The late entries, catalogued as hips 247-252, include G3 Pocohontas S. winner Fun and Fiesty (Midshipman); the unraced Al Ula Princess (Tapwrit), a half-sister to Grade I winner Princess Noor in foal to Epicenter; Susie's Baby (Giant's Causeway), a half-sister to Group 1 winner and standout sire Caravaggio; 2016 GI Frizette S. winner Nickname (Scat Daddy) in foal to Uncle Mo; recent Iowa Sorority S. winner Won Happy Mama (Runhappy) offered as a racing or broodmare prospect; and Defining Hope (Strong Hope) carrying a full sibling to GI Ashland S. winner Defining Purpose (Cross Traffic).

These entries may now be viewed online and will also be available in the equineline sales catalogue app. Print versions of all supplemental entries will be available on-site at Fasig-Tipton at sale time. Fasig-Tipton will continue to accept approved supplemental entries through the Breeders' Cup.

The November Sale will be held on Tuesday, Nov. 7, in Lexington beginning at 2:00 p.m. EST.

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Bred by His Highness the Aga Khan's Studs in Ireland and trained by first Luca Cumani and then Sir Michael Stoute, he was crowned the 2000 American Champion Grass Horse after a season which saw him take the G2 Queen Anne S., run second in the G1 Eclipse S. and G1 International S. both to Giant's Causeway (Storm Cat), before returning to the winner's circle in the G1 Champion S. and GI Breeders' Cup Turf. Placed twice more at the highest level in 2001, he retired after 11 starts and was never unplaced with $2,148,836 in career earnings.

William and John Flood of Boardsmill said on Thursday, “We are sad to announce the passing of our stalwart sire Kalanisi, who died suddenly in his paddock this week. He had been enjoying his well-earned retirement in his paddock here for the past few years. Kalanisi was a real favourite with everyone in the yard and with visitors too. He was a huge attraction with both racing fans and breeders during the ITM Stallion Trail every year. He has a final crop of 25 three year olds and he has 3 representatives of this crop on offer at both the Goffs Arkle Sale and also at the Tattersalls Derby Sale.”

First a resident of the Aga Khan's Giltown Stud in Ireland before moving to Boardsmill in 2008 after being purchased by the Flood family, Kalanisi sired five stakes winners on the Flat, but his runners excelled under National Hunt rules. Some of his best are Kalashnikov (Ire), Fayonagh (Ire) and Barters Hill (Ire). His dozen stakes winners as a Flat broodmare sire include Roxoterra (Brz) (Gol Tricolor {Brz}), a Group 1 winner in Brazil, and G1 Prix Jean Romanet heroine Aristia (Ire) (Starspangledbanner {Aus}). Pensioned in 2020, his youngest foals are 4-year-olds.

His dam's first foal, the homebred is a half-brother to Group 2 winner and dual Group 1-placed Kalaman (Ire) (Desert Prince {Ire}) and is from the extended family of Southern Hemisphere Group 1 winners Rockdale (NZ) (Danroad {Aus}) and Fanatic (NZ) (Shocking {Aus}).

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A Triple Crown-nominated colt for the connections of Mrs. John Magnier, Michael Tabor, Derrick Smith, Westerberg, Jonathon Poulin and St. Elias Stable, SOUTH SIDE (Curlin) was a $500,000 yearling purchase out of the Fasig-Tipton New York Saratoga Select Sale. His dam, while unplaced herself, is out of the graded stakes winning mare Mariah's Storm (Rahy), who readers will recognize as the dam of none other than the full-brothers by Storm Cat, Giant's Causeway and Freud. In addition, this is the family of several Galileo full-siblings including: MG1SW and sire Gleneagles (Ire), MG1SW Happily (Ire), G1SW Joan of Arc (Ire), MGSW & GISP Taj Mahal (Ire), G1SW Marvellous (Ire), GSW Coolmore (Ire), G1SP Toy (Ire), and G1SP Vatican City (Ire). And while the prolific family goes on and on, South Side will seek to write his own chapter under the tutelage of Todd Pletcher with jockey Emisael Jaramillo aboard. TJCIS PPS

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“Very sad to lose Pearling this week,” the stud tweeted. “She was one of the first mares to join Blue Diamond and gave us a true star in Decorated Knight. She leaves a lasting legacy with us and we are lucky to have three of her daughters.”

