O’Brien Has Saratoga Aim For Guineas And Derby Favourite City Of Troy

Aidan O'Brien is busy preparing for what could turn out to be one of his boldest ever campaigns at Ballydoyle with plans in place for City Of Troy (Justify) to tackle the 2,000 Guineas and the Derby followed by an audacious tilt at the Travers S. on the dirt at Saratoga later this summer.

Meanwhile, dual Derby and Breeders' Cup hero Auguste Rodin (Deep Impact {Jpn}), arguably the most important older horse to have been kept in training at Ballydoyle for many years, is set to get his campaign underway in next week's Dubai Sheema Classic. 

Described by joint-owner Michael Tabor as “our Frankel” after he slammed his Dewhurst rivals last term, City Of Troy heads the Guineas and Derby betting at odds of 4-6 and 2-1 respectively.

With so much on the line for a horse who has commanded such praise, O'Brien could be forgiven for feeling the pressure. The truth couldn't be further from the case. 

Speaking at a media morning at Ballydoyle on Wednesday, O'Brien said, “I don't feel pressure at all. All we can do is our best and whatever will be will be. But he [City Of Troy] looks a bit different at the moment anyway.”

O'Brien added, “He has always been very special. He always looked a bit different–even from the time we worked him to when he ran in his maiden.  All you can do is just keep turning up and running and see what is going to happen, but he does work very differently [to anything else].

“Horses are working in very bad ground at the moment-it's deep. He shouldn't like that at all but he is just powering through it. We hope to get him to Naas on Sunday after racing. They'll all work together–him, Henry Longfellow (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}), River Tiber (Ire) (Wootton Bassett {GB}), they'll all go together over seven or seven-and-a-half furlongs. The plan is to go straight to the Guineas with City Of Troy.

“If that went well, then he could go for the Derby, and if that went well, there's a chance he could go to Saratoga for the Travers Stakes. That's very possible if things go well and it will be interesting.”

O'Brien is no stranger to running top-class horses on the dirt. Johannesburg famously won the Breeders' Cup Juvenile in 2001 while Galileo (Ire), George Washington (Ire), Henrythenavigator and Duke Of Marmalade (Ire) are some of the more established names to have tackled the Breeders' Cup Classic, albeit the latter pair's efforts came on the Pro-Ride surface at Santa Anita in 2008. 

Mendelssohn came closest to delivering O'Brien and the Coolmore team a breakthrough success in the Travers when second to Catholic Boy in the 2018 edition of the race. However, City Of Troy would rank as by far the most high-profile colt that connections have pointed towards the Travers, with O'Brien putting his confidence behind last year's European Champion Two-Year-Old's ability to handle the surface on breeding.

Speaking about the reasoning behind such ambitious campaigning, he explained, “It's just to expose him, really. Obviously he's by Justify, which makes Justify very exciting for us because he should be able to do dirt as easily as he does grass. That's what makes him unique, really. “Every one of those Justifys are the same. They are long-striding and big horses. They are scopey and very genuine. They are all happy to go forward and you can't go hard enough in their races. It's going to be very exciting.”

O'Brien added, “He's done very well over the winter. He's a medium-sized horse to look at, but when you stand into him he's much bigger than you think he is, which is the sign of a very well-proportioned horse. It will be exciting.

“When John [Magnier] and the lads are thinking like that, they are not afraid to push him out there and see what he is able to do. If it went well in the Guineas, we're happy to step up to a mile and a half in the Derby and then you could come back to a mile and a quarter on the dirt at Saratoga.”

City Of Troy is likely to be O'Brien's sole runner in the Guineas while targets for Henry Longfellow, Diego Velazquez (Ire) (Frankel {GB}), River Tiber and Unquestionable (Fr) (Wootton Bassett {GB}) will be decided after they work at Naas this weekend. 

O'Brien said, “I'd imagine if City Of Troy goes to the Guineas, he'll go himself. River Tiber always worked very well. He wasn't right in Deauville or in the Middle Park–he wasn't one hundred per cent, so there's a good chance there's more to come from him. I think he's a miler–he's fast. I couldn't see him getting much further.

