It was a big weekend for Triple Crown winners.
Just weeks after getting his first Grade 1 stakes winner with Harvey's Lil Goil in the Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup at Keeneland, America's Triple Crown winner, American Pharoah (by Pioneerof the Nile), picked up a second Group 1 winner, this time with the juvenile colt Van Gogh, who won the Criterium International at Saint-Cloud racecourse in France.
Van Gogh was winning for the second time in seven starts, after finishing second in the G2 Juvenile Stakes and G3 Tyros Stakes, both at Leopardstown, as well as another second in the G3 Autumn Stakes at Newmarket. All along, the bay son of American Pharoah has given the impression of wanting to race farther, and he was moved up to a mile in the Autumn Stakes and the Criterium International.
The latter race, however, was raced over heavy going that placed a further premium on strength and stamina. In a display that earned the colt his highest rating yet, he won by six lengths, and the race commentary indicated that the colt extended his lead well in the last furlong and won comfortably.
In winning the race at Saint-Cloud, Van Gogh became the 11th stakes winner for his sire. Nine have shown their form by winning stakes this year at three, and seven have won stakes on turf.
Coolmore's Adrian Wallace said that “I think it's only a matter of time before American Pharoah's record on dirt matches or excels his record on turf. But, that said, Bob Baffert did tell us that he thought the horse would have thrived on turf and would have loved to have tried him on it.”
Both last year, when the sire's first crop were two, as well as in their racing of 2020, the progeny of American Pharoah have excelled on turf.
“Winning on grass does make him more internationally appealing,” Wallace said, “and the word is pretty good on his young horses in Australia, where his first crop are 2-year-olds.”
And the sire just had his third winner of a barrier trial, an important proving ground for young racehorses in Australia and New Zealand.
The “Pharoahs” have excelled on turf, except in Japan. There, American Pharoah has the two top colts racing on dirt in Café Pharoah and Danon Pharoah.
Café Pharoah has won four of his five starts, including the G3 Sirius Stakes and Unicorn Stakes, and his only loss was the Japan Dirt Derby, which was won by Danon Pharoah.
Worldwide, the American Pharoah racers have shown their form on a variety of surfaces, from conventional dirt to the varieties of turf, mud, and heavy ground. They have shown speed, as well as stamina, as we saw with both Pista and this weekend with Van Gogh.
An emphasis on stamina came into play in the highlight of the Triple Crown in Japan as Contrail (Deep Impact) won the Kikuka Sho (St. Leger equivalent) by a long head (officially a neck) to become the third unbeaten winner of the Japan Triple Crown. The colt's sire, Deep Impact (Sunday Silence), was the second, and the first racer in Japan to have this distinction was Symboli Rudolf.
Contrail had been an impressive, even cozy-looking, winner of the Tokyo Yushun (Derby) over 2,400 meters, and the chief question about the dark brown colt was not his high class but whether he would be suited by the distance, as the Kikuka Sho is raced over 3,000 meters (about 1 mile and 7 furlongs).
Away well, Contrail raced in the first third of the field of 18 until midway of the bend leading into the stretch. At the 400-meter mark at the top of the stretch, Contrail drifted a bit wide for the run to the wire, and he was shadowed by the 23-to-1 Aristoteles (Epiphaneia) all the way to the wire. Contrail held onto the advantage over Aristoteles, with Satono Flag (Deep Impact) another 3 1/2 lengths back in third.
From the results of this race, Contrail is better suited to races at 1,800 to 2,400 meters, where his turn of foot is more decisive, and that may be where his connections choose to campaign him in the future.
Those are important decisions to make in placing horses where they can perform most effectively, and such decisions apply also to the offspring of American Pharoah.
Typically, they are big-framed horses, and several of them appear to have grown into substantial individuals, especially the colts. This is a blessing that cuts both ways. They improve at two, then continue to add muscle and potential strength at three. Mass is important to an athlete because it is an expression of muscle strength, but the extra muscle can be a challenge for trainers to manage because it adds more weight.
And that may be one important reason that the American Pharoah stock have shown their form on turf, which is a more forgiving surface for strongly made horses.
Another consideration is that many sound judges, when evaluating the American Pharoah stock, have seen them as animals that should prosper with time and be better as they got old, as we have seen with the G1 winner at Keeneland and also with Pista, the winner of the G2 Park Hill Stakes at Doncaster on Sept. 10.
If the colts' improvement matches those fillies, then we sporting enthusiasts should really have something to anticipate, with American Theorem, who was second in the G1 American Pharoah of 2019, and Monarch of Egypt, second to subsequent classic winner Siskin in the G1 Phoenix Stakes in Ireland last fall, set to continue racing next season at four.
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