Bred by Pacelco in Kentucky, she ran second in two starts Stateside, and was offered by Highclere Stud during the 2011 Tattersalls December Mares Sale in foal to Galileo. She brought 1.3 million gns from Tony Nerses on behalf of Saleh Al Homaizi and Al Sagar who ran Blue Diamond Stud jointly at that time. The foal she was carrying was Decorated Knight. Put back through the ring at the 2018 edition of that sale also in foal to Galileo to dissolve their partnership, she hammered for 2.4 million to Blue Diamond Stud Farm UK, which is now operated solely by Al Sagar.

She also has the winning Ambrosia (GB) (Frankel {GB}), who went to WinStar for 1.3 million gns at Tattersalls December that year. In total, Pearling produced seven foals, with her latest pair the 5-year-old mare Blue Diamond (Ire), a full-sister to Decorated Knight, and filly Haute Couture (GB) (Kingman {GB}), who arrived in 2021. Blue Diamond was offered at the 2018 Tattersalls December Foal Sale, and was picked up by Blue Diamond for 1.7 million gns.

A full-sister to six-time Group 1 winner and 'Iron Horse' Giant's Causeway who would go on to stallion success in America, Pearling is also a full to outstanding producer You'resothrilling, a dual group winner. The latter has seven black-type winners to her name, led by dual Classic winner and sire Gleneagles (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}).

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So on a weekend when we temporarily suspend our search for the adolescent Thoroughbred maturing sufficiently to beat his peers on the first Saturday in May, let's celebrate the fulfilments that remain available later in life–whether on two legs or four.

The GIII Essex H. is the kind of race that warms the cockles of my heart. Last year it retrieved graded status, and deservedly so after increasing its purse fivefold between 2016 and 2021–a telling snapshot of the thriving Oaklawn program. And this time round it throws together a couple of evergreen veterans who show that whether age turns us into vinegar or vintage wine is largely up to us.

Listen to this edition of This Side Up.

In the case of D. Wayne Lukas, it actually stands to reason that he should still maintain the standards of his heyday even with a much smaller barn. True, he does seem as blessed in indefatigability as in the genius he always brought to his vocation, and harnessing one to the other has simply given a fresh dimension to his unique status in our community. A wider application, however, surely applies to the principle that any decline in the physical powers even of lesser mortals is compensated, and amply so, by experience.

It's not as though anyone sends an expensive Thoroughbred to a given trainer because he might otherwise have made a cage-fighter or lumberjack. I've never understood why “ageing” trainers (an alarmingly elastic concept) should have become unfashionable as they certainly are in my homeland. Some of the biggest yards in Newmarket these days seem to be supervised as a perk accompanying appointment as head boy at various prep schools. As I have frequently remarked, if I owned the Derby favourite, and he had a foot in a bucket of ice the evening before the race, I would rather my trainer was dealing with the problem for an umpteenth time, and not the first.

It would be nice to think that a few people pondered this after the longest-serving trainer in Newmarket won the Arc last autumn, and I was delighted to learn that Sir Mark Prescott will be training for the new monarch this year. On the other side of the water, meanwhile, Lukas himself offered a similar prompt to reflection with Secret Oath (Arrogate) in the GI Kentucky Oaks last year. Though he was now closer to 90 than 80, perhaps one or two people recognized that the guy might finally be getting the hang of the game.

Admittedly it was hard, after Rich Strike (Keen Ice) emerged from nowhere (both figuratively and literally) the next day, to resist a wistful sense that Secret Oath in that form might well have cut down the boys in the Derby after all. While her form then tapered off, last weekend she looked as rejuvenated as her trainer when resurfacing at the track where she first made her name.