“Unquestionable could go for the French Guineas. He's done very well. He'll go to Naas on Sunday to work and he could go for a trial in France before going back for the Guineas. He could be a French Derby horse. He's not as quick as the others, so he could get a bit further.

“When we went to America with them last year, River Tiber was five lengths better than the winner. He's not rated that way, but if you put the two of them together, that is what will happen.”

O'Brien added, “Henry Longfellow could stretch out but he looks like a miler the way he's going, so how much further he'd get, I'm not sure. He could be a French Derby horse, as could Diego Velazquez–he might be more that than a Guineas horse, but he'll go with them [to Naas] as well, so it will be interesting.”

Asked for an under-the-radar three-year-old colt to follow for the campaign, O'Brien put forward Grosvenor Square (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}), winner of the G3 Eyrefield S. at Leopardstown last term and no bigger than 20-1 for the Derby.

“Grosvenor Square could be a very interesting horse,” he said. “I think he'd have no problem with better ground. He's not a heavy-framed horse, he's a good mover. He'll go for a Derby trial.”

City Of Troy is not the only horse that O'Brien is exploring the idea of running on dirt this season as Dubai-bound Auguste Rodin could tackle the surface at some point this year. More immediately, races like the Tattersalls Gold Cup at the Curragh and the Prince Of Wales's S. at Royal Ascot will come under consideration for the four-year-old after Meydan.

O'Brien concluded, “Auguste Rodin has another bit of work to do before he goes on Saturday, but everything looks good at the moment. It's his first run of the year but we're very happy with him.

“The plan was he goes there, then he could go to the Curragh for the Tattersalls Gold Cup and then Ascot for the Prince of Wales's.

“After that, we could have a look at a dirt race with him. We'll see how that goes. He could go to Saratoga as well. His season will be split in two really, with a busy first half and then a break. As a rule, Deep Impacts are mainly turf horses, but we were surprised how well he worked on the dirt at the Breeders' Cup-he floated over it. He has an unusual action, so it will be interesting to see.”

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“I Needed A Change” – Seamie Heffernan Explains Ballydoyle Departure

For the first time since 1996, Seamie Heffernan will not be based at Ballydoyle–but Aidan O'Brien's long and trusted ally has revealed that he still hopes to be riding big-race winners in the Coolmore colours in the future. 

It has been one of the worst kept secrets in Irish racing for some time that Heffernan, one of the constants at Ballydoyle for almost three decades now, would not be returning to the fold. 

And on the eve of the opening day of the Flat season in Ireland, Heffernan lifted the lid on the reasons behind taking the decision to step away from Ballydoyle in favour of tackling life “in the fast lane” as a freelance jockey. He also revealed that he has already been approached to ride for one of the major opposition stables.

Heffernan told TDN Europe, “It was my decision. When I look outside my back door on my farm, I know that I have been so privileged because I started off with absolutely zero. I couldn't believe it when I was offered the job behind Christy Roche in Ballydoyle back in 1996. 

“I have made many friends, plenty of money and I have loads of nice pictures and trophies. It's not over yet but I just felt that I needed a change.”

He added, “For me to stay going, I felt it would be easier to stay going by not being based in Ballydoyle. Some lads will raise their eyebrows and wonder why. But, look it, I'm going to continue race riding so, if Aidan wants to use me, it will be absolutely fine. The only difference is that I won't be riding out in Ballydoyle every day anymore.”

Heffernan and O'Brien have categorically denied that there has been any falling out. Speaking to the Racing Post on Sunday, O'Brien said, “Obviously I heard the rumours but I didn't think any more about it. However, Seamus rang me last weekend to say he was going to go freelance. I totally respect that and I told him he's welcome to come back any time he likes, we're always here any time it suits him. That will always be the way, if it ever suits him.”

O'Brien added, “There has been absolutely no falling out in any way. Seamus rode a lot of very big, important winners for us and we'd always hope and wish the very best for Seamus going forward.” 

