This weekend’s G1 Gran Premio Carlos Pellegrini in Buenos Aires represents an important step forward for the South American racing industry as it seeks closer global collaboration.
The San Isidro feature is marketed as ‘La Gran Final’, even though it is not the end of the season as the Argentine racing calendar begins on August 1. However, the 2400m contest stands as the year-end test of the best turf stayers from right across the continent; this year, horses from Brazil, Peru and Uruguay will take on the best Argentine horses in what is arguably South America’s most prestigious race.
It already serves an important international purpose as the first of 82 Breeders’ Cup ‘Win And You’re In’ races, a position it has held since 2018. El Encinal, who won last year, became the first to use the ticket this year, finishing a 16-length last behind Rebel’s Romance in the Breeders’ Cup Turf.
A lucrative World Pool partnership recognises the regional significance of the race and its potential as a global event, even if it comes at an awkward time (6am on Sunday, locally) for the Hong Kong bettors that will contribute most of the market.
The Gran Premio Carlos Pellegrini will be the second time that World Pool, where bets from all over the globe are commingled into a single Hong Kong Jockey Club-hosted pool, is offered on a South American race.
Last year’s Gran Premio Latinoamericano – a race that shifts between South American countries – was a World Pool race when staged in Argentina in October. It ranked last of 222 races in turnover terms at just below HK$6 million compared to an average of HK$33.3 million, with South American tote pools not integrated into the global architecture.
That will be the same this year, with those abroad betting into pools separate to those locally.
Whatever the turnover figure, World Pool coverage provides an invaluable opportunity to raise international awareness of South American racing, which for myriad reasons – including a language barrier and its remoteness from the sport’s main centres – seems to sit outside the global racing fandom.
Take this year’s Carlos Pellegrini.
Likely favourite El Kodigo has drawn the outside gate but can become the seventh horse to win four Group 1 races or more in 2024, joining Via Sistina, Thorpedo Anna (both won five), Romantic Warrior, Rebel’s Romance, Kyprios and Mr Brightside.
His trainer Juan Saldivia, who also saddles up Buen Escoses and Mozo de Bar, could join Aidan O’Brien, Chris Waller, Chad Brown, Charlie Appleby, Bob Baffert and Ciaron Maher in preparing nine Group 1 winners this year should he win the race for the first time.
It is not as though South America is completely separated from international racing: the continent has given us some of the greatest horsemen of all-time, including jockeys Joao Moreira, Javier Castellano, Silvestre de Sousa and the world’s most prolific winning rider Jorge Ricardo.
Argentine-bred horses won three Grade 1 races in the United States this year – the G1 Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile (Full Serrano), G1 California Crown (Subsanador) and the G1 New York Stakes (Didia) – while Argentine Group 1 winner La City Blanche contested the Hong Kong Vase.
Remarkably, a past Carlos Pellegrini winner ran well in defeat at Sha Tin on Sunday – Bravehearts, who won at 20-1 in 2022 when named The Punisher, finished third in a Class 3.
Perhaps that speaks to the level of the Carlos Pellegrini and of South American racing as a whole, or perhaps it is simply a case of not yet identifying the right South American-trained types to tackle the Asian arena.
In any case, this year’s Gran Premio Carlos Pellegrini, with the help of a boost from World Pool, is a significant step towards elevating South American racing to the global stage ∎