That was a gratifying sight, after her breeders had resisted all blandishments to keep her in the Briland family. And Last Samurai, who represents Lukas in the Essex, similarly looked better than ever when taking his earnings past $1.6 million in the GIII Razorback H. Even in his fourth campaign, however, he remains a relative greenhorn compared to the horse who closed for fourth that day.

Rated R Superstar (Kodiak Kowboy) won this race last year, as he had back in 2019 when a callow 6-year-old, and now bids to retain the trophy on his 68th career start. Here's a horse, then, to renew the perennial question: who do we blame for the fact that the modern Thoroughbred is treated like porcelain? Is it the trainers themselves? Or do they only treat horses this way because of the raw materials they're nowadays given by breeders?

One trainer who sets himself apart in that respect is Kenny McPeek, who actually trained Rated R Superstar through his first 30 starts, including when third in the GI Breeders' Futurity. And on Saturday McPeek takes on his old buddy with another who exactly matched that effort as a juvenile, in Classic Causeway.

This time last year, this horse had just won the GII Tampa Bay Derby and was sketching out an apt memorial as one of just three colts in the final crop of Giant's Causeway. True to that legacy of toughness and versatility, in the summer Classic Causeway reinvented himself in startling fashion, winning a Grade I on turf just two weeks after finishing third in the GIII Ohio Derby. Few American trainers today would dare attempt anything like that, so who can presume to anticipate what he might yet achieve back on dirt?

This week McPeek has already dusted off another of last year's sophomores to make a really heartening return. It certainly seems a long time since Smile Happy (Runhappy) beat Classic Causeway (then in another barn) in the GII Kentucky Jockey Club S., not having been seen since his midfield finish in the Derby. But his rehearsals last spring had confirmed him among the best of the crop, and it's very wholesome to be reminded that there is life after the Triple Crown trail. Three years ago, after all, Last Samurai himself trailed in a distant fifth of six in the GI Arkansas Derby; while his rivals Saturday also include Silver Prospector (Declaration Of War), who had bombed out in the previous running of that race.

So let's hope that Litigate (Blame) can likewise return to build a career commensurate with his talent and potential after the hugely disappointing news that he's out of the Derby. All of us have some kind of stake in this horse doing enough to earn a place at stud, given that he has Numbered Account (Buckpasser) facing Thong (Nantallah) on either side of his pedigree. As that indicates, he has been in the best of hands throughout and hopefully his time will still come.

Even without him, the GII Louisiana Derby next week looks deep enough for horses to show that they could have a legitimate shot at Churchill but without banking enough points to prise open a gate. If that happens, however, nobody should despair. You might yet end up with a millionaire contesting the Essex H. in 2025. There are worse fates. Because what they say of people is probably just as true of many a horse: youth is wasted on the young.

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Fearless Solider commanded a princely sum of $700,000 at KEESEP from the titan partnership that is Repole Stable and St. Elias Stable. They would later bring Gainesway Stable into the fold before the Triple Crown-nominated colt's first start. Dam Hessie's Girl's 2021 colt by Liam's Map died last year but she did have a 2022 colt by Game Winner. A young half-sister to GISW Bullsbay (Tiznow); GSW Our Khrysty (Newfoundland)–herself claiming GISW Grace Adler (Curlin) and GSP Virginia Key (Distorted Humor) to her broodmare tally; GSP Vegas No Show (Hard Spun); and SW Hidden Expression (Yonaguska), dam of SW Mask (Tapit), Hessie's Girl is due to Charlatan for 2023. This is the extended female family of GISW Grecian Flight. Sales history: $700,000 Ylg '21 KEESEP. Lifetime Record: 2-1-0-0, $45,500. Click for the Equibase.com chart or VIDEO, sponsored by TVG.
O-Repole Stable, St. Elias Stable and Gainesway Stable (Antony Beck); B-Farfellow Farms Ltd. (KY); T-Todd A. Pletcher.