Together, O'Brien and Heffernan combined to win the Derby at Epsom in 2019 with Anthony Van Dyck, the Oaks in 2012 with Was and five more Irish Derby victories at the Curragh. But Heffernan's personal highlight, marginally behind being offered the Ballydoyle gig in the first place, was guiding globetrotting sensation Highland Reel to victory in the Breeders' Cup Turf at Santa Anita in 2016.

Heffernan remembered, “I probably should have won an Arc on Highland Reel but, a couple of weeks later, I hit the nail on the head–that Breeders' Cup win was awesome. That would have to be the one that sticks out. But, I would nearly have to put that second to being offered the job at Ballydoyle in the first place back in 1996. Getting the job was my highlight.”

So what will a day in the life of Heffernan look like this season? Outside of O'Brien, for whom the 51-year-old rode 34 winners from 155 rides domestically last season, Tipperary-based handlers Willie Browne [rides] and Kevin Coleman [22 rides] were also major supporters. Heffernan says that he is committed to maintaining and developing those relationships going forward as well as working closely with a number of longstanding owners to identify young talent. 

Heffernan said, “A change is as good as a holiday. I'm going to be busy and I'm going to be riding on. I feel very fit and I'm very focussed. It's onwards and upwards, hopefully. I have little bits and pieces and interests in horses. When I set my mind on something, I try very hard to make it happen. I'm going to try hard to make things happen this year. I can't call the people I will be riding for smaller trainers–they just don't have the same ammunition as the big boys. I'll be working very closely with some of my owners to get the ammunition and to make it happen for those trainers.”

He continued, “I feel that I have achieved a lot and, for me to stay happy and keep achieving, I needed a change. Hopefully it's the right decision. I can't stress how thankful I am to the Magniers, the Tabors and the Smiths. With their pedigrees, I achieved the most on the biggest stages. I can't stress how thankful I am to them for never saying, 'we don't want Seamie.' I am sure I will ride plenty of winners in their silks again.”

Heffernan has been associated with many of Coolmore's champions, none more high profile than the legendary Galileo, who he partnered to Derrinstown Stud Derby Trial success in 2001.  Coolmore boss John Magnier and his partners are understood to have given Heffernan their full backing in his decision to go freelance after a long and fruitful association riding many of Ballydoyle's big guns. 

He explained, “They completely respected my decision. Whatever I felt was the right thing to do, they had no problem with it. I would be inclined to say I have spent all of my career in the slow lane so maybe I might chance putting on the indicator and heading into the fast lane for a while. Maybe it's time I put myself in the fast lane to see if I can handle it!”

Asked if that meant he had designs on challenging for a championship, Heffernan concluded, “I don't have the ammunition so I don't think I would have any chance. Unless you are riding for Joseph O'Brien, Dermot Weld, those sort of trainers, you can't win a title because you just don't have the numbers. I have been approached [by one of the bigger stables] but I am happy enough for my agent [Ruaidhri Tierny] to do his best and I will do my best for him.”

 

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Could Sunday Silence’s Grandson Close the Circle?

One way or another, plenty of people in our industry seem to think that it has reached a crossroads. But if a shutdown at the home of the Kentucky Derby makes us feel as though we can't get a break in the traffic, maybe we're just looking the wrong way. Because there's a chance that the real game-changing moment was happening 4,000 miles away, where the 244th running of the original Derby was last Saturday won by a horse excitingly equipped to open a new chapter in the story of Coolmore-and, potentially, new horizons for international bloodstock.

In Auguste Rodin (Ire) (Deep Impact {Jpn}), we have a Derby winner with the wares to help reconcile a debilitating modern division between the gene pools that produced his grandsire Sunday Silence, and his damsire Galileo (Ire).

