AIDAN O’BRIEN hailed his ‘best ever’ horse as brilliant City Of Troy delivered on his York D-Day.
If the pressure was on in a red-hot Juddmonte International, Ryan Moore clearly wasn’t feeling it as he surprisingly grabbed the race by the scruff of the neck.
A top-notch field lined up to have a crack at the 5-4 favourite in the straight but none could get by as he made every yard in a course record time.
No doubt, the huge crowd who flocked to the Knavesmire were hoping to see City Of Troy blow the field apart and win by half the track.
But those Frankel-esque, double-digit wins in top-flight races are as rare as hen’s teeth, and there is still something very satisfying about a brilliant horse getting down and dirty like this.
And it was a victory which saw O’Brien, who always appears on the verge of hyperventilation when City Of Troy runs, wheel out every superlative under the sun.
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Fiddling with his sunglasses and puffing his cheeks, he said: “We’ve always felt he was something very different.
“Things haven’t always gone right for him but he is able to overcome them. He is very genuine and he just keeps going, whenever they got close to him he kept going again.
“Ryan contained him as long as he could in front, and when he started to pile it on he really opened up and won it well. No doubt he’s the best I’ve trained.”
That’s quite a statement, given his record in this race alone.
O’Brien has now won the Juddmonte seven times, including with top-notchers like Giant’s Causeway and Australia, and we’d be here all day tallying up his Group 1 winners around the globe.
But ever since his part-owner Michael Tabor dropped the F-bomb and compared him to Frankel after his Dewhurst win last year, expectations have been through the roof.
The 2,000 Guineas was an unmitigated disaster, with Aidan colourfully saying: “We went off the road and deep into the swamp.”
He got back on track with a dominant win in the Derby, but his victory in the Coral-Eclipse was undeniably underwhelming.
So there was little doubt coming to York that his legacy hinged on this £1.25 million race. For O’Brien and the ‘lads’ defeat here was unthinkable, but it looked distinctly possible.
They’re a shrewd bunch, though, and they caught us all off guard when City Of Troy flew out of the gates and went straight into the lead, with his supposed pacemaker settling in behind.
O’Brien and Moore insisted it wasn’t some sort of cunning, Baldrick-like plan – either way, it worked.
Calandagan, the hugely impressive winner at Royal Ascot, laid down a stern challenge inside the final couple of furlongs but Troy the boy was always holding him at bay and was well on top at the line.
Moore said: “He got away well and I didn’t want to take him back. He travelled beautifully the whole way and I only really let him go at the two furlong pole.
“He was a bit idle, but he was finding all the way to the line – he just kept digging.
“He’s a very talented racehorse, super talented. He’s got a very big engine. You don’t win a Dewhurst without having speed – good horses have to have speed and they have to stay, and he does that.
“As the boss said the last day, we let the horse do the talking and he’s come out and done it again.”
The question now is, where next?
The Breeders’ Cup Classic is the Holy Grail for O’Brien and Coolmore, so it’s a short price he will end the season at Del Mar in early November.
But he could take in either the Irish Champion Stakes or even the Arc de Triomphe on his way to southern California.
O’Brien added: “The Classic is a dream, so I would love it if the lads decided to send him there.
“We will keep our options open about where we go possibly before then, we have Leopardstown next month and Ryan has always wanted to run him in the Arc. We’ll take our time before making our decision.”
The yard will be mob-handed in the Arc at Longchamp in October, and Los Angeles could form part of the French raiding party after he bagged the Great Voltigeur earlier on the card.
He formed the middle leg of a Ballydoyle treble, with The Lion In Winter cementing his position as Coral’s antepost favourite for both the 2,000 Guineas (8-1) and Derby (12-1) with a cosy win in the Acomb Stakes.
So this was truly a day to remember for O’Brien and Moore, thanks in large part to their International superstar.
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