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Put this to Richard Barry, however, and he gives you a bit of a look.

So between the acknowledged dangers of the environment, the need for composure and vigilance and skill, he doesn't feel any of that stuff at all?

“No, I don't,” he says with a shrug. “I just want to get the horse to ejaculate. That's it.”

Ashford's vastly experienced stallion manager now offers a grin, as though to assure you that he can indulge such pretentious questioning in those who don't literally put their necks on the line every day. For those who need to keep the horses and their handlers safe, however, these daily “miracles” represent the precarious ritual on which rest quite incalculable stakes.

“That's it,” he repeats. “And get him out. It's a very serious business. You'll see the guys talking to each other, but they're always concentrating on what they're doing. There's millions of dollars transacted up there every week. But you can't be too intense, either, because the animals feel it. You have to be… I want to say relaxed, but you can't relax around them at all.”

So even with two Triple Crown winners on his current roster, extending a cavalcade of champion runners and sires over 38 years, Barry knows that the same flesh-and-blood unites every Thoroughbred, of every station, at the point where the blood is up, and the flesh tapers to lethal feet. He was still a young man, new to his vocation, when a shadow was cast that reaches to this day.

“I watched a guy die,” he says. “John McGuigan. I found him. And that wasn't in the breeding shed, he was bringing in mares and foals. One of the mares kicked him right over the heart and burst his aorta. That changed me. I give out to those guys up there, if ever I see them being lax.”

That was at the old Murty Farm, where Barry cut his teeth before his recruitment by Coolmore. A rather different program, no doubt, from the one that has since given Barry such responsibility at the very pinnacle of the commercial breeding industry. But it all contributed to his education, no less than the Connemara stallion owned by his aunt back in Co. Dublin.

“The village where I was brought up, Clondalkin, is now part of the city,” Barry says. “I couldn't find my way round Dublin if I tried now, it's gotten so big, but there were a number of small horse farms around the place when I was growing up and I must have been about 13 when I started hunting with the Co. Dublin Foxhounds. My aunt bred three-quarter-breds, stuff like that, she'd sell them on for show jumping. And then I used to ride out for a guy named Dave Blackford, he was a small trainer of jumpers round there. But I realized at an early age that I was never going to be a jockey, so I got onto the farm end of things.”

So it was that in 1978 Barry became one of countless young compatriots to have used the Irish National Stud course as the springboard for a job in Kentucky. At the time Wayne and Duane Murty stood the likes of Bold Ruler's son Top Command.

“Not big names, and I was more into mares and foals really,” Barry recalls. “When I first started that's what I wanted to do. I'd be lost now in a broodmare barn, veterinary work is so much more advanced: back in my time you palped them and hoped! Anyway I worked the stallion barn for the Murtys, I was always being pushed that way because they needed someone capable of handling them.”

And, actually, that was pretty much how he came to be hired by Coolmore: he was 28, strong and fearless, and equal to a feisty young stallion.

“They had Storm Bird here at the time,” he explains. “He was a bit of a boy and they needed someone to handle him. So I hired on here as stallion manager in 1985. That was the year he had Storm Cat running from his first crop. He finished second [by a nose to Tasso] in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile, if he'd won he was gone to Japan.”

What dynasties Barry has helped to establish since then! He has worked on the most intimate scale imaginable with some of the great patriarchs of the modern breed. And while the essence of the whole job could not be more timeless, his career has meanwhile spanned sophisticated advances in the workplace: from veterinarian input to ventilation.

“The breeding shed alone,” he agrees. “It's a castle compared to what we had when I came here. A black metal shed, and if it was 80 degrees outside it was 100 in the shed. Forty mares was a full book when I started, but we were still as busy then as we are today, because we were breeding the same mare maybe three times in a heat cycle.”

Besides Storm Bird, Barry started out with El Gran Senor–a horse he still cherishes as much as any since under his care.

