city of troy. no wonder horse.

​Thank goodness for climate warming. How cold and miserable would the weather be in this country if the sea was not boiling and the entire planet was not getting warmer by the day? It is a serious question as some climate scientists are predicting the opposite, that we are entering another ice age. I know where my money will going, given a new ice age is the outsider of two by a considerable betting distance at the moment. On Friday evening, July 5th, let us remember, I could have easily justified lighting a fire it was so chilly in the tourist hot spot of North Devon.
The other major debate, of course, now the General Election is behind us at last, is whether City of Troy is a superstar, a horse whose name will warrant mention in the decades to come in the same sentence as Frankel and Brigadier Gerard, the two best flat horses of my lifetime.
As of now, the sensible answer is no, City of Troy is not going to retire as a legend of the sport. What is more time is against him achieving immortality, given, unlike the immortal Frankel and the slowly being forgotten as recency tops historical fact, these days, Brigadier Gerard, City of Troy is unlikely, as he is just too important for Coolmore and the breed, to stay in training as a 4-year-old, with the Breeders’ Cup pencilled in for his final race.
To my mind, winning the Juddmonte at York and the Breeders Cup, on top of his Epsom Derby and Eclipse victories, will fail to elevate him beyond that of the best 3-year-old of his generation, for all he is, to use a Nicky Henderson phrase, ‘a nice person’. A proper dude.
What must be said, as again, recency wins most topics of debates, these days, both Frankel and Brigadier Gerard had to win ugly on occasion, as did City of Troy at Sandown yesterday, though usually on ground far worse than the O’Brien mega-star had to cope with in scrambling home in workmanlike fashion in the Eclipse.
It would be good to be honest, here. City of Troy is the most hyped horse to come out of Ballydoyle since Auguste Rodin. This high-stakes marketing strategy began, I would suggest, with Australia, the first of Aidan’s ‘best I have ever trained’, although on that occasion the great man had to backtrack and place Istabraq above all others. Auguste Rodin, if you recall, was tagged ‘a collector’s item’ and after many false starts is, at last, beginning to live up to the reputation Aidan saddled him with. Talk about selling your onions for top price even before they have poked their bonny heads above ground!
Although Aidan is a genius when it comes to training, his excuses for both defeat and narrow victories are pretty lame. When City of Troy won the Dewhurst on soft ground, Aidan was of the opinion that any distance and any ground would suit City of Troy. Yesterday he struggled to beat an ordinary Group 1 field, receiving 10Ib it must be remembered from the 6-year-old Al Riffa, as he did not handle the turn into the straight - indeed he took a false step – and he hated the ground, ground that was soft, as it was at Newmarket when he won the Dewhurst.
York, of course, might suit him better, though if he can’t handle bends, the Bleeders’ Cup is not going to help Coolmore’s ambition to retire him a super star on a par with Frankel. To my eyes, given his best 2-furlongs at Epsom were the final 2-furlongs, City of Troy needs 12-furlongs to be seen at his best, and doubtless good ground will aid his progression up the ranks. The sport needs a great horse at this time of struggle, sadly it is not going to be City of Troy, no matter how much hype is attached to his name by the trainer and the racing media.

One other moan about trainers. Dermot Weld has just retired his Oaks winner – name I cannot recall – due to a minor injury. Dermot Weld is a great trainer and this is not meant as criticism of him personally but of trainers in general. Too often the racing public are informed that a horse has suffered a ‘slight knock’, a ‘small injury’ and so on. Why can we not be told how the vet is describing the injury? Is a slight tendon strain a minor injury? A suspensory strain, is that marked down as a slight injury? We, the racing enthusiasts, deserve to be told the exact nature of an injury. Saying a ‘slight knock’ can sound as if something is being covered-up and that is not a good look for a sport that should be priding itself on transparency and openness. As the wonderful Sir Mark Prescott once said: my horses are trying 90% of the time to injure themselves, while my staff are 95% of the time aiding and abetting them. Racehorses injure themselves; it is part and parcel of the job. Unlike Sir Mark’s tongue-in-cheek anecdote, the reality is accidents happen. Just say it as it is. Do not say ‘a slight knock,’ ‘a minor injury’.