John Ingles takes a look at the chief rivals to City of Troy in the Breeders' Cup Classic at Del Mar.
City of Troy booked his trip to Del Mar for the Breeders’ Cup Classic with a top-class performance in the Juddmonte International at York, earning a career-best rating of 130p in following up wins in the Derby and Eclipse earlier in the summer and taking his overall record to six wins from seven starts.
While he’ll have to translate that sort of form to dirt if he’s to become Aidan O’Brien’s first winner of the Breeders’ Cup Classic, the good news for him is that there’s no stand-out dirt performer in the States this year, either among the older horses or the three-year-old generation.
The American three-year-olds
White Abarrio, last year’s Breeders’ Cup Classic winner at Santa Anita (with a rating of 123), has stayed in training this year at the age of five but has been well beaten in both his starts so an attempt to defend his crown was ruled out. Instead, most of the leading Classic contenders are three-year-olds, though the Triple Crown races, each won by different colts, didn’t really establish a clear pecking order among the classic generation.
Neither Kentucky Derby winner Mystik Dan, nor Seize The Grey who beat Mystik Dan into second in the Preakness Stakes, are in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, having finished only eighth and seventh respectively in the Belmont Stakes.
The Belmont was run over a mile and a quarter at Saratoga this year, two furlongs shorter than at its traditional home, and was won by Dornoch (123). He followed up with another Grade 1 win, in the Haskell Stakes at Monmouth in July, when the Belmont runner-up Mindframe (120) chased him home again, but neither will be involved at Del Mar.
Dornoch has himself been beaten since back at Saratoga in the Travers Stakes which is sometimes referred to as the unofficial ‘fourth leg’ of the Triple Crown. The mile and a quarter contest took place three days after City of Troy won at York and established a clearer leader among the American three-year-olds, with three of the first four home looking likely to head next for the Breeders’ Cup Classic.
The Travers was a third Grade 1 success in the career of the Todd Pletcher-trained colt Fierceness (127), the champion juvenile colt of last year. He’d been a surprise winner of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Santa Anita but also an impressive one, forging clear to win by six and a quarter lengths. While he then suffered a shock defeat in Grade 3 company on his reappearance, he soon put that behind him when storming away with the Florida Derby, soon getting to the front from his wide draw, travelling powerfully on the lead and just needing a brief shake of the reins to go on and win by thirteen and a half lengths.
That made Fierceness the Kentucky Derby favourite but he finished well beaten along with the two others who had taken him on for the lead. Skipping the two remaining legs of the Triple Crown, Fierceness returned at Saratoga in July with a win in the Grade 2 Jim Dandy Stakes where he had the Preakness winner Seize The Grey back in fourth.
Four weeks later over the extra furlong of the Travers, Fierceness re-opposed the Jim Dandy runner-up Sierra Leone (122), with the latter sent off favourite to turn that form around despite his length defeat. He too had been a leading Kentucky Derby contender in the spring after a Grade 1 win beforehand in the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland where Dornoch and Seize The Grey were among those he beat. The Chad Brown-trained Sierra Leone then went very close at Churchill Downs but wasn't helped by his tendency to lug left which got him involved in a barging match before going down by just a nose to Mystik Dan.
After sitting out the Preakness, Sierra Leone was sent off favourite to beat the winners of the first two legs of the Triple Crown in the Belmont but was beaten a length and a half into third behind Dornoch, finishing well behind a more prominently ridden pair after little went right for him, hampered at the start and then forced wide in the straight.
While Fierceness didn’t have to repeat his Florida Derby form in the Travers, he did confirm superiority over Sierra Leone who was around two lengths behind in a staying-on third this time. Ridden close to the pace as in the Jim Dandy, Fierceness made his move on the far turn again and while he briefly went clear in the straight, he only had a head to spare at the line over the filly Thorpedo Anna (119) who was bidding to become the first of her sex to win the Travers since 1915. The fact that she was tried at all against the top colts was an indication that the male division isn’t a strong one this year, though she’ll be back against her own sex at the Breeders’ Cup in the Distaff.
Sierra Leone's trainer bemoaned the lack of pace in the Travers and something else to bear in mind for his Classic bid is the short straight at Del Mar which won’t make it easy to execute his usual tactics of coming from well off the pace. The blinkered Sierra Leone will also be a second runner for the Coolmore partners alongside City of Troy in this year’s Classic.
The Japanese challenge
Fierceness looks City of Troy’s main rival but could his biggest danger come from a different quarter altogether? A Japanese three-year-old, Derma Sotogake (122), was runner-up in last year’s Breeders’ Cup Classic and he’s being aimed at the race again along with Ushba Tesoro (123), fifth at Santa Anita last year and runner-up in both the Saudi Cup and Dubai World Cup (which he won in 2023) this year.
But Japan’s main hope this time is another three-year-old Forever Young (122). He came off worst in a three-way finish to the Kentucky Derby but was only beaten a couple of noses after that barging match with Sierra Leone. Coincidentally, by the way, Forever Young and Sierra Leone share the same grandam.
That was Forever Young’s first defeat in six starts following wins in both the Saudi and UAE Derby. He’s trained by Yoshito Yahagi who was responsible for Japan’s ground-breaking wins at the Breeders’ Cup in the Distaff and Filly And Mare Turf in 2021, the last time Del Mar hosted the meeting. Yahagi’s Filly And Mare Turf winner Loves Only You is a full sister to Forever Young’s sire Real Steel. Forever Young is due to make his first start since the Kentucky Derby in the Japan Dirt Classic a month before the Breeders’ Cup.
An improving four-year-old
The leading older Breeders’ Cup Classic contender may be the lightly-raced Bill Mott-trained four-year-old Arthur’s Ride (121).
He’s now the winner of four of his last five starts and took the big step up from allowance races to Grade 1 company in his stride last time when winning the Whitney Stakes at Saratoga. Confirmed front-runner Arthur's Ride put up a dominant display in the Whitney, albeit in receipt of weight from the runner-up, Fierceness' stablemate Crupi, and his presence means that City of Troy is unlikely to have things all his own way up front if Ryan Moore aims to adopt the same tactics which worked so well at York.
How good were those who've gone close for Ballydoyle in the past?
This year's Breeders’ Cup Classic field doesn’t look to have anything like the same depth as the 2000 edition at Churchill Downs which Balldoyle went so close to winning with the 132-rated Giant’s Causeway. He came up against another tough and top-class three-year-old Tiznow (133) who won the Classic again a year later and remains the race's only dual winner.
Eight years later, on a synthetic rather than dirt surface at Santa Anita, top-class three-year-olds Raven's Pass (133) and Henrythenavigator (131) finished first and second as they had done in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes at Ascot four weeks earlier when the Ballydoyle colt again had to give best to his John Gosden-trained rival whom he'd earlier beaten in the 2000 Guineas, St James’s Palace Stakes and Sussex Stakes.
O’Brien's other near-miss in the Classic came at Santa Anita again in 2013, by which time the main track had reverted to dirt. The stable's representative this time was the tough and consistent Declaration of War (128), who, like City of Troy, went to the Breeders' Cup after winning the Juddmonte International.
Despite that being an underwhelming renewal, Declaration of War only had to perform to a similar level at the Breeders' Cup in what wasn't the strongest renewal of the Classic when just coming off worst in a thrilling three-way finish behind the previous year’s runner-up Mucho Macho Man (128).
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