“He was with me the longest, and an absolute pet,” he says affectionately. “Never gave me any trouble. Apart from the fact that he had a fertility problem! But he was a grand horse, gorgeous, I loved him. He was the opposite of Storm Bird, a child could handle him. Then Woodman came over the June of the first year we were here, he was much the same.

“Seattle Dancer was pretty quiet, too, though he was a funny horse. He'd keep you in the shed an hour in the morning. Yet by the evening, last mare of the day, he was an antichrist, he'd be coming in that door gangbusters. But he wasn't a morning person at all. Afternoon and evening, 35 seconds he'd be in and out, but mornings you had to let him figure it out. That's just the way he was.”

Such are the priceless insights obtained through daily proximity into the humble, animal qualities that accompany equine greatness, be it achieved on the track or off it. And it's that intimate bond, horseman to horse, that is key to this job: figuring out what makes each stallion tick as an individual, with all his quirks and insecurities.

The layman will often hear traits associated with the stock from particular lines. “But at one time we had eight grandsons of Storm Bird standing up there, and I only had one bad actor among them all,” Barry reflects. “And he wasn't that bad as far as I was concerned. He was tough, put it that way. Some of the others were tough too, but they were quiet animals.

“You're going to get some bad horses. But there are very few that are born mean. Generally they're pretty quiet. I've had horses come in here with warnings and they're quiet as lambs. They don't come in to be mean, so you don't make them mean.  You've got horses like Thunder Gulch, Dehere, [American] Pharoah, you raise your voice you'd hurt their feelings. But you've also got horses–like Storm Bird himself, Black Minnaloushe was another–they would get you if you gave them half a chance. Storm Bird got everybody that worked with him, including me: got me right there on the shoulder one night in the breeding shed.”

But remember that Barry did not “start” that horse, who was already seven when he took him on.

“You can train an animal to do just about anything,” he insists. “All it takes is patience. They're all different. And every mare is different, too. Treat people as you find them, and horses the same.”

Nor is it as though a particular disposition, for good or ill, denotes any kind of genetic potency.

“Otherwise we'd all be breeding for a certain type of temperament,” Barry notes. “As it is, you had Halo, a renowned bad actor and a very successful stallion. And you have others without a mean bone in their body. Munnings, nobody expected him to turn into what he has, he's as quiet as a lamb. Giant's Causeway was okay. He was tough, not a horse that liked to be messed with: a 'manly' horse, that's the word. Though he hated the needle, absolutely despised it!”

Given the vivid theater of the breeding shed, and the inferences available from human experience, there is one aspect of a stallion's temperament guaranteed to invite curiosity: libido.

Barry witnessed the notorious celibate tendencies of Seattle Slew when he took boarding mares from Murty Farm to Spendthrift. “I was in the shed one day with him and three other mares and the teaser, and we all went home without getting bred,” he says. “It was a nightmare. And yes, you do get your horses that are slow to breed, absolutely. Sometimes I send them up to the broodmare barn and let them live with the mares a couple of weeks, it can just get them going. They all have their trigger. Ninety percent of them, though, once they figure out what you want them to do, they're good to go. Especially when they're young, they're like teenagers, there's no stopping them once they get into it: they forget about racetrack and everything else.”

So come on then, tell us: who was the most ardent lover of them all?

“Shanghai Bobby jumps to mind,” Barry replies. “You'd open the doors and through he came, and you'd better have that the mare ready. He went straight to that mare and bred her and was walking out before you had the chance to close the doors after him. He'd keel over before he'd refuse a mare. He's the only horse I've ever been around that got so excited that he forgot to ejaculate! But a lovely horse.”

But if there are many moments of humor, Barry and his team never lose sight of the fact that things can go badly wrong if you drop your guard.

“Yes, and very quickly,” he says. “So we all look out for each other. Horses can get tired, and men too. You have to trust the guy next to you. There are three of us here who've been together for years, and the young fellers just switch in and out. And with time we will each of us get like 'that' with particular horses.”

He entwines his fingers to show the tightness of that bond.

