City Of Troy latest from the Breeders' Cup | City Of Troy goes in the starting gates as Aidan O'Brien looks at finer details

Starting gates in the spotlight as Troy story continues

Del Mar Racetrack, 8.10am, three days to the Breeders’ Cup Classic and a date with destiny for City Of Troy and Ryan Moore. The son of Justify canters his way onto the main track, gleaming as the sun comes up.

Another stone is unturned. The Del Mar starting gates. Aidan O’Brien likes what he sees as City Of Troy breaks smoothly under work rider Rachel Richardson. Job done. Everyone is talking about the first furlong, the first 14 seconds and the importance of early position. But Aidan is going granular, with plenty of thought going into the first two seconds of the Classic.

Races aren’t won in such a small fraction of time, but they can be lost.

Indeed, City Of Troy’s only defeat, in the QIPCO 2000 Guineas back in May, was put down to him getting his heartrate up in the stalls. Back then, O’Brien spoke of not looking under a stone. In the San Diego sunshine, he’s peering under every pebble.

With Troy back in his barn, O’Brien looks relaxed and he starts talking about the differences between American and European starting stalls.

“They look bigger,” he says, widening the gap between his hands. “But when you get inside them they’re not bigger. The sides come closer than our gates do, so horses go into them because they think they’re bigger and then they feel a little more claustrophobic.

“Because everything is to be sharp and quick the feel has to be closer, the sides are closer the gates are closer, so the reaction has to be quicker. In our part of the world the gates are wider, there’s nothing touching them and everything is that fraction slower.

“If you want to make something happen and energy to flow then you get close. Everything sharpens up and that’s the way the American gates are, so they get used to that feel. They feel every vibration when they’re in there and they just come alive.

“That’s the main difference in the gates, really. Then it’s an impulse, they have to jump on impulse, if they think about it, it’s too slow. It’s got to be a reaction when them gates open.”

City Of Troy looked a bit sweaty on Tuesday – “you want them to sweat, sweat is good,” O’Brien says – but after going through the starting stalls he looked relaxed and fully at home as he pranced his way back to the stables.

“He’s really coming alive,” O’Brien went on. “He was very alert at the track this morning and he’s wanting to go forward. He went in the stalls and he was very good. We think we’ve a nice draw and he seems very well.

“We’ve slowly learnt that they have to be quick immediately and then slow down and relax. The quick work is done and we’re just finishing them off by getting them to chill a little bit.

“It’ll have to be a big help [breaking well from the stalls], obviously Ryan can’t do anything about that. Hopefully he won’t miss a beat and he lands where he wants to be, it’s our job to prepare him and Ryan’s job to ride him.”

Finally, I ask O’Brien about the 17 defeats he’s had in the Classic and what he’s done differently with City Of Troy.

He said: “Every time we have a runner we learn from our mistakes, we think, and we keep tweaking a little bit, we work on the stalls and lot’s of stuff. Each time is an experience and if you can remember your experiences gone by, some time, when you find the right horse and everything goes right you hope that it might happen.

“We’ve enjoyed the journey, hopefully we’ll enjoy the race and everything will go well.”

The meticulous preparation continues. Win, lose or draw come Saturday, it’s hard to think of a stone O’Brien hasn’t looked under in his quest to finally conquer the Breeders' Cup Classic.

Do you think City Of Troy will win the Breeders’ Cup Classic?

Oisin Murphy: “I do. I think he is a relentless galloper. If they go very fast I think he can probably finish off and if he can get himself on the speed it could be very smooth for him. The most important thing in Ryan’s mind will be to break well and get a good beginning and everything should be pretty straightforward after that. They tend to be well spaced out and if he gets that good beginning he’ll have the speed to travel.”

Frankie Dettori: “I was asked this yesterday, I really don’t know. He is the best horse in Europe, we know that without a doubt. But it depends how he breaks, whether he takes to the kick back. I am not going to speculate. It is not my ride and it’s not my horse. But I am interested to see how he goes. Everyone has got an opinion. I’m as curious as everyone watching. He is bringing something exciting to the race.”

John Gosden: "I talked to Aidan about it at York. You get a good run up the straight before the first bend - I won the mile and quarter race here that used to be called the Del Mar Handicap - and if you’re down on the inside you’ve got to break alertly because if they come across  and you get the kickback and that’s the problem, the kickback is the thing. A horse like that if you get a clear run to the first bend and he was travelling well then I doubt they’d catch him. I think he would outclass them. But from where he’s drawn it’s a matter of how alertly he jumps."

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October 29: O'Brien applies finishing touches

The City Of Troy gilets have had an upgrade. Aidan O’Brien means business in dark sunglasses and American Pharoah baseball cap. City Of Troy leads out the Ballydoyle battalion in California as he stretches his legs for the first time at Del Mar.

Joseph O’Brien is in attendance but has no Troy gilet. Aidan and Ryan Moore both sport them proudly as the son of Justify does a couple of gentle canters on the dirt track under Rachel Richardson. Everyone seems happy. He’s moving well. A little sweat around the neck appears to be of no concern.

