Coolmore`s boast that City of Troy was “their Frankel” doesn`t look quite so outrageous after their colt`s third Group One in a row

The whole course of the British racing season revolves around the exploits of one horse, the 245th Derby winner City of Troy. All the record ten Aidan O`Brien-trained winners of the Derby have been “special” according to the man himself but this one is “the best I`ve trained.”

To be fair to him those who jumped off the bandwagon when City of Troy ran abysmally in the Two Thousand Guineas have jumped back on to celebrate his third Group One victory of the year in the Juddmonte International at York`s five-day Ebor (the Roman name for the northern city) meeting.

Unbeaten at two City of Troy has suffered somewhat from stumbling in the footsteps of the 2023 Coolmore ‘special` horse Auguste Rodin who also flopped in the Guineas before redemption in the Derby. But Auguste Rodin gets beaten as often as he wins and for many it was case of “here we go again” with City of Troy after his Newmarket debacle. Everyone else lost belief, wrote him off – but not master trainer O`Brien. O`Brien`s post-race comments are never “I told you so” – he`s not that sort of a person being intense and focussed always summing up with “We`ll see what the lads” think, about the next move. By ‘lads` he doesn`t mean stable staff but the triumvirate of owners, Messrs Magnier, Tabor and Smith (plus a legion of camp followers) who thrash out their horse`s career moves. It could be the Breeders` Cup Classic in Del Mar California or the Prix de l`Arc de Triomphe championship of Europe for City of Troy: the former would enhance his marketability at stud infinitely as he`s by the American Triple Crown winner Justify. Coolmore are hell bent on a successor to the immortal (sorry now deceased) supreme stallion Galileo. They`ve spent fortunes on a variety of would be inheritors to Galileo; now Justify, if he could rule the roost in Europe would be a priceless commodity worldwide – and then there will be City of Troy to follow him.

At Salisbury, a beautiful but nowadays minor country track, the week before York O`Brien sent over a raiding party that every achieved very little. Yet at York against the strongest fields assembled, matching Royal Ascot (Yorkshiremen call Ascot the ‘York of the South`) O`Brien and Coolmore all but swept the board of Group races. Their Derby third, Los Angeles, was especially impressive with his Group One penalty for victory in the Irish Derby when taking the Great Voltigeur (Group 2). Wherever he goes he would be a fine ‘substitute` for his stablemate.

City of Troy broke the track record – not held by Frankel who won the Juddmonte in just over two seconds slower time – which shows what course records are worth: the fast conditions and helpful wind this time were in contrast to Frankel`s year.

That said Ryan Moore`s front running tactics showed the jockey`s complete mastery of his contemporaries who allowed him to race in whichever gear he selected. Indeed it was as though Moore had switched to automatic pilot and nobody was willing to try to disturb City of Troy`s flight.

In a ten furlong £1.25m Group One race making all the running is a feat in itself. Moore was ringmaster. Sometimes monosyllabic, never loquacious, in the aftermath of victory nearly all of what he had to say was for the ears of O`Brien and the Coolmore team only. Was he awestruck – tongue tied by his mount`s signature performance, or was there something he didn`t want to give away, before the media lost its marbles in eulogizing the Derby winner?

Aidan O`Brien had plenty to say in post-race interviews, that wind which aided the record time constantly blowing his hair across his face to be brushed back nervously as he sought to find the words – of relief? He`d blamed the soft ground at Sandown for City of Troy`s somewhat laboured victory in the Eclipse.

There is an enduring popular song whose catch line is “It ain`t what you do it`s the way that you do it. And that`s what gets results”. You can only beat what`s in front of you: of the true greats Brigadier Gerard had to overcome two other greats – Mill Reef and My Swallow; it was the way that Frankel beat his challengers that marked him out – perhaps only Canford Cliffs, in the Sussex Stakes, was the one horse who might have been labelled ‘special` had Frankel not been around. As for O`Brien`s ‘greats` his 2001 Derby winner Galileo was only given that title when he became almighty at stud. Hawk Wing, O`Brien`s highest-rated horse (but still 7lb behind Frankel) owed that position to a freakish victory in the Lockinge Stakes while George Washington, his next highest-rated performer, beat subsequent Derby winner Sir Percy in the 2006 Two Thousand Guineas and won the Queen Elizabeth at Royal Ascot but lost as many races as he won and then produced just one foal at stud. Hawk Wing too was a moderate stallion.

So City of Troy still has much to prove. Of the three-year-olds he beat (the older horses in the race were exposed beforehand as lacking in ‘glitter`) third home Ghostwriter was two lengths further back than in the Eclipse but Ghostwriter has yet to win a Group race, and though City of Troy`s runner up Calandagan, a gelding, had won the King Edward VII (Gr2) readily at Royal Ascot, the three immediately behind the Frenchman that day have all been beaten since.

