure and nothing about the business scared me in any way.”

Inevitably, even so, seeking the right fit was a process of trial and error. There were attempts to cut corners. Farr soon discovered, for instance, that measuring the thickness of the cardiac wall was no substitute for the kind of heart that's needed in the heat of racetrack battle. So while auspicious physical attributes could and should be factored into decision-making, he soon realized that the all-important competitive desire would only begin to be disclosed many months after a yearling leaves the ring.

Open daylight maiden winner Magnolia Midnight | Coady

In the end, Farr and his wife Kym evolved a strategy of building partnership at different levels. On the one hand, for instance, he is involved with some buddies at Rainbow's End Racing claiming horses in New York; at the other end of the scale, equally, he's also contributing to the new Colts' Group put together by Brad Cox, Bradley Weisbord and Liz Crow. Having enjoyed his first experiences partnering with West Point Thoroughbreds, meanwhile, he has also made a couple of fresh commitments with that team; and then there's a little extra shopping with his pal Staton Flurry of Hot Springs, whose Flurry Racing Stables has a stake in Shedaresthedevil (Daredevil). Farr has also partnered with Sol Kumin (Madaket Stables) on a number of horses in the past two years.

“I learnt my lesson several years ago trying to do things more on the 100 percent,” Farr reflects. “Through all these different avenues I get to share the experience of a lot of really smart people–whether that's Clay Scherer, who helps Staton and me, or the whole infrastructure at West Point, or Liz Crow, or Tom Morley who does the training for Rainbow's End in New York.

“Brad Cox probably trains more horses that I have an interest in than any other trainer, but then think about all those guys on the West Point team: they have John Sadler out in California, there's George Weaver, there's Shug McGaughey, there's Christophe Clement, Dale Romans, Steve Asmussen, Dallas Stewart, so many relationships. I was listening to a podcast they put out to the ownership group the other day, with Dallas Stewart, and Terry Finley was mentioning how they go back 30 years together. So doing things this way lets you tap into deep relationships, and aligns you with people with deep knowledge, people that are world-class.”

And that's also the level he sees in the counsel and empathy of Lockhart, now truly like family to him. In principle, he intends to keep Titletown's breeding and racing operations separate. No doubt some occasional flexibilities will be required, but it's the commercial possibilities that are exciting about the emergence of Major General. For his dam's first Titletown cover, Farr and Lockhart settled on Kantharos, seeking a slightly more streamlined animal after her first three foals–including the Always Dreaming weanling sold alongside her last November, to Steven W. Young for $95,000–all came up a pretty generous size.

Dripping Gold's Saratoga debut | Sarah Andrew

Not that this windfall for No More Lemons is the only excitement for a program gathering momentum all the time. At the same auction where he found her, Farr gave $240,000 for Swiss Skydiver's half-sister Is It Gold (Indygo Shiner), and the Nyquist colt she was carrying is evidently a knockout. Within 24 hours of Farr's first involvement in a graded stakes, moreover, Dripping Gold (Lemon Drop Kid) was fast-tracked to Grade I company in the Summer S. after a debut success at Saratoga for a partnership also including West Point Thoroughbreds and John A. Ballantyne. Shug McGaughey confessed himself rather disappointed with fifth place at Woodbine, and believes there remains better to come. But already the next cycle promises ever more action: the Weisbord-Crow group alone gives him a piece of the action in a couple of dozen elite Saratoga and Keeneland graduates. And Farr is also involved, meanwhile, in a Tony and Kim Dutrow group now prospecting the big yearling sales in Europe.

Titletown's Green Bay Packers-inspired silks | Courtesy Paul Farr

Titletown is named for Farr's hometown and his beloved Green Bay Packers and their 13 championships, and there's no mistaking the sense of purpose that could someday bring him to the equivalent of Super Bowl territory with Thoroughbreds, too.

“To have 2-year-olds running in a Grade III and a Grade I, a day apart, was very exciting and I hope that as young horses both will improve for their experience,” Farr says. “And obviously it was fantastic to see Major General do his job for his dam, and get the 'Win-and-You're-In' for the Breeders' Cup. Hopefully he can go on and do fantastic things.

“Okay, with the Practical Joke foal, Lady Luck put her thumb on the scale a little bit the other way. But that's part of this game, with its amazing ups and downs. I have tended to be somewhat lucky in business, and in life. I've got a great family, five kids, and done great things with my companies. At the level we're talking about, you do need the resources to compete. And when I put a dollar to work, I don't necessarily expect to get that dollar back. I'm very fortunate that I don't need to–though it would be nice, right, to have this stuff work.

“But for me, everything in life comes down to the people part. I just really have to enjoy who I'm involved with. With the New York group, those are smaller dollar amounts. But, same thing: wonderful people. Anybody can put money to work. But horses have tragic things happen, horses have amazing things happen. Irrespective of the size of the check, it's about being with fantastic people that you enjoy spending time with, and going on that roller coaster ride together.”

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This Side Up: Grounds for Optimism

Surface tensions in our business have run pretty deep in recent years, nowhere more so than at Santa Anita. After a failed revolution, with a synthetic track, they eventually backed into a terrifying breakdowns crisis. Racing in California still has its problems, of course, not least the cloud currently over its premier barn–which, after that curious hesitation last week, instead gives its most controversial resident a home game Saturday in the GI Awesome Again S. But given our community's fury right now with another racetrack proprietor, who this week cashed in a jewel of the global Turf, it's only right that we take a pause and give due credit to The Stronach Group for rising magnificently to what felt absolutely like an existential challenge.

