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Trend setter
City Of Troy put his 2,000 Guineas defeat behind him with an exciting Derby success, victory which has Coolmore dreaming that the son of Justify could create a career on Turf and Dirt to give himself and his sire unique profiles, writes Jocelyn de Moubray
In the end City of Troy won the Derby in the style which many had expected him to do through the long months between the end of his unbeaten two-year-old career and his reappearance in the 2,000 Guineas.
After the son of Justify had finished only ninth of 11 runners, beaten some 17l in the Newmarket’s opening Classic, even more observers and experts expressed doubts as to whether or not he would, like his stable companion Auguste Rodin had done only 12 months earlier, be able to return to his juvenile excellence and win the Derby.
The betting public remained confident in the horse’s ability and trainer Aidan O’Brien’s reassuring declarations – City Of Troy started favourite and beat his 15 rivals comfortably by over two and three-quarter lengths leading home Ambiente Friendly and his stable companion Los Angeles.
City Of Troy was O’Brien’s tenth winner of the Epsom Classic and his eighth in the last 13 years. The fact that his last two winners had finished unplaced, beaten by long margins on their previous starts, will surely turn out to have been a strange and random quirk, though it is worth pointing out just how unusual this is.
There must have been at some point since 1780 another Derby winner who had been unplaced on his previous start, but I have been unable to find one – the closest in recent years was Generous, who had been fourth in the 2,000 Guineas beaten 8l before he went on to win the Derby brilliantly by 5l from Marju.
In fact, Marju, who was the runner-up in the 1991 Derby, comes close to setting the pattern for O’Brien’s winners as he had finished 11th of 14 in the 2,000 Guineas beaten 17¼ lengths having been sent off the 6-4 favourite at Newmarket.
The difference being, of course, that Marju didn’t win at Epsom.The Coolmore partnership who bred and own City Of Troy do hope he will prove to be a trend setter of a different sort.
He is only the second Derby winner in the last 27 years to be by an American-based sire after Kris Kin in 2003.
Through the 1970s and 80s it was a different story – US-based sires supplied 16 of the 29 winners from Sir Ivor, by Sir Gaylord, in 1968 to Benny The Dip, by Silver Hawk, in 1997.
Justify, who stands at Coolmore’s Ashford Stud in Kentucky, was an unbeaten Triple Crown winner who never raced on Turf, but with two crops of three-year-olds to race he is already the sire of six Group or Grade 1 winners, three on Turf and three on Dirt.
Other stallions have made a similarly explosive start, most recently the American Gun Runner; in Europe sires such as Galileo, Montjeu, Oasis Dream and Frankel and in the US sires the likes of Candy Ride, Street Cry and Medaglia D’Oro – but none of these 21st century sires have been able to establish themselves as equally good producers of Turf and Dirt Classic horses.
Perhaps the one who came close to doing so was Coolmore’s Giant’s Causeway, who left behind top stallion sons across the two continents – Shamardal in Europe and Not This Time in the US, although in the end the son of Storm Cat was not consistently producing Classic horses on either continent.
It is the dream of any international stallion operation to have a sire who attracts the best mares from Europe and the US, and whose progeny attract the big buyers from both continents, too.
Justify is not quite there yet, but he has a better chance of achieving this status than any other stallion in the last 30 years. It is small wonder that his owners are doing everything possible to help the son of Scat Daddy acquire this place at the pinnacle of international sires.
It is difficult to compare stallions from different times as so many of the variables have changed beyond recognition.
Justify has had 326 named foals in his first two northern hemisphere crops who are three and four today, whereas Northern Dancer did not reach the same number until after his tenth crop by which time he had already produced numerous Champions and Classic winners in Britain, France and Canada, including Franfreluche, Viceregal, Nijinsky, Lyphard, Northern Taste and many others.
However, 50 years ago, Northern Dancer was not the only North American-based stallion who regularly produced top horses in both the US and Europe.
Sir Ivor’s Derby win in 1968 was the precursor to wins from 1970 to 1972 of Nijinsky, Mill Reef and Roberto, sons of Northern Dancer, Never Bend and Hail To Reason who respectively changed thoroughbred breeding all over the world.
Freddy Head, who was a top jockey at the time, once told me that the top American-bred runners then not only had the speed to win top two-year-old races, but as three-year-olds they stayed 1m4f without any problem. It was something he said that the best European horses of the early 1970s were just unable to match.
