By Tom Frary
Aidan O'Brien was at pains on Tuesday to spell out Team Coolmore's uncertainty as to the prospects of City Of Troy (Justify) mastering the task of Saturday's GI Breeders' Cup Classic. “We think we have him prepared to go forward. Whether he is quick enough to go forward from that slot, in this type of race — I'm not sure,” he said. And therein lies the big question mark regarding how this particular turf impresario transitions to dirt racing first time on the biggest stage.
In many ways, the decision to send this colt into a Breeders' Cup Classic without any prior dirt undertaking is outlandish. It's like asking a 16-year-old football prodigy to start in the line-up in a Champions League Final. No amount of athletic ability is going to get him out of trouble if he can't produce what he has never been asked to, which is to cover the first two furlongs of a race in just over :23 seconds.
Winding back to his two-year-old days, City Of Troy covered that first section of the G2 Superlative Stakes in :27.35 and in the G1 Dewhurst Stakes he did it in :26.75. It was not until York's G1 Juddmonte International that we really got a true insight into what he was capable of, but that came later on in the race after he had been able to effectively saunter–in dirt terms–through the first half of the contest. Make no mistake: all of this colt's big displays have come after covering the first part of the race in relatively leisurely fashion. The kind of initial sectionals that his rivals on Saturday would consider funereal.
In the last Breeders' Cup Classic staged at Del Mar, the first six furlongs went by in :70.04 and he will have to be somewhere on the premises at that stage to get seriously involved in the finish. Perhaps the only time we have seen him run a “dirt-style” race was at Newmarket in the 2,000 Guineas, when he was asked to go through the first five furlongs in :60.01 and got to two out in :72.33. Even allowing for faster underfoot conditions on Saturday, a similar performance would leave him something in the region of 10 lengths off the pace in a Breeders' Cup Classic with four furlongs to run on a track that favours speed.
From three out in the Guineas, he was already cooked and it could be that we witnessed a genuine stayer being asked to go too quick through the early stages of the race. Everything City Of Troy has done so far suggests he is much more Galileo than Justify, but then we don't have a huge amount of evidence to go on. Interestingly, O'Brien pointed out after the Guineas that he had been caught up between sprinters and “the pace was on and he was in the middle of the pace” and that sparks concern for Saturday because the pace will be on and he will be in the middle of the pace.
Had City Of Troy gone, as previously planned, to Saratoga in August, we would know a lot more about his chances here. That he didn't leaves a gaping hole in the ability to accurately assess them as well as in the colt's conditioning for a dirt race of his nature. What we do know, particularly in a Breeders' Cup Classic run at Del Mar, is that he is going to have to sprint far harder from the break than he has ever been asked to and then churn out his customary sub-12 second splits on top to stay in the mix.
Can he produce what is effectively a prolonged sprint in addition to his diesel-engine powerhouse Derby performance? He'll be some animal if that's the case. There are no prisoners taken at this particular track, so he couldn't have it any harder that's for sure. Whatever happens, we'll find out who the real City Of Troy really is once and for all.
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