If Americans have not yet granted this horse adequate attention, then his owner-breeders have an obvious solution later in the year. For if all remains well with Auguste Rodin, then the GI Breeders' Cup Classic would surely be a bet to nothing. Should he handle dirt as befits a grandson of Sunday Silence, then his exceptionally cosmopolitan pedigree really could be said to have brought together the best of all possible worlds. Should he fail to adjust, however, his stud value would barely lose a cent. (In fact, given the current morbidity about the future of dirt racing, the disclosure of an incompetence on dirt might even be said to enhance that value!)

The fact is that a stallion's career never depends purely on the inherent potency of his genes. If it did, true, Auguste Rodin would be in a very strong place, with the diversity of his pedigree standardized only by its seamless quality. But other things need to fall right-in terms of credibility and sheer narrative momentum-to maximize his opportunity. And that is what sets Auguste Rodin apart even from Saxon Warrior (Jpn), a promising stallion already at Coolmore, who shares as many as 13 of the 16 names behind Auguste Rodin in their respective fourth generations.

Because Auguste Rodin, besides being favored by some startling endorsements by his record-breaking trainer, raises an extra frisson of destiny as one of just a dozen sophomores in the final crop of Deep Impact. With even the most parochial and short-sighted breeders elsewhere now obliged to acknowledge Japan's increasing hegemony in the 21st Century Thoroughbred, the transatlantic market should be primed to embrace Auguste Rodin with a grateful fervor.

Deep Impact | J Fukuda

No doubt John Magnier and his partners at Coolmore first and foremost viewed recourse to Deep Impact in practical terms, having required a top-class outcross for all their Galileo mares. But just as when Scat Daddy proved a sire of sires, it also brought a latent opportunity to turn the dial.

While Coolmore has several effective heirs to Galileo, none can quite match the one that got away, Frankel (GB). But that will matter less with each pass of the baton. Say that down the line you sent Auguste Rodin a mare by Frankel's son Cracksman (GB), who had his breakout winner in the G1 Prix du Jockey-Club on Sunday: the resulting foal would be inbred 3 x 4 to Galileo. That's going to be a familiar scenario in Europe. But what compels interest in Auguste Rodin far beyond that theatre is the way such an international pedigree has coalesced to produce such a consummate athlete.

Very often, a horse's ancestors can only be credited with elite stature because of the sons or daughters that tie them into the pedigree in front of us. But just work your way down the fourth-generation mares behind Auguste Rodin, and you'll see that the potency of their genes has been corroborated by collateral distinctions.

Besides producing Halo, for instance, Cosmah was of course half-sister to the most important broodmare of her time, Natalma. Lady Rebecca, dam of Deep Impact's damsire Alzao, was a half-sister to Chieftain and Tom Rolfe. Fairy Bridge, here as dam of Sadler's Wells, was also half-sister to Nureyev. Allegretta (Ger), here as dam of the legendary Urban Sea, was also dam of one Classic winner King's Best and second dam of another in Anabaa Blue (GB). Highclere, herself a Classic winner, features because her daughter became granddam of Deep Impact, but another daughter is one of Europe's great modern broodmares, Height Of Fashion (Fr). And Rahaam also produced the Royal Ascot winner and stallion Verglas (Ire), as well as Auguste Rodin's third dam.

Okay, so a lot of people won't trouble themselves with that kind of underlying structure. They'll reduce a pedigree to blocks behind sire brands, and duly decide that they know what to expect when both Deep Impact and Galileo both displayed abundant stamina. The further seeding of Auguste Rodin's maternal line, meanwhile, may discourage international confidence, with second and third dams by European turf sires Pivotal (GB) and Indian Ridge (Ire).

But everyone should know Pivotal as an outstanding broodmare sire. And Indian Ridge's maternal family channels such old-fashioned, indigenous British sprint speed that you could hardly find a more vivid foil to other European elements in this page: the sturdy German family behind Galileo, for instance; or the profound stamina source Busted (GB), who sired Deep Impact's second dam. Unnerving stuff for American breeders, no doubt, but remember that Busted is by no means the only bottomless turf influence lurking behind sophomore champion Epicenter (Not This Time).