Nijinsky won the Group 2 Railway Stakes over 6f in July as a two-year-old, Mill Reef was even faster and he won the Coventry Stakes (G2) and the Group 1 Prix Robert Papin at two in June and July, while Roberto won the Angelsey Stakes (G3) over six and a half furlongs in July.
These examples are another reason to look at City Of Troy as a possible game changer – he, too, was a high class and precocious two-year-old and won the Group 2 Superlative Stakes over 7f at Newmarket in July as a juvenile.
There have been other more recent Derby winners with similar two-year-old achievements – Dr Devious and Generous both finished second in the Coventry Stakes (G2) and Dr Devious, like City Of Troy, won the Superlative, but it has become rare for horses to be capable of both early speed and middle-distance performances a year later.
City Of Troy’s stallion prospects will become clearer over the remainder of his racing career, but at Epsom the son of Justify proved beyond any doubt that he has the stamina to be top class over 1m4f.
His trainer clearly had no doubts on this issue as City Of Troy’s stable companions made sure the Derby was run at a fast pace from the start on the good to soft ground.
Euphoric was the early leader and he covered the first 4f in 56.35sec, faster than the previous three Derbys, one of which was run on good to firm ground. Once Euphoric had done enough another stable companion, the Group 1 winner Los Angeles, took over in front.
City Of Troy was further behind the leaders than either of the last two winners Auguste Rodin or Desert Crown had been in the early part of the race but, unsurprisingly, jockey Ryan Moore was well aware of the situation and made his ground on the inside. City Of Troy then ran the fastest final three furlongs of all the field up the straight finishing in 36.43sec.
The winner changed his legs when Ambiente Friendly, who was the last of the field to come off the bridle, looked for a moment to be a danger, but he then surged away to win comfortably by two and three-quarter lengths from the Gredley family’s son of Gleneagles with Los Angeles, despite his earlier exertions, staying on to be third three and a quarter lengths behind.
Epsom always exaggerates the margins between horses in middle-distance races, and more so than ever when they are run at a fast pace on good to soft ground. There is little doubt that on an easier track and with different tactics the second and third will finish closer to the winner, but it is hard to see why they should be able to turn the tables.
Stride length analysis
Race reporting and analysis is changing fast in Europe now that sectional timing and data about stride length and frequency are becoming readily available.
Britain’s ITV coverage of the race included a section before in which presenter Kevin Blake suggested that City Of Troy’s relatively long stride, his average in the race itself was 7.98m, and slow stride frequency of between 2.13 and 2.3 strides a second, would mean that the horse would be better suited to racing over 1m4f rather than the mile of the 2,000 Guineas.
Blake was vindicated on this and some of his other predictions – for instance, Dancing Gemini’s stride pattern suggesting that the son of Camelot would not be able to perform at his peak over a trip as far as 1m4f.
It would be foolish to dismiss this type of analysis, which has been standard for human athletes for years.
It is not a new idea. I came across William Osmer’s “Dissertation of Horses”, which was written in 1756 in which he dismisses “the idea that blood determined why one horse raced better than another” and sought, “to replace it with a theory based upon mechanical principles”.
The idea has been around for centuries, but Osmer didn’t have access to today’s tech which can take 18 measurements a second for each horse during a race.
City Of Troy’s large stride and low frequency may have made it safe to assume he would be able to perform to his peak in a race over 1m4f, but it is not necessarily the reason why he is an elite horse.
There are, I know from experience, other three-year-old colts who have a similar stride length and frequency, the stride of one horse I know has been measured at 8m with a frequency between 2.16 and 2.26, but this colt has not finished closer than fifth in a stakes race!
One day, sooner rather than later, stride length and frequency will be as much part of every discussion about horses, stallions and racing as ratings and pedigree are today, but for the time being we are still feeling our way through a fog. The more data is collected and distributed the faster this will be dispersed.
Look De Vega a typical Jockey-Club winner
Look De Vega is usual of the recent type of horse who has been winning the Prix du Jockey-Club (G1).
Like two other recent unbeaten winners, Ace Impact and Reliable Man, Look De Vega is lightly raced – this was only his third career start and he had not previously been tried at a high level.
He was offered as a yearling at the Arqana August Sale with a deal being struck to create a new partnership after he had been bought back in the ring.
Owned by his breeders, Haras de la Morsangliere and Ecurie des Charmes, together with his trainers Carlos and Yann Lerner and Patrick Madar, the son of Lope De Vega was no more troubled by his 13 rivals at Chantilly than he had been on his two previous starts at two and three.He remains not only unbeaten but untested as well.