Aidan stops for a chat. “He’s good, he just did a gentle canter around, Alan led him, Rachel rode him and everyone seemed very happy.”

But the draw in three in the Breeders’ Cup Classic is a quandary. It appears good on paper but if you’re slow from there and the American horses out wider – Fierceness is drawn in 10 – get out and on the sharp end, it could be game over very quickly.

Yet O’Brien is adamant their tactics will be to fight fire with fire and a prominent early sit looks absolutely key to City Of Troy’s chance.

“I think we’re happy [with the draw],” O’Brien went on. “Obviously there’s no secret that City will go forward and see where that will be and Ryan will decide from there.

“We think we’ve done everything we can, he went to York and went forward, he went to Southwell and the pace was much stronger than it was at York.

“Everything is done. We think we have looked under every stone we can but obviously a day at the races what happens is there’s sometimes a stone we didn’t look under. We think we’ve done as much as we can, we will see what happens and Ryan can make his own mind up.”

The first furlong isn’t the only question mark facing City Of Troy. A champion on turf in Europe, this is his first ever go racing on the dirt.

His pedigree offers great hope. By Justify, a Triple Crown winner, who was by Scat Daddy, a dual Grade 1 winner on dirt, who was by Johannesburg, who won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile on dirt for O’Brien at Belmont Park 23 years and two days ago.

It’s a bloodline that O’Brien is pinning his faith in.

“That was the dream when the boss went and got Justify, we didn’t think we’d get him but we got him, and it’s the dream to have a horse that can do grass and dirt.

“It makes it very exciting for us. We thought Justify was just the most incredible horse to do what he did at three, a Triple Crown winner having not raced at two, incredible.

“We think City has a lot of his qualities and obviously he’s out of a great Galileo mare as well.

“This is the most fierce race that any thoroughbred can be tested in and obviously he’s only a three-year-old.

“The Classics are the ultimate test early on and the Classic is the ultimate test at the end of the year. That’s what the Classics are there for, they have to have speed, stamina, and he’s done that.

“He’s been trained very hard for the Classics through the summer and then he’s come here on a different continent, different ground, different surface, race and pace, there’s so many different things.”

The countdown is on, four days to go. A simple leg stretch for City Of Troy on track each morning this week, each one likely garnering more interest than the last.

“He’s going to canter four days out here, he’s an awful lot to overcome but what gives us hope is we think he’s the best horse we’ve ever had and we have had horses that ran very well in it before. Ryan is vastly experienced. It’s a dream, dreams don’t always come true, but we are happy with where we are at the moment and we don’t think we could’ve done anymore.”

There it is again. A reiteration of the ‘best horse we’ve ever had’. The faith is unwavering, the confidence infectious. We’re getting to the stage where O’Brien has done all he can. The rest is up to Moore and Troy, in what could be the swansong of all swansongs.

Join Sporting Life Plus for exclusive Breeders’ Cup coverage

Combining Sporting Life’s instinctive eye for profit with Timeform’s unrivalled racing data and analysis, Sporting Life Plus is now available to all logged-in readers.

To access all the content on these pages, readers simply have to log in to the Sporting Life website and click on the Sporting Life Plus icon at the top of the Racing page.

If you're yet to create an account, you can sign up for FREE and gain access not only to the Sporting Life Plus features and cards, but also some exclusive content throughout a huge week in racing.

We’ll have insight from Oisin Murphy, Aidan O’Brien, Charlie Appleby and more, tips from our man in Del Mar, Ben Linfoot, and plenty of additional coverage of the Breeders’ Cup.

In addition, you can use the same log-in details to access ITV7, Super6, and Sky Bet.

Click here to access Sporting Life Plus for FREE!

Breeders’ Cup 2024 race times (GMT) and schedule

Friday, November 1

• 9.45pm: Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint
• 10:25pm: Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies
• 11:05pm: Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf
• 11.45pm: Breeders’ Cup Juvenile
• 12:25am: Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf

Saturday, November 2

• 7:00pm: Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Sprint
• 7:41pm: Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint
• 8:21pm: Breeders' Cup Distaff
• 9:01pm: Breeders’ Cup Turf
• 9:41pm: Breeders’ Cup Classic
• 10:25pm: Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf
• 11:05pm: Breeders’ Cup Sprint
• 11:45pm: Breeders’ Cup Mile
• 12:25am: Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile

British and Irish Breeders’ Cup winners in last six years

2023 (Santa Anita): Auguste Rodin, Inspiral, Master Of The Seas, Unquestionable, Big Evs

2022 (Keeneland): Meditate, Mischief Magic, Victoria Road, Tuesday, Modern Games, Rebel’s Romance

2021 (Del Mar): Modern Games, Space Blues, Yibir

2020 (Keeneland): Glass Slippers, Audarya, Order Of Australia, Tarnawa

2019 (Santa Anita): Iridessa

2018 (Churchill Downs): Line Of Duty, Expert Eye, Enable

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