Expectations Count For Nothing In The Breeders’ Cup Furnace
Japan’s raiders failed to win at Del Mar but their best contenders ran to form and lessons will have been learned, while City Of Troy’s dirt racing experiment was a miss.
YOSHITO YAHAGI had his back to the wall a few yards from the entrance to the Del Mar jockeys’ room. On three sides, Japanese journalists quietly focused their cameras, pointed microphones, and scribbled notes: the post-race inquest was in session.
The master trainer was muted, selecting his words carefully and slowly. He noted the fast pace, 44.96 seconds through the first half-mile of the Breeders’ Cup Classic, and the expectation he had at that point of a tough finish for his stable star Forever Young as his jockey, Ryusei Sakai, was forced to plot an inside course, positioned close to the speedy fractions set by Derma Sotogake.
Race favourite City Of Troy was already well and truly cooked by that point, left toiling by a first quarter-mile that was run in 22.46s: welcome to elite-level dirt racing. Ireland’s pin-up colt, a superstar on turf, slouched out of the gate and could never get going on the alien surface. No surprise there for the realists in the room.
Forever Young, on the other hand, ran a mighty race, but still finished third, as he had done in the G1 Kentucky Derby last May. Ahead of him was Fierceness in second, and, after powering over the top with a grinding late-stretch drive, the Kentucky Derby second Sierra Leone lifted the Breeders’ Cup’s US$7 million feature.
The locals in the crowd of 36,000 roared and the raiders were left deflated. While the City Of Troy team deflected criticism away from their soon-to-be-stallion son of the dirt-proven U.S. Triple Crown winner Justify, winning trainer Chad Brown was whisked into the winner’s press conference to talk through Sierra Leone’s triumph. There, Brown argued the case for his colt to be voted North America’s champion three-year-old. Yahagi, meanwhile, was deep in contemplative self-reflection, already plotting a return.
“To be honest, I think I had Forever Young as good as I could for this race, so it’s disappointing,” Yahagi told the solemn pack.
“For the Kentucky Derby his condition was not 100 per cent but this time he was in perfect condition. After the Kentucky Derby I felt upset not just because we lost that race, but also because I couldn’t get him 100 per cent, so I was upset with myself. But in the Kentucky Derby the winner got the better run in the race, and that’s why he won. But this race, the one and two are the real deal, they are very good horses. I thought it was a great race.”
Defeat hurts though, and like all champions, Yahagi does not like it. He is locked into the mindset of ‘if you don’t succeed, try again.’ Steel, after all, is forged under intense pressure.
“Yes,” he said when Idol Horse asked him if he’d be back. “I want revenge on the horses that were first and second.”
There was no such fighting talk from the City Of Troy camp. Europe’s top-rated colt’s future lies at Coolmore Stud, not on the race track. He leaves his racing career behind with a record of six wins – four Group 1s – from only eight starts across a 17-month span, and frustration at the thought of what might be if he was afforded the chance to prove his champion status as a four-year-old. His retirement perpetuates the sport’s age-old problem of its biggest names too often leaving the arena before they reach their athletic maturity, thus robbing the public of vital connection.
Trackside, O’Brien was as fervent as ever in protecting his horse and reached out for blame, grasped it and pinned it willingly yet incongruously to himself. He had erred, he said, in not doing enough to ensure City Of Troy broke sharply. The three-year-old was tardy from the barrier, for sure, but Ryan Moore’s mount, so brilliant on turf at times this season, struggled every step of the way.
It was like a remix of the Coolmore partners’ Breeders’ Cup Classic attempt with Galileo in 2001: whereas Galileo broke well and raced a handy fifth before fading out to a well-beaten sixth, City Of Troy was slow to stride, 10 lengths behind the lead at the first turn, and plugged on tamely in the home straight to finish a distant eighth. Coolmore’s hope is that City Of Troy will go on to be even half as potent in the breeding shed as the great Galileo was.
European horses overall put up a good fight winning five races to North America’s nine (including the former South American runner Full Serrano), the standouts from both sides on the main Saturday card being Rebel Romance’s dominant Turf win, Sierra Leone’s Classic, Moira’s Filly And Mare Turf triumph for Canada, and Thorpedo Anna’s Distaff demolition, which could well have sealed her the Eclipse Award as Horse of the Year. Japan, attempting to gatecrash the traditional trans-Atlantic head-to-head, drew a blank from its final team of 18 horses.
But Japanese connections and fans should not be disheartened. City Of Troy’s awkward attempt in the Classic served as a reminder, a lesson even, not only that the most lauded athletes can be defeated, but also that if you’re going to take a horse to the event then you’d better make sure it’s up to the task you set it, and even then, don’t expect to beat the Americans on their patch. Victory is tough, it must be earned through every sinew-testing stride. Reputation counts for nothing and expectations are irrelevant when the trophies are handed out.
The Europeans have been jetting in and winning Breeders’ Cup races since Lashkari took the Turf at the inaugural event in 1984, back when it was a purist’s dream of seven races. Japan is playing catch-up, rapidly, but with Japanese horses now 20 months without an overseas Group 1 win, 2024 should serve as a reminder that it’s always difficult to play away from home.