Auguste Rodin's third dam Cassandra Go certainly inherited the dash of Indian Ridge, winning over five furlongs at Royal Ascot, and she has also produced a dual Group-winning sprinter in Tickled Pink (Ire) (Invincible Spirit {Ire})-who came to American attention last autumn through the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf success of her daughter Victoria Road (Ire), significantly from the first crop of Saxon Warrior.

Another of Cassandra Go's daughters, Theann (GB) (Rock Of Gibraltar {Ire}), was also a Group winner at six furlongs before producing not just Photo Call (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) to be a dual Grade I scorer on grass in the U.S. (later purchased by Katsumi Yoshida for $2.7 million); but also Land Force (Ire) (No Nay Never) to fly down the Goodwood hill in the G2 Richmond S. as a juvenile.

Cassandra Go's daughter by Pivotal, Halfway To Heaven (Ire), has proved well named as it turns out that her racetrack career only represented a beginning, despite winning three Group 1s. She had stretched her maternal speed to win one of those at 10 furlongs, albeit only just holding out, before then dropping back to a mile.

Certainly she had shown enough speed to remain monogamous with Galileo in her next career. Among their foals was the splendid campaigner Magical (Ire), who won 12 of 28 (seven Group 1s) between 7 and 12 furlongs, often proving too tough for colts; and also Rhododendron (Ire), who proved similarly classy, versatile and hardy, beating males in one of her three Group 1s and dropping back in distance after running second in the G1 Oaks. For her first cover, Rhododendron fortunately ducked under the wire to become one of the final mates of Deep Impact-and Auguste Rodin is the result.

Sunday Silence | Patricia McQueen

Perhaps some American breeders might hesitate about delving through this avowedly turf seam to retrieve the lost genetic gold of Sunday Silence. But it starts with a mare, Cassandra Go's dam Rahaam, who shows us precisely the kind of crossover that has been culpably abandoned since.

She was by an Epsom Derby winner in Secreto, albeit don't forget that he was by Northern Dancer out of a Secretariat mare from the family of Majestic Prince and Real Quiet. Rahaam's dam, meanwhile, was by Mr. Prospector out of a Dr. Fager mare-whose own mother was Kentucky Oaks winner Native Street. The latter, when herself covered by Mr. Prospector, produced the dam of both Dowsing (Riverman), winner of the G1 Haydock Sprint Cup; and Fire The Groom (Blushing Groom {Fr}), a GI Beverly D. winner who herself produced another top-class European sprinter in Stravinsky (Nureyev).

Rahaam had been co-bred by Calumet Farm and Stephen Peskoff before her purchase by Sheikh Mohammed, for whom she won a Newmarket maiden in a light career with Henry Cecil. Both Rahaam and her second foal Verglas (whose subsequent success we noted above) were soon culled from the Sheikh's operation, which did however retain her first foal Persian Secret (Fr) (Persian Heights {GB}) to become the stakes-placed dam of 11 winners. She has also consoled her mother's vendors as third dam of their G1 Melbourne Cup winner Cross Counter (GB) (Teofilo {Ire}).

Nor, equally, will even Japan's stunning recent success on the international stage convince every Bluegrass breeder, based as it is in the patient development of bloodlines discarded by America and Europe alike. We can confidently state that Deep Impact himself would never have received commercial support in those environments, having never raced below 10 furlongs and won over as far as two miles.

By this stage, however, you would like to think that people might not be so obtuse as to deny a stallion's capacity to impart speed simply because of his own ability, in his first career, to keep going. Deep Impact has sired plenty of brilliant milers and we really do need to overcome this childish literalism about “stamina” being the opposite of speed. Very often, it is sooner about having the class to carry it.

Magnier clearly understands that, having shown no compunction about choosing Deep Impact for mares by the undeniably doughty genes of Galileo. Saxon Warrior duly had the pace to win a Classic over a mile, and indeed arguably didn't quite get home at Epsom.
Bearing in mind that Deep Impact only covered a handful of Coolmore mares, for a handful of seasons, the results have been staggering. Just a few days ago Saxon Warrior's brother, again from Deep Impact's final crop, won a Group race on only his third start. Between Saxon Warrior, Snowfall (Jpn) (G1 Oaks winner in 2021, by 16 lengths!) and now Auguste Rodin, from very limited chances the Deep Impact-Galileo cross has given Ballydoyle winners of three of the five British Classics.

