By Adam Mills
Clearly, we cannot expect this year’s race to be identical to the most recent renewals of the Classic, but the data on offer would suggest to me that the first 2-furlongs are the crucial part of the race and where the main players are when they reach the first turn will be the key to the entire contest.
I think that everyone would like to see City of Troy win this race, if nothing else it would dispel the myth that the turf form can’t be translated to the dirt, but the data would suggest that this is going to be a far bigger test than he has faced so far. Whether he will handle the switch to the dirt is a question that nobody can truly answer. His pedigree would clearly suggest that he will, but I’ll leave that question to better judges than myself and instead focus on what the data is telling me, which is that the start of this race is likely to be far more important than the finish.
If we were to simply ask the question; does City of Troy have the speed to match the dirt horses? The answer is yes. Looking at their most recent runs, we can see from the sectional times that the 11.02 he ran for the 8th furlong in the Juddmonte International Stakes at York is actually the fastest individual split on offer coming into this race. That’s considerably faster than his nearest market rival Fierceness, who was only able to drop to 11.13s in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile last year and who hasn’t come close to that in his 3-year-old form. Clearly, we need to make allowance for the fact that the turf was riding Good to Firm and it will be harder to maintain such a speed on the dirt surface, but it does give some credence to the idea that he will be able to match the speed-driven style of the American form.
A much better question for me to ask is will Ryan Moore be able to keep him in touch? If we examine the speed shown in his races, City of Troy winds up to top speed. The 11.02-seconds that he ran at York, his fastest, came in the 8th furlong of 10, in the Derby at Epsom it came in the 12th furlong of 14 and in the Dewhurst last year it came in the 6th furlong of 7. Let’s compare that with his main rivals; Fierceness comes into this race on the back of a win in the Travers Stakes, here his fastest furlong time of 11.51s came in the 2nd furlong, it was the same result for Sierra Leone (3rd) who also ran a fastest furlong in the 2nd at 11.47s. The pair of them did the same thing when they ran 11.53 and 11.69s respectively before finishing 1st and 2nd in the Jim Dandy at Saratoga in July. To his credit, we should state that City of Troy ran a 12.37s 2nd furlong on soft ground in the Eclipse at Sandown, but that was arguably his least impressive performance this summer as he scrambled home to beat Al Riffa.
Of course, the flip-side to this argument is the fact that he is almost certainly going to be finishing stronger than any of his rivals. The recent run-out speeds from the likes of Fierceness (32.79), Sierra Leone (31.05) and Forever Young (33.26) are more than 20% down on their top speed figures and highlight the fact that they don’t appear to have a lot left after the line. Assuming that he gets a clear run in the home straight, it’s hard to imagine a scenario whereby City of Troy isn’t staying on stronger, but I can’t find a scenario from the TPD data that would suggest that he will be in front as they turn for home.
Fierceness sets a good standard and, in most years, would be a worthy favourite for the Classic. He has won a Travers Stakes, a Jim Dandy, a Florida Derby and a Breeders Cup Juvenile. Things didn’t go right for him in the Kentucky Derby, but that was a very messy race behind Mystik Dan and if we examine the top speed data from TPD, I think it is significant that his figure of 42.7 mph is considerably quicker than the winner (41.34) and those of Sierra Leone (40.53) and Forever Young (41.29). He has since confirmed his dominance and I was particularly impressed by his win in the Travers Stakes, where the TPD data shows that he was able to hold on in the straight despite the fact that he covered 10-metres further than the 2nd and 3rd. He is the best of the American trained runners on form and ought to be in the front rank as the field turns for home. Stall 9 may not be the ideal draw, but with Arthur’s ride outside of him in gate 12, there is every chance that he will get a target to tow him to the front before they reach the first turn.
We need to acknowledge that there is a very strong Japanese challenge for the Classic too, starting with Forever Young. Whilst we didn’t learn a great deal from his prep run at Ohi a few weeks ago, it is his earlier form, especially his win in the UAE Derby in March that offers the most hope. The 2nd furlong split of 10.80s is the eye-catching figure, but the fact that he was able to conserve enough energy to run 11.81s for the penultimate furlong, the only horse in the field to dip below 12-seconds in the latter half of the race, is much more important. Our post-race chart highlights this perfectly when we compare Forever Young to the mean average speed of the placed horses in the closing stages. In a strongly run race like the Breeders’ Cup Classic, a horse with the ability to show the speed to get into a prominent early position and to be able to conserve energy to be able to kick again in the closing stages, is one that you want to keep on side.
Ushba Tesoro and Derma Sotogake are both back for another try this year. The former has run well at this level before, but his early speed would have to be a concern. In last year’s race he took 6.4s to reach a speed of 30 mph, the slowest figure in the field, it was an almost identical scenario when he took 7.6s to reach that speed in the Dubai World Cup in March. Derma Sogotake covered more ground than any other horses in the Dubai World Cup (2046.9m), so we can upgrade that effort, but last year looked to be his chance and he has work to do with Ushba Tesoro based on their most recent meeting in Japan.
When trying to form a pace map for this race, I concluded that there will be a US trained horse in front at the first turn. Perhaps Arthur’s Ride, Sierra Leone or even Fierceness, as they have all shown the ability to dip below 5s to reach 30 mph. The draw will play its part in that scenario, but even though they have been drawn wider than their connections may have hoped, it seems to be a very short price that there will be American horses in front after the opening quarter. I would expect the race to take an accordion shape, where the field is stretched in the opening half a mile before compressing again in the home stretch as the pace begins to collapse. The real question from the data, is whether the speed horses will be able to stretch the field wide enough to be able to hold off the late challenge of the International runners?