With less than two months until the Breeders’ Cup, Jon Lees begins a weekly update with all the latest developments – starting with a couple of potential major players who stated their cases for Santa Anita with their latest G1 successes at the Irish Champions Festival
Just eight weeks to go until the 40th anniversary of the Breeders' Cup at Santa Anita on November 3-4 – and all the potentially major developments last week came from overseas.
There were no fewer than five Breeders' Cup 'Win and You're In' races spread across the Irish Champions Festival, where the biggest news concerned dual Derby winner Auguste Rodin.
There is now a real chance that the son of Deep Impact could have his next start in the Longines Breeders’ Cup Turf after he returned to form to land the Royal Bahrain Irish Champion Stakes at Leopardstown on Saturday [Sept 9].
“The lads [Coolmore partners] love the Breeders’ Cup, so there is probably a good chance that he could go there,” said world #1 trainer Aidan O’Brien, while Michael Tabor also gave his vote.
“The Breeders Cup has always been very special to us,” said the owner. “If the horse is right I see no reason why he wouldn’t go. I’m hoping John [Magnier], Derrick [Smith] and Georg [von Opel] will agree with yer man and myself.”
After Auguste Rodin’s listless performance in the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Qipco Stakes, in which he was more or less pulled up, there was plenty to prove in Ireland’s most prestigious race over a mile-and-a-quarter trip he’d never before contested.
Yet the real Auguste Rodin stepped forward to defeat last year’s winner, his stablemate Luxembourg, with multiple G1-winning filly Nashwa closing nicely for third ahead of Derby runner-up King Of Steel. As a result, he also jumped to #12 (from #70) on Thoroughbred Racing Commentary’s exclusive Global Rankings; he’d be higher but for a somewhat mercurial record.
Be that as it may, with soft ground on the cards at ParisLongchamp, the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe is an unlikely target for Auguste Rodin, making Santa Anita a persuasive option.
O’Brien recorded the 4,000th winner of an extraordinary career at the Curragh on Sunday when Henry Longfellow won the Vincent O’Brien National Stakes, Ireland’s top two-year-old race, to confirm his status as a leading fancy for next year’s Classics.
Admittedly, O’Brien has a somewhat mixed record overall at the Breeders’ Cup but the Ballydoyle maestro remains by some measure the most successful overseas trainer in the event’s history with 16 winners (from 169 starters).
While that represents a strike-rate somewhere below 9.5% – unremarkable given the ammunition at O’Brien’s disposal – he ended a relatively fallow period with three winners last year at Keeneland.
What is more, his record in the Turf specifically is exemplary, with six winners. As such, European bookmakers may have erred on the side of leniency in quoting Auguste Rodin as a 5-1 chance behind their 5-2 favourite Mostahdaf.
That said, racing on home ground in Ireland may well have helped Auguste Rodin, who flew to England before his two flops in the 2,000 Guineas and King George, having travelled by by ferry and road before his success in the Epsom Derby.
“Flying was one of the common denominators that wasn’t stacking up,” said O’Brien after Saturday’s victory in Ireland’s most prestigious race. “Maybe if he flies again he needs to go with a little bit of time and time to get over it. He’s a very brilliant horse but he’s a little bit peculiar. He’s very sensitive.”
Dermot Weld added a long overdue Breeders’ Cup win to his glittering international CV when Tarnawa landed the Turf in 2020 and that star filly’s half-sister Tahiyra (#9 from #18 on TRC Rankings) threw her hat into the ring when beating her elders for the first time under Chris Hayes in the Coolmore America Justify Matron Stakes.
Winner of the Irish 1,000 Guineas and Coronation Stakes for the Aga Khan, she ran out a smooth winner of the G1 contest over a mile, which is a ‘Win & You’re In’ qualifier for the Maker’s Mark Filly & Mare Turf, in which she would step up a couple of furlongs.
Weld sounds positive. “She was very good today but she had to be,” he said. “She's been good all year. She's a special filly.
“She’s similar to Tarnawa and yet they are different at the same time,” Weld went on. “They are both ruthlessly tough and genuine race mares. We’ll see how she comes out of the race. The Breeders’ Cup has to be a possibility.”
Sunday’s G1 Flying Five was a ‘Win and You’re In’ qualifier for the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint. A deluge of rain at the Curragh surely played a part in the surprise victory of Moss Tucker, who clinched his first success at the highest level – but his preference for cut might well preclude any trip to California. As such, the Prix de l’Abbaye the probable next target. Beaten Flying Five favourite Highfield Princess, fourth in last year’s Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint, was later reported to have been in season and coughed.
Alongside Day 2 of the Irish Champions Festival, Sunday was also Arc trials day in Paris, where German Derby winner Fantastic Moon surprised highly rated French colt Feed The Flame in the Qatar Prix Niel. Given that the winner is not thought to favour softer ground conditions, the Breeders’ Cup Turf was mentioned as a potential target. Still, the lure of the Europe’s greatest race maybe hard to avoid – whatever the ground.
Warm Heart, who landed the G1 Prix Vermeille for Aidan O’Brien, is another likely candidate for the Filly & Mare Turf. She, too, doesn’t fancy soft ground which may rule her out for Arc weekend.
Back in the US, Tamara delivered the ‘wow’ moment of the weekend on the west coast when she captured the Del Mar Debutante by 6½ lengths to earn comparisons to her dam, the four-time Eclipse Award winner Beholder.
Jockey Mike Smith was clearly impressed, “She’s been doing things in her training that two-year-olds aren’t supposed to do,” he said. “She’s really special. She’s like her mother.
“You don’t see that usually. Those great mares, they normally don’t have great foals. But this one might be.”
Beholder is one of only two horses to win three Breeders’ Cup races, the last of them coming with her unforgettable stretch-long duel with Songbird in the Distaff at Santa Anita in 2016.
Beholder started off with the Juvenile Fillies at Santa Anita in 2012 and Tamara looks sure to be heading the same way. If she carries on in this vein, she’ll start as favourite for her trainer Richard Mandella, who has such an admirable record at his ‘home’ Breeders’ Cups.
“There’s a chance we might run her in the Chandelier [Oct 7] at Santa Anita,” said Mandella, who also trained Beholder, of course.
“If it looks like she needs to run again, then we’ll run her there. If not we’ll point her straight to the Breeders’ Cup. But so far she looks great.”
Del Mar’s summer stand closed for business on Sunday with the Del Mar Futurity, in which heavily favored Prince Of Monaco led home Mirahmadi a one-two for Bob Baffert and giving the trainer his 17th win in the contest.
There’s plenty of water to flow under the bridge yet, but Baffert will doubtless be eyeing his sixth victory in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.
• Visit the Breeders’ Cup website and the Breeders’ Cup Challenge web page
‘Just to be there with a runner was special enough’– Joseph O’Brien on Iridessa
‘One in a million’ – Kieren Fallon on superstar filly Islington
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