Sadly the mysterious misfiring of Auguste Rodin as hot favorite for the G1 2,000 Guineas derailed Coolmore's hopes of winning the first British Triple Crown since 1970. Nowadays there seems to be a depressing reluctance for Guineas winners to try even the Derby and, at 14 furlongs, the St Leger is a commercial bridge too far for nearly everyone. It's a real shame, then, that his connections should have been lucklessly denied the incentive to buck that trend by Auguste Rodin's Guineas flop. Nobody, clearly, would now expect the horse to proceed to the St Leger regardless.

So let's hope that another great sporting adventure might be embraced instead, at Santa Anita this fall. Because it's going to take something that bold, and that special, to persuade modern breeders to renew the kind of transatlantic transfusions that once underpinned Classic pedigrees.

Remember that Deep Impact himself was one such cocktail: by a dirt champion out of an Epsom Oaks runner-up. Remember, also, how Japan has tested the mettle of his stock, with its program predicated on soundness and longevity. For that makes the legacy of Deep Impact still more precious, as we strive ever more conscientiously for a Thoroughbred physically equal to its tasks.

To be fair, he made such remarkable use of limited opportunity with mares from outside Japan that there are already one or two attractive conduits to Deep Impact elsewhere. At Lanwades Stud in Newmarket, Study Of Man (Ire) certainly represents quite a package at just £12,500, as a Classic winner out of a daughter of Storm Cat and Miesque. Only his second starter (out of a Galileo mare, of course!) impressed on debut at Leopardstown a few days ago.

And it's a curious coincidence, given how much genetic material they already share, that the third dams of both Saxon Warrior and Auguste Rodin should have resulted from visits to Indian Ridge in consecutive seasons back in the 1990s. Who knows how their respective futures will play out? But there would be no better way for Auguste Rodin to match his billing, as the anointed final bequest of Deep Impact, than to redeem his stable's agonizing near-misses with Giant's Causeway and Declaration Of War in a race won by his grandsire.

The Thinker, the most celebrated work of the sculptor for whom the Derby winner is named, actually started out as a small figure in another of his masterpieces, The Gates Of Hell. At the moment, everyone seems to think that we are parked right outside the latter. But if we can all be thinkers for a minute, then here's a horse with the potential to help put out the flames.

For it is precisely those virtues now so prized in Japan-an ability to carry speed, and the robustness to keep doing so-that formerly united Classic bloodlines either side of the Atlantic. Auguste Rodin could now just jump through the familiar hoops, banking low-risk dividends through the rest of his track career and equally at stud. Or he could become the horse to close the circle.

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This Side Up: A Game of Accident and Design

We can harness Thoroughbreds to our best and worst, to our altruism or avarice–but thankfully we will never alter the essential, inherent wonder of the breed, nor maintain the illusion that we are ever truly in control of its destiny.

There's a genuine possibility, this weekend, that a German colt could elevate himself to the top of the global sophomore crop by winning the G1 Japan Cup. Yet Tünnes (Ger) (Guiliani {Ire}) was a wholly inadvertent acquisition at the Baden-Baden yearling sales, his purchaser having dropped out at €20,000 only to discover that he had persevered, unwittingly, to the fall of the hammer at €38,000, by the gesticulations accompanying his cell phone conversation.

You could seek no better example of the way horses confound our best-laid calculations, whether for good or ill. In this game, your bad luck will frequently turn out to be good luck; and vice versa. And that defining mystery will always abide, no matter how (or with what motives) we manipulate the nobility of the equine spirit.

Now, as it happens, this same colt also offers to substantiate the mirage of coherence so teasingly within reach of those of us who owe our livelihoods to this business. While his breeder owns but a single mare, she has famously also produced an Arc winner; while Tünnes is inbred as close as 3×3 to a half-sister to Urban Sea (Miswaki) herself.