One of the more surprising features perhaps of his victory is that Look De Vega started favourite, but by all accounts his final piece of work on the racecourse was so spectacular that not only were, as they used to say, all the dogs in Chantilly barking, but his trainers, whose previous Group 1 winner was the Jockey-Club winner Anabaa Blue in 2001, were remarkably calm and confident both before and after the race.
Argentine Carlos Lerner has been training in Maisons-Laffitte for decades now and was previously best known for Anabaa Blue and Volvoreta, a Group 1 winner who finished third to Sinndar in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in 2000.
His son Yann was a successful jockey and joined his father as joint trainer in 2010.
Look De Vega started a short-priced favourite on his debut at Fontainebleau last November and won unchallenged by 7l.
A setback in February delayed his seasonal reappearance to a Class 2 at Longchamp on May 5, only a month before the Jockey-Club.
He won brilliantly on his seasonal debut running the final 400m 17 per cent faster than his race average defeating a Dubawi colt trained by Andre Fabre by three and a half lengths.
A relieved Yann Lerner was overcome by emotion when asked for a comment after the race in the paddock, in fact he was far more emotional than after the Classic victory a month later.
As O’Brien showed after the Epsom Derby it is overcoming difficulties and setbacks which creates stress and tension when training top athletes.
AT CHANTILLY, Look De Vega was ridden with huge confidence by Ronan Thomas, too. The official going of 4.4 was the softest ground for a Jockey-Club in the last 50 years and, even if on a warm and sunny day the ground had dried significantly, it remained soft.
The jockey had Look De Vega within a length or two of the leaders throughout and when he asked the horse to quicken at the top of the straight, Look De Vega quickly asserted his superiority and won by a comfortable 2l from the Fabré-trained pair of First Look and Sosie, who finished within a neck of each other.
This trio were followed home by the proven Group 1 performers Ghostwriter, Sunway, Alcantor and Diego Velasquez and, the surprise of the race, Mondo Man, who finished fast from an outside draw to be an excellent fifth.
However, the final time of 2m9.81sec was the second slowest of all the Jockey-Clubs at this distance and, of recent Diane winners, only Valyra was slower.
Last year’s winner Ace Impact set a new race record of 2m2.63sec something like 35l faster. The difference between the two came mainly in the first part of the race as Ace Impact covered the final 600m in 34.01sec, only 1.6s or 7l faster than Look De Vega.
The sectionals suggest that the early leaders Fast Tracker and Ramadan did not go off too fast, and while Look De Vega showed unusual finishing speed, those held up off the early pace had little chance of being involved in the finish.
The winner ran the final 400m five per cent faster than his race average, which on Chantilly’s testing course is unusual – Ace Impact managed three per cent, while both St Mark’s Basilica and Vadeni only maintained average speed.
Look De Vega will now be prepared for the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe – the trainer’s bad experience with Anabaa Blue at Ascot for the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes will surely steer him away from that option.
As the horse has the speed to dominate in a slowly-run race over 2000m his pedigree suggests he will be able to carry this speed over 24000m.
His dam is by the Derby winner High Chaparral and she is out of a half-sister to the Jockey-Club and Diane winners Lawman and Latice.
This is a family developed by the Goulandris family from the Claiborne-bred Nijinsky mare Lighted Glory, placed in the Saint Alary in the Goulandris colours and she is the fifth dam of the Jockey-Club winner.
The fourth mare Light The Lights was also Group 1-placed in the colours of Chyrss Goulandris, who was the breeder of Lawman, Latice and Look De Vega’s dam Lucelle.
Look De Vega is continuing the sire line of previous winners of this race – his grand-sire Shamardal and sire Lope De Vega. He is less precocious than his forebears and may lack the brilliance the two showed early in their three-year-old careers, but he looks likely to continue performing at a high level.
Lope De Vega was unplaced on his final three starts after the Jockey-Club and it took many years before he was accepted as a top stallion.
It is worth bearing in mind that this year’s three-year-olds are the first the Ballylinch Stud sire has produced from a fee of €100,000 or higher and its results make him, together with Dubawi, the best active European sire of three-year-olds.
In 2024, Lope De Vega now has two Classic winners in Rouhiya and Look De Vega as well as Jockey-Club runner-up First Look and five other Group-performing three-year-olds already. .