Japan’s horsemen are only just getting to grips with the event, and the deafening buzz around their 19 horses on the ground, just three years after Del Mar witnessed the first two Japanese Breeders’ Cup winners, lifted expectations a couple of notches above what was realistic.
“They are used to being successful, so when there’s such a big field coming, everyone is like, ‘Oh, the Japanese will crush everything,’ but we can’t forget this is horse racing so you have to be very good, you have to adapt yourself to the track,” Japan’s champion jockey Christophe Lemaire told Idol Horse after the Classic.
“Maybe we haven’t seen the best horses in the country in this Breeders’ Cup, but the good ones have run very good, and actually Shahryar and Forever Young ran brilliantly finishing third.”
Shahryar matched his placing from 12 months ago. Here at Del Mar every door his rider Cristian Demuro tried to take was slammed shut.
“The track was just too tight for him, the tight corners: the horse that finished second came outside of him and boxed me in a little bit, but he finished in good style,” Demuro said.
Rousham Park was the horse that finished second, and it was Lemaire in the saddle, driving his mount through a closing stretch run.
“The surprise comes from Rousham Park,” Lemaire said of the Group 2 winner. “There were strong contenders today, so if we had finished fourth against these horses, we would have been happy, so to finish second is a good performance.”
Rousham Park’s trainer Hiroyasu Tanaka was taking the Yahagi approach of ‘try, try again’ and suggested that while the Arima Kinen in December is an option to consider, he would be happy to travel next year.
“This is his second run overseas and he’s improved a lot compared to last time in so maybe next year we will look at options for him to go abroad again,” he said.
Another to run above herself was the filly Ten Happy Rose in the Breeders’ Cup Mile. She had won the G1 Victoria Mile at huge odds last spring.
“It was a brilliant run by the filly, and for a moment I thought she maybe had a chance to win, but she proved that she’s not a one-timer, she has the ability to win another Grade 1,” said her jockey Akihide Tsumura who enjoyed a fine first ride outside of his homeland.
That race went to the Cherie Devaux-trained More Than Looks, flying late and wide under Joel Rosario to overhaul the local Californian hero Johannes, who hit the lead with a half-furlong to go under Umberto Rispoli; Godolphin’s 2,000 Guineas winner Notable Speech was third. Rispoli was emotional as he made his way back to the jockeys’ room.
“He ran his race, 1:32, that’s his time; he runs so good every time … I’m choked … I knew Notable Speech was outside of me, and I had him … then I looked at the screen and I saw More Than Looks coming,” he said.
Rispoli praised Johannes as “a fighter” and looked back at the replay on the big screen as he spoke: “Ah, that’s painful. That’s painful. That’s horse racing,” he said.
While Saturday saw the best of Japan’s older horses run with merit, it was always going to be tough for the Japanese juveniles on Friday. Satono Carnaval and the speedy Ecoro Sieg were seen as the most likely to succeed, yet they faded out to ninth in the Juvenile Turf and eighth in the Juvenile Turf Sprint.
Jockey Rachel King said of Satono Carnaval: “I’ve still got a lot of faith in this horse … The trip here won’t have done him any harm, it’s good experience for a young horse.”
That being so, it would be wise to reflect on Japan’s juvenile runners as something of an expeditionary force. Japan’s first two-year-old runners do not race until the beginning of June and the programme is limited. By June in Europe, some horses have had a couple of runs and are being screwed down for Royal Ascot.
That experience was evident in O’Brien’s two winners that, along with Bob Baffert’s brilliant Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner Citizen Bull, lit up Friday’s two-year-old features. Ballydoyle’s Lake Victoria was imperious in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf and Henri Matisse quickened like a good horse in the Juvenile Turf: Moore was impeccable in both instances, his judgement and skills, cool-hand patience, and strength, showed why he’s one of the modern greats.
Henri Matisse was O’Brien’s 20th Breeders’ Cup win and a reminder that for all that City Of Troy’s Classic will be seen as a misstep, the Ballydoyle trainer is a rare master at what he does.
Then there was Magnum Force’s win in the Juvenile Turf Sprint for trainer Ger Lons and Ireland’s champion jockey Colin Keane, a win that prompted Lyons to state: “(Colin) is the most underrated champion jockey on Planet Earth … I need the world to wake up to him.”
The world has long since woken up to the quality of Japanese horses, but perhaps this Breeders’ Cup was a wake-up for those who expect Japan to keep on rolling the opposition when the reality is there are no easy wins at the top level of any sport.
Yahagi knows this already. Forever Young is likely the best dirt horse Japan has ever produced and his performance in the Classic emphasised that. His owner, Susumu Fujita, told Idol Horse that defeat had not in any way diminished their view of the colt, who will continue racing into his four-year-old season, as is the Japanese way.
“We will look at the Saudi Cup early next year,” he said. And after that? Well, Fujita is also of the ‘try again’ mindset: the Breeders’ Cup is back at Del Mar in 2025.
“I like the feel of the racecourse here, it’s a very good atmosphere and I hope we can be back next year,” Fujita added ∎