One has to make a cold, hard appraisal of form. I wouldn`t want to carp too much. City of Troy is ‘box office` bringing crowds to the racecourse. As a Yorkshireman I have a special association with the premier racecourse in ‘God`s Own County`. I saw Brigadier Gerard being beaten, for the only time, in the Juddmonte (then known as the Benson & Hedges) but Roberto and his American jockey Baeza also made all. To my dying day I will insist that the ‘Brigadier`, second only to Frankel in modern day ratings, was not himself that day.

I was with the trainer when the biggest shock in the race, that of the filly Arabian Queen over Derby winner Golden Horn in 2015, took place. None of the papers gave Arabian Queen (carrying the Ghostwriter colours, and the dam of a Group 3 winner on the final day of this year`s meeting) a hope – which angered her trainer David Elsworth who wouldn`t speak to the Press. Afterwards Elsworth wouldn`t even speak to me – the storm clouds still hung over him, not because of his original perceived slight of the lack of recognition of his filly but because bookmakers deducted ten pence in the pound from his 66-1 winning bet due to the third favourite being withdrawn at the start!

What the sagacious Elsworth did say and what should resonate with any race assessor was his private response: “With my horse out of the way they`d have called Golden Horn one of the true greats!”

Tactics with Frankel of course were almost immaterial – he simply kicked away opposition. He won his Juddmonte but it was indeed ‘the way that he did it` which sent the Yorkshire crowd, who know a true champion when they see one, into ecstasy. His Newmarket stables to York was the furthest journey Frankel ever undertook: now in this brave new world of international horseracing, City of Troy, as we said, is scheduled to fly all the way to the west coast of America to put the seal on his reputation.

“You can only beat what is in front of you” is another battered sporting cliché. But what confirmed world heavyweight champion Muhammed Ali`s greatness was in defeating the likes of Sonny Liston and Joe Frazier. Before him Joe Louis was perhaps the most world famous boxer though he was, according to the American Boxing Press, only obliged to knockout “the bum of the month”.

Has City of Troy been beating ‘bums`?

As fantastic a career as Galileo had, his rating 129, was determined before his final eclipse at the Breeders` Cup and even he didn`t quite match his sire Sadler`s Wells as fourteen-times champion stallion. My reading of the Form Book suggest that it is difficult to say City of Troy has surpassed Galileo`s rating, let alone Hawk Wing and George Washington. But let`s see what he can do on the international stage – whichever side of the Atlantic that is to be.

Whatever faces City of Troy in the Breeders` Cup were he to overcome them – in true champion style – and then retire to stud he will be the subject of many an argument as to his standing in the pantheon of the greats. Sir Henry Cecil`s frail words after Frankel`s swansong Champion Stakes victory were, “The best I`ve ever had” -incontrovertible. Aidan O`Brien`s similar approbation, which assuredly will not be understated, for City of Troy requires one more world class performance.

There is a rival to City of Troy lurking in the shape of Economics. Unbeaten as a three-year-old the son of Night of Thunder looked ready to take on anything of his generation when winning the Dante over the same course and distance in the Spring. His subsequent 90-day lay-off, missing the summer highlights, was put behind him this month returning to a slashing victory in France in the Gr2 Guillaume d`Ornano at Deauville.

City of Troy`s Juddmonte time, two minutes nine seconds was five second faster than Economics` Dante, that`s over twenty lengths difference but again, under entirely different conditions – even the wind was against Economics. Such a pity they are unlikely to meet on a level playing field.

Despite the emphasis on cheap speed in the breeding of thoroughbreds nowadays there are still outstanding sprinters who deserve recognition. This year`s five-furlong Nunthorpe Stakes went to Bradsell who came back from a fracture in the spring to give his rider Holly Doyle one of those rare Group One events captured by the ladies. The first for them was the same Nunthorpe sprint in 1997 when Alex Greaves dead-heated on Ya Malak.

Bradsell just held the late run of a filly, Believing who has already raced in Japan and Ireland this year. The time for the Nunthorpe was 1.67 seconds slower than when the great Battaash won in 2019. And Bradsell, who cost just 50,000 guineas, is by far and away the best performer of his sire Tasleet – who is from the same family as Battaash.

Bradsell lacks (as yet) the star quality of the great Australian mare Black Caviar, a sprinter who would have been right up there among the best thoroughbreds of her era. She died this month. Black Caviar raced in 2012, also Frankel`s swansong season, and won the Diamond Jubilee at the same Royal Ascot that Frankel won the Queen Anne. His eleven-length victory contrasted with Black Caviar scraping home when her jockey went to sleep. Black Caviar returned home to complete the perfect career of 25 wins in 25 outings.

For the future, the winner of the two-year-old maiden, the Convivial Stakes – albeit the most valuable one in the country, £51,000 to the winner – at York is one to remark upon. Had Angelo Bounarotti been trained by Aidan O`Brien rather than the rather more reticent Ralph Beckett, the Irish genius might have been tempted to hyperbole to describe the colt. But that would have been understandable – Angelo buunathe colt is by Justify out of a Galileo mare and cost a million pounds.