“It's all training,” he emphasizes. “If you can start a horse, it's constant training until they don't know any different. All those stallions up there, we've had since they were 4-year-olds, or backend 3-year-olds. They know they're supposed to do what they're told, and that's it, there's no grey area. It's attitude. And it's the same with the guys, over the years I've trained most of them up. The guy that's running the place now was a kid when he came in here. And all that makes me feel lucky in the job I have. Office work and all that, they can keep. I do what I do. I like hands on a horse.”

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8th-DMR, $80K, Msw, 3yo/up, 6 1/2f, 10:27 p.m.

   A $475,000 KEESEP yearling purchase by the Three Amigos, AMERICAN REFUGEE (American Pharoah) will be the 13th foal to race out of the GSP mare Refugee (Unaccounted For). This makes him a half-brother to MGISW & $4.7 million earner Hoppertunity (Any Given Saturday) and MGISW & 'TDN Rising Star' Executiveprivilege (First Samurai). This is also the family of champion 3-year-old filly & MGISW Davona Dale (Best Turn). Trained by Bob Baffert, who famously campaigned his sire and both of his half-siblings, and owned by the trio of Mike Pegram, Karl Watson, and Paul Weitman who also raced both half-siblings, American Refugee posted a near-bullet work July 23, going five furlongs in :59 1/5 (3/86) and followed that up with six furlongs in 1:12 4/5 (2/5) July 29. TJCIS PPs

4th-ELP, $80K, Msw, 2yo, f, 5f, 3:14 p.m.

   From the first crop of Triple Crown champion Justify, AUNT SHIRLEY debuts Friday for owner/breeder WinStar Farm LLC. The chestnut filly is out of a half-sister to MG1SW Decorated Knight (GB) (Gailieo {Ire}). Third dam Mariah's Storm (Rahy) is best known for producing the likes of European horse of the year and leading sire Giant's Causeway (Storm Cat) and New York-based sire Freud (Storm Cat). Second Dam Pearling's half-sister You'resothrilling (Storm Cat) has gone on to produce eight straight winners from as many to race including: G1 Tattersalls Irish Two Thousand Guineas winner Gleneagles (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}), MG1SW Happily (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}), G1 Prix de Diane Longines winner Joan of Arc (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}), and G1 Etihad Airways Irish One Thousand Guineas victor Marvellous (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) amongst others. TJCIS PPs

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McPeek's 10 millionaires to date have been sired by the likes of Cuvee, Louis Quatorze, Daredevil, Hit It a Bomb and Tejano–and he signed for most of them himself. As one who marches to his own drum, his style obviously wouldn't work for everyone. Think outside the box, and you'll have to manage without the many investors who feel nervous straying beyond the comforting confines of convention. They will seek sanctuary in the kind of strike rates available with trainers who start horses about as often as Halley does his Comet. Nonetheless, there are some pretty universal lessons to be drawn from the success of Classic Causeway (Giant's Causeway) in the big race at Belmont last weekend, just two weeks after his barn debut.

Because if McPeek is too much of a one-off to be categorized simply as “old school”, there's no doubting the throwback element in Classic Causeway himself, famously one of just three foals from the final crop of the Iron Horse. And if McPeek is to some degree a victim of his own success, in that you tend not to be sent too many yards of silk if you can contrive such fine purses of a relative sow's ear, let's not forget that one of the world's most lavishly resourced stables is supervised by another who believes that Thoroughbreds actually thrive on competition.

Click the play button below to listen to this week's episode of This Side Up. 

Very few elite trainers in Europe, nevermind America, would have drawn out the reserves of Giant's Causeway as boldly as Aidan O'Brien. Already a Group 1 winner at two, Giant's Causeway started his sophomore campaign by fending off a battle-hardened, race-fit 6-year-old in April. Between May 6 and Sept. 23, he then finished first or second in eight Group 1 races, constantly switching distance. After that, as nobody will need reminding, he shipped to run the dirt monster Tiznow to a neck in the GI Breeders' Cup Classic.

