Aidan O'Brien has never won the GI Breeders' Cup Classic. But it hasn't been from a lack of effort. He's had 13 starters in the race and has run some very good horses, including Galileo (Ire) (Sadler's Wells) and Giant's Causeway (Storm Cat). But his luck could very well change this year as he will take aim at the Classic with one of the best horses of this generation.
The O'Brien trained City of Troy (Justify) has had an outstanding campaign in Europe, winning six of seven starts, including four Group I races. City of Troy would probably be a cinch if O'Brien were to run him in the GI Breeders' Cup Turf, but the trainer has picked the bigger challenge, the Classic. O'Brien was the guest of the week on the latest edition of TDN Writers' Room podcast presented by Keeneland, to explain his decision, and much more.
“(Running in the Classic) was always on our minds,” O'Brien said, “We've never won Classic. It's obviously a race that we'd love to win, but we know that you need an exceptional horse to do it really. Obviously he's by Justify, which makes it very exciting and always made it look like he could be very special for us. He's handy, he stays, he's determined; has all the things you need to make this happen. It's a big ask to run on the dirt first time and with a horse that's not trained on it.”
O'Brien is not taking anything for granted and has been doing everything he can to prepare the Justify colt for his first ever dirt start. That includes sending him to England on Sept. 20 to have a trial race over a synthetic surface at Southwell Race Course.
“He'll fly over there,” he said. “It will be like a race dy for him. It will be on an artificial surface. Obviously, it's not dirt, but it's as close as probably we can get from here. It's a little bit of a change off of what he is used to. We'll be bringing an American stye starting gate that we have and the horses. We'll probably go a mile and we'll probably do as much as we can to have him as ready as he can be. This is going to be a big change for him. We're trying to do it gently rather than having one big shock.”
O'Brien said he will bring between five and eight horses to challenge City of Troy in the mock race.
That City of Troy's sire is Justify is a huge factor. He's an exceptional sire and his progeny can handle the dirt. What does O'Brien think of Justify?
“When we saw him first, like he looked a different breed, O'Brien said. “He looked like a big quarter horse. When we saw him at first, we could not believe the amount of muscle and the power and the scope and the strength that he had. He was able to go a mile-and-a-half in the Belmont and the distance was no problem for him. His stock has a lot of class. They're very high cruisers, they're very genuine. They're very like Galileo's but they have more speed. I suppose what he did as a racehorse was just out of this world. That's why we're so excited about him. He looks like a massive big powerful dirt horse.”
In our breeding spotlight section we looked at the WinStar stallion Constitution.
Elsewhere on the podcast, which is also sponsored by the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders' Association, West Point Thoroughbreds, WinStar, XBTV.com and the KTA/KTOB, the team of Randy Moss, Zoe Cadman and Bill Finley, discussed a closing weekend at Del Mar that was dominated by Bob Baffert and the races at Kentucky Downs, where the purses have risen to levels that once were unfathomable. They also took on the story of Churchill Downs making changes to its 'Road to the Derby' schedule, noting that races with five horses or less will now have fewer points than those with six or more horses.
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