On one level, then, here's a horse that can make sense of the great puzzle. We can be like the fellow who notoriously telegraphed from the casino at Monte Carlo: “System working well, send more money.”

Yet while this particular family belongs to perhaps the most precious seam of the entire European gene pool, still the market persists not only in undervaluing the kind of ore preserved by the strictures on German breeding, but in prizing its shallow opposites.

The German guarantee of soundness and stamina, through stallions that stand consecutive seasons of training without medication, has a moral equivalence with the Derby as a historic platform for the kind of sires we should be using. This week, the most inspired a commercial breeder of all reiterated his faith in Epsom as “the complete test of the horse”. John Magnier affirmed that “a horse has to have everything to win” there: speed, stamina, soundness, courage and temperament.

Persian Force training at Keeneland earlier this month | Coady

Yet this was also the week when a relative novice to the game showed that he has quickly grasped the contrasting criteria of the commercial market, in Britain and Ireland at any rate, by retiring Persian Force (Ire) to stud as a 2-year-old. This colt, last seen finishing fourth at the Breeders' Cup, duly emulates his own sire Mehmas (Ire), who was similarly deemed to have proved everything necessary as a fast and precocious juvenile.

As I've often stressed, the Classic Thoroughbred actually retains far more commercial respect in the United States, where the ultimate objective is not speed alone but the robustness (and indeed stamina) to carry it through a second turn on the first Saturday in May.

This has never adequately penetrated the ignorance of today's European horsemen. But then why should Americans expect one prejudice to be renounced, while some of them remain so stubborn in reinforcing others? Their resistance to HISA, for instance, seems to have been brazenly coupled in the courtroom “wagering”, so to speak, with a quite extraneous ideological agenda.

Another way in which American horsemen seem determined to substantiate prejudice against their own product is in the commercial market's disdain for turf. For all the signs of progress here–in the purses at Kentucky Downs, for example, and growing investment at European auctions–the disrepair of some premier American tracks feels thoroughly discouraging. Evidently we can expect zero grass racing at Fair Grounds before Christmas, while the “weeds” at Churchill are equal to just one of the dozen races scheduled Saturday.

It's a fascinating card, all the same, exclusively contested by juveniles. After revisiting the legacy of Leslie's Lady in this space last week, it's poignant to see her final foal (by Kantharos: some distinction, dude!) make her debut in the fourth, while the final race features a seven-figure sibling to Rachel Alexandra (Medaglia d'Oro) by her sire's son Bolt d'Oro.

Instant Coffee on debut Sept. 3 at Saratoga | Sarah Andrew

That lad, of course, will treasure every available cent in what remains a remarkable race for the freshman sires' championship. The GII Kentucky Jockey Club S. could prove decisive, with two of the three protagonists prominently represented: Good Magic by Curly Jack, and Bolt d'Oro by Instant Coffee.

The road to the Kentucky Derby makes few other detours through its host track, and we saw with Rich Strike (Keen Ice) how important a proven relish for the surface can be. The first horse to win both this race and the Derby (1927-28) was Reigh Count, who was sent over the water as a 4-year-old to win the Coronation Cup over the Derby course, and run second in the Ascot Gold Cup over 2 1/2 miles. (What was I was just saying about how the Europeans could use some dirt stamina?!)

With Count Fleet as his principal heir, Reigh Count proved a precious source of toughness and durability in the breed. However, the first horse to win the Kentucky Derby after a reconnaissance in this race at two, when finishing third, had been Behave Yourself seven years previously. It is said that Colonel Bradley eventually donated him as a cavalry sire, because he did not wish to contaminate the breed by replicating such an inferior specimen.

So there you have it. Even if horses will always remain agents of chaos, they will also tell us plenty about the kind of people who utilize their generosity–either for the good of the breed, as was contrastingly the case with both Reigh Count and Behave Yourself, or as a vehicle for their own cynicism or self-interest.

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