city of troy, shadow of light, cesarewitch & SHARK.

​According to his celebrated trainer, who we must remember is salaried to the lads of Coolmore and who has no deciding vote on which horses stay in training and those who go to the stallion sheds, is quoted as saying that he does not know how good City of Troy could be. And, of course, we shall never know as after the Bleeders Cup he is to be retired. That he is to stand in Ireland and not America is nothing to feel grateful about. 
Aidan will continue to describe him as the best he has trained, until the next one to come off the conveyor belt, of course, and ‘the lads’ will promote City of Troy as an all-time great, ‘the best they have ever bred’. Without being dogmatic about it, I suspect the form book will not have City of Troy as the best horse to come out of Ballydoyle, though I would not wish to name the highest-rated horse Aidan has trained in his illustrious career. It is not City of Troy; of that I am certain. Given the opportunity, he might have proved me wrong. And I wanted to be proved wrong, believe me.
When he won the Dewhurst, the ‘lads’ thought him ‘their Frankel’ and their joy was easy to behold. Yet unlike Juddmonte, who kept Frankel in training as a 4-year-old, Coolmore are taking the money and running away, denying the public and, more importantly, the sport the opportunity of gaining from the popularity the horse has achieved. Horse racing in Britain and Ireland needed City of Troy to be raced at 4, as all great horses should be campaigned. As with Sea the Stars and Dancing Brave, City of Troy is the best of his generation and only that, though as a 2-year-old he was head and shoulders better than the aforementioned superstars. Oh, a superstar is not the same as a legend, a word, like genius, that is greatly overused by the media and publicists. Let us hope City of Troy does not flop at the Bleeders Cup as he did in the 2,000 Guineas or the boast that he is bred to a great dirt horse will be blown away like Coolmore have blown away the opportunity to have a living legend to rank alongside Frankel  and Dubawi. 

Shadow of Light impressed me more than any other two-year-old this season in winning the Dewhurst. He won a race that perhaps he should not have done, sweeping to the front from what looked like an impossible position and winning in the manner of a horse who will easily stay at least another furlong.
What I like about Charlie Appleby is exampled in how he reversed what he told the press after winning the Middle Park: taking the dogs for a walk, he mulled over how to proceed with Shadow of Light, debating whether the horse was the sprinter he thought he was. He spoke with William Buick and then debated the matter with the lads in the yard (senior, I should think) before suggesting to the ‘principals’ that they should supplement Shadow of Light for the Dewhurst. Embracing, diplomatic, prepared to chance his arm and perhaps his reputation. He is a good man who deserves the success he brings to Godolphin.

It seems likely that come Tuesday we will be confronted with the first horse disqualified from an important race due to the jockey breaching the whip rules by four-strokes. Apprentice Jamie Powell has admitted going four over with his whip, which makes it inevitable that Manxman will be promoted to first place. You have to feel sorry for the losers in all of this, Cathy O’Leary the trainer, the owners, though I suspect they will have collected their  winnings before the result of the stewards’ enquiry was announced and those who backed Manxman to win. But if the whip rules are to mean anything meaningful for the image of the sport, Alphonse Le Grande must be disqualified. The only upside for racing is that at least Tony Martin was not in the picture this time around.

If Shark Hanlon does not win his appeal to the Irish stewards tomorrow over his disqualification from the sport for 10-months due to the accidental uncovering of a dead horse being transported for disposal at a slaughter house, it will be the worst case of injustice since Captain Ryan Price lost his licence due to a horse metabolizing a prohibited chemical due to natural processes.
If an accidental display of a dead horse is worthy of a man losing his livelihood for the best part of a year, then no present penalty for deliberate acts of rule-breaking can be anywhere close enough to being proportionate. 
I remain convinced Gordon Elliott was harshly treated by the same authority, even though he was partially to blame for the hullabaloo that came from a photograph leaked to the public by a scumbag with a grievance. 
Shark does deserve a large fine for the accident he was partially responsible for and a sharp rap over the knuckles. To me, a £2,000 fine and a suspended sentence would be proportionate. I cross my fingers that the Irish Stewards come to their senses and going forward they stop hanging good men out to dry, while excusing the worst offenders, as they did with Stephen Mahon or whatever his damned name is.