Once again a postal address in Arcadia, named for the Eden of Ancient Greece, can aptly formalize this nostalgic idyll; once again, the dismal confines of the present can be transcended between those art deco stands and timeless mountains. Simultaneously, moreover, across the nation at Gulfstream, The Stronach Group is raising the curtain on another fall meet, and on an intervention in the racing surface that may ultimately prove no less critical to the survival of our sport.

One of the dispiriting things about the schism between turf and dirt, which appears only to have widened since the synthetic experiment at Santa Anita, is the way it mirrors the kind of polarization that has embittered political discourse in the social media age. As the first North American racetrack to offer all three surfaces, side by side, Gulfstream demonstrates that there can literally be a third way. At a time when so many of us just retreat into our echo chambers, deploring those with whom we disagree, it's good to be reminded that tolerance, co-existence and pluralism aren't just high-sounding aspirations but a useful practical framework that enables us all to thrive.

With hindsight, we can all see that an upheaval as radical as the synthetics experiment at Santa Anita should not be forced on people overnight. The kind of flexibility now available at Gulfstream allows horsemen to adapt to evolving demands–whether in the way we breed horses, or train them, or bet on them; or in the terms and conditions laid down for the consent of an ever more urban society.

Gulfstream's new Tapeta surface, shown last week | Ryan Thompson

First and foremost, sure, its new Tapeta option has a supremely practical function. Most obviously it will give the grass track respite, as became essential following the final demise of Calder; and it will very quickly pay for itself, in handle, when tropical weather moves races off the turf. In the longer term, however, it will also give everyone a chance to calibrate their responses to the challenge of training Thoroughbreds in the 21st Century; to explore those gray areas, between our adamant prejudices, with the best interests of the horse in mind; while still granting the industry time to make the serving of those interests commercially sustainable. These, surely, are boons that might be profitably extended to many other racetracks.

A handful of tracks, of course, did manage to bed down synthetics successfully; but hopefully we all learned a lot from factious misadventures elsewhere. For instance, we learned how expertly such surfaces must be manufactured and maintained, especially when exposed to extremes of climate. (And, in that context, its game-changing stats suggest that Tapeta gets a lot closer than some predecessors to meeting the welfare objectives that now feel more vital than ever.) But it proved nearly as important to overcome the misapprehension that synthetics could ever serve as a direct substitute for dirt, or even as a fair compromise between dirt and turf.

Animal Kingdom successfully transferred synthetic form to a Kentucky Derby win | Horsephotos

Yes, even in that brief window we did see protagonists like Animal Kingdom and Pioneerof the Nile achieving a smooth transition between surfaces. Nobody, however, could pretend that a Kentucky Derby run on synthetics would remain seamlessly the same race as the one that has accrued such a venerable history. And I think many of us learned that an equivalent heritage, in many other cherished races, deserves a lot more respect than was shown. At the same time, diehards have since been put on notice that it doesn't matter how valid and noble are the traditions of dirt racing, if tracks don't get their act together after the exemplary fashion of Santa Anita in the past couple of years.

Now nobody, as you may well have noticed, insists more tediously than me on the importance to the breed of integrating the Classic bloodlines of Europe and America; and measuring the transferability of class between their racetrack environments. But that's precisely because different disciplines draw on different genetic assets. For the full package, for the refinement and expansion of the breed's capacities, you require constant exchange.

As it is, there will be European bloodstock agents at Tattersalls next week–spending appalling amounts of other people's money–who disparage American bloodlines as excessively oriented to speed, a laughable misrepresentation of everything except their own ignorance. And there are parallel myopias in commercial breeding over here, of course, as anyone trying to stand a high-class turf stallion in Kentucky will tell you. If they are not careful, then, both camps will end up suddenly trying to salvage something of what they have discarded. Come that day, they may well find themselves sitting side by side on a plane to Japan.

Certainly it's only a matter of time before sustained Japanese investment in the kind of class that will soon dominate the breed is endorsed in Europe's greatest prize, the G1 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe. Perhaps that landmark will be aptly achieved in its 100th running, on Sunday, when two Japanese-breds have the chance finally to end an exasperating sequence of near-misses.

Sakhee ran Tiznow to a nose in the 2001 Breeders' Cup Classic off an Arc win | Getty Images

On the face of it, this race is a world apart from the Grade I prizes contested at Belmont this weekend. But don't forget how Sakhee won the Arc, by six lengths in muddy ground, just 20 days before running the dirt monster Tiznow to a nose in the GI Breeders' Cup Classic. Nor that Sakhee's dam was a Royal Ascot winner by Sadler's Wells out of a Ribot mare. Some people explained it to themselves that he had bridged the great divide simply by a congenial climate and those generous turns at Big Sandy. In reality, a track that accommodates the nine furlongs of the GI Woodward S. round a single turn does so as a showcase for the ultimate dirt asset: the ability to carry speed without respite. And that, to me, is exactly why the Woodward roll of honor features so many horses that became important influences at stud.

Gun Runner could not have made a better start, in his bid to consolidate that heritage, and is represented in the GI Champagne S. on the same card by one of his early flagships in Gunite. (No surprise, mind, to see him followed here by Wit {Practical Joke}, whose jockey consumed way too much gas in trying to retrieve a slow start at Saratoga last time.) Gun Runner, of course, is only the latest to promote Candy Ride (Arg) as a sire of sires. So let's not forget that the day John Sikura found him running a mile in 1:31 flat in Argentina, this future patriarch of American dirt was running on… grass.

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