3rd November 2024
Sunday Times
Disappointment much deeper than the Del Mar dirt. City Of Troy jinked left at the start, trailed the field, vainly tried to work his way past horse but ended a weary 8th of the 14 runners, 12 long lengths behind the winner Sierra Leone. The dream had died.
In hindsight it was all so predictable but beforehand the hopes and the tension were as high as any race I can remember. Ever since City Of Troy powered home in the Dewhurst last October to establish himself as Europe’s top two year old the prospect breaking Aidan O’Brien’s hoodoo in the Breeders Cup Classic, America’s greatest international race had become Holy Grail .
Now City Of Troy had put May’s washy coated, fizzy minded 2,000 Guineas failure long behind him. He had redeemed himself brilliantly in the Derby, gutted home in the Eclipse, broke the track record in the Juddmonte and had been a gleaming picture of elegant health in his morning exercise on this Pacific shore.
“He moves so beautifully on the dirt that I have to believe he can do it,” said exercise rider Rachel Richardson as she led City Of Troy outside the barn after Ballydoyle’s farrier Rory McGrath had fitted his size 7 racing shoes.
We stroked City Of Troy’s silk neck and patted his head. But this is not a pet. “We know it’s going to be difficult but we have been working him more aggressively and I have to believe he can do it if he can his that lovely stride.”
Which the horse didn’t and that was only the closing part of the drama. For two races earlier the filly Believing panicked in the starting stalls throwing Ryan Moore hard enough against the framing to see the hardest man kingdom submit himself to the paramedics. At first meeting Aidan O’Brien was pessimistic enough to get ready to book William Buick as replacement. But Moore then drove Luxembourg hard if unsuccessfully in the Breeders Cup Turf, unbuckled the girth and City Of Troy was going to have no doubts from the saddle.
American punters had their concerns about the raider, easing him from favourite in favour of the Kentucky Derby second Fierceness and the difference between dirt and turf surface was soon to be all to brutally exposed. On the grass Frankie Dettori, who rode his first Breeders Cup winner when Ryan Moore was a three year old, did a masterful front running ride to win the Goldikova Stakes on the Owen Burrows trained Raqlya, Then the Arc winning team of Ralph Beckett and Rosa Ryan struck in the Turf Sprint with a dazzling last to first ride up the inside before William Buick drove that wonderful old globe trotter Rebel Romance to win the Breeders Cup Turf which he had also won in 2022.
So the trumpets sounded and the outriders led the Classic field out in the California Sunshine. Rory McGrath and Rachel Richardson were standing alongside Aidan O’Brien and owner Derek Smith. Lips were tight. “I am shaking” says Rory. Luckily Ryan Moore isn’t.
They are loaded in the stalls. There is a collective intake of breath. The stalls slam open. 13 horses leap straight as greyhounds. City Of Troy doesn’t. At the quarter mile pole he only has only two behind him, after half just two. The half mile time of 44.96 is the faster than either of the two previous Del Mar Classics. Much too fast for City Of Troy.
Aidan O’Brien was characteristically self-critical somehow suggesting that it was his fault not to have trained a European horse to do what Americans do from the nursery. Ryan Moore was more succinct. “They went so hard he just couldn’t get going,” he said, “I let him get comfortable and he’s done well to keep going to the line.”
But no prizes for 8th place and the loser’s walk was a lonely one. As the Coolmore team accepted the trophies in the crowded winners’ circle with their American runner Sierra Leone, the horse that had carried all our European hopes was being led away round the track to the Ballydoyle barn.
Rachel Richardson held the rein. Andrew Murphy, the sliver haired head of City Of Troy’s barn in Tipperary, was limping close behind. Once there he hosed our hero down and as he scraped away the sweat reflected on his time at Ballydoyle where his father Timmy Murphy also spent his career and won two classics for Vincent O’Brien.
City Of Troy’s exploits as a Derby winning champion two-year-old guarantee his future at as a stallion but Murphys reflections were much more about sport than activities at stud. “It didn’t work out,” he said looking across at the cooling athlete in front of him “He is a very good horse yet he just couldn’t operate at that speed on their surface. But that happens. What you have to do is to try.”