The 'Iron Horse,' Giant's Causeway | Coolmore

We're talking about an exceptional specimen here, clearly, but O'Brien has always operated on the basis that his patrons at Coolmore require reliable exposure of genes they might wish to replicate. And like his mentor Jim Bolger, who last year ran 2,000 Guineas winner Poetic Flare (Ire) (Dawn Approach {Ire}) in two other Classics over the next three weeks, he additionally believes that maturing horses flourish for racetrack experience. Peeping Fawn (Danehill) had an aristocratic pedigree, nothing to prove there, but O'Brien still worked her like a stevedore. She had already been beaten three times in April when breaking her maiden on May 16. Eleven days later she ran third in a Classic over a mile. FIVE days later she was beaten half a length in the G1 Oaks at Epsom, over a mile and a half. Did she recoil from this dazing sequence of examinations? She did not. Instead, going up and down in distance every time, she won four Group 1 prizes in 54 days.

As it happens, Peeping Fawn has proved a fairly disappointing producer, albeit unlucky that her best daughter derailed. Giant's Causeway, however, has emulated his sire Storm Cat as a hugely important crossover influence. That's unsurprising, after his own slick transfer to the American racing environment, and he stands as a withering rebuke to the prescriptive approach we see, both sides of the water, to racing surfaces. He came up with a worthy heir in Europe at the first attempt in Shamardal, whose maternal pedigree was shaded very green, but has book-ended his career with an outstanding young Kentucky sire in Not This Time, whose own family obviously contains no less resonant dirt names.

Interestingly, Classic Causeway is out of a mare by Thunder Gulch, whose breeder Peter Brant has always been so far-sighted in this regard. Thunder Gulch himself, of course, combined a sire who had won benchmark races for the recycling of dirt speed–the GI Hopeful S., the GI Met Mile H. twice, the GI Breeders' Cup Sprint–with a turf mare whose dam had finished second in the G1 Gold Cup at Ascot over two and a half miles.

Most horses are more versatile than we will ever know. We should always start with the animal in front of us, and how it all fits together, rather than meekly obey herd presumptions. Sure enough, having only recently taken Classic Causeway into his care (after Brian Lynch laid some excellent foundations), McPeek urged a switch to turf because “the horse has a foot like a pancake”.

But often it's simply a question of opportunity. It was only the search for outcross blood at Coolmore, for instance, that allowed War Front and Scat Daddy to penetrate European myopia as coveted “turf” influences. And while John Magnier and his partners seem to be doing pretty well without my advice, I will just dust off my plea that they might indulge European mare owners by allowing American Pharoah at least one spring in Co Tipperary. (Especially as I keep reading that the home farm may apparently be a little short of fresh blood just now.)

Bleecker Street | Sarah Andrew

After last week's glimpse of how a more wholesome future might look, we revert to business as usual in the first Grade I of the Saratoga meet, with Chad Brown having to generate his own competition on grass. In fact, just one other American trainer has mustered a runner in the Diana S. It's striking, however, that most exciting member of the field is also the only one bred in America.

Bleecker Street was hardly a blatant turf prospect the day Brant purchased her as a yearling, down the road at Fasig-Tipton, but her sire Quality Road has a very flexible genetic background. (Just his first two dams will tell you that, as daughters of Strawberry Road and Alydar–and there's plenty more when you get down in the wheat.) Even Chad Brown has been prepared to start Bleecker Street in four graded stakes already this year, so presumably McPeek or O'Brien would by this stage have sent her to the moon and back.

Just as surface aptitude tends to be self-fulfilling, so you have to wonder to what extent pessimism about the constitution of the modern racehorse would stand up to horsemen actually going out there and testing it properly. But if we won't train them like McPeek, then the least we can do is breed them like Classic Causeway. As it was, no farm in Europe or Kentucky offered Bolger enough for Poetic Flare. And that's why, when so much of our commercial glister washes out the moment a horse has to break sweat, it will be the Japanese who end up with the horses of iron.

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