Coolmore Still Has Sense Of Adventure

[Wandering Eyes]

Just as it should be, this year’s Guineas is a pedigree war of the biggest and boldest and most successful bloodstock manoeuvres of recent times and it is no surprise that Coolmore are at the forefront. The race’s most intriguing horse is without question Saxon Warrior (Jpn) (Deep Impact {Jpn}), who represents a brand new Japanese experiment by one of racing’s biggest thinkers, John Magnier. Deep Impact has always been considered a monster in terms of his racing career and at stud, but he needed a wider international stamp of approval to truly launch and that is beginning to happen now. Saxon Warrior’s dam, Maybe (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}), represents a genuine European pedigree, with Derby and Oaks winners Dr Devious and Dancing Rain in there, but there is a hint of outside enterprise involved too as the former went for the Kentucky Derby en route to Epsom. That sense of adventure and pushing the limits is what lies behind most of the scene-changing moments of European racing since Dr Vincent O’Brien opted to place his faith in Northern Dancer in the late sixties. Along came Nijinsky and the momentum shifted entirely. It is nearly 50 years since that great and last Triple Crown winner set foot on Newmarket’s Rowley Mile to justify 4-7 favouritism before heading to Epsom and Doncaster to complete British racing’s holy trinity of monuments. Saxon Warrior will be more around 5-1 on Saturday, so it is impossible to say whether he will tread down that kind of path but there is a sense of the unknown where he is concerned at present. He was not expected to do what he did on debut at The Curragh in August, when his biggest advocate, Donnacha O’Brien, enjoyed as fun a joyride as is possible from a racehorse in the final two furlongs. It was Ryan Moore on board for the G2 Beresford S. and G1 Racing Post Trophy, where he had bigger fish to fry but managed it in a manner suggesting he was just doing what was necessary. The latter race used to be all about stamina, but since Doncaster switched it to a straight mile and drastically altered their drainage system it is no longer a hotbed of died-in-the-wool Derby types. In 2011 Camelot (GB) (Montjeu {Ire}) became the first since High Top in 1972 to win that and the Guineas the following year and Saxon Warrior showed miler speed as well as determination in the most recent renewal. His dam Maybe, who was sent off the 13-8 favourite for the 1,000 Guineas in 2012 only to be left trailing by stablemate Homecoming Queen, was one of the “fast Galileos” that Aidan O’Brien and Jim Bolger first exploited with her debut success coming over six furlongs. That said, she got a mile and a half well when fifth in the following year’s Oaks and represents a pedigree that is a perfect blend of speed and stamina which is also true of the freakish Deep Impact. Has Shadai Stallion Station’s heir to Sunday Silence created another in his own image? Ballydoyle’s helmsman is not ruling out the thought.

“We’ve probably never had a horse to change so much over a winter as he has–he’s turned into a monster of a horse–big, powerful and strong,” O’Brien said. “He’s going to run a long way off his 2-year-old weight, but his work is very nice and we are very happy with him.”

O’Brien admits to being in the dark as to what will come forward on Saturday, where it will be all about natural ability. Saxon Warrior has been allowed to come forward in his own time at Rosegreen and although that may not be enough for a win against some race-fit and possibly harder-trained peers, it will provide a jumping-off point for what could be a momentous 3-year-old campaign. “We think he will get further than a mile. It will be a nice place to start him and we look forward to him for the rest of the year. He looks a very unusual horse at the moment in how much he has changed from two to three, but we have to start somewhere.”

Whereas Saxon Warrior’s pedigree is a step into a new frontier, Gustav Klimt (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) embodies a time-honoured approach to breeding a true Guineas type. Descending from Prince Faisal’s Prix de Diane heroine Rafha (GB) (Kris {GB}), he is also a mix of sprint and staying class but his family is proven time and again on the main stage of Europe. Invincible Spirit (Ire) is in there taking a prominent role and it is his half-sister Massarra (GB) (Danehill) who is responsible for this year’s likely favourite. A speedy and precocious sort for John Dunlop, she generally gets milers at the most but with the influence of Galileo it is highly probable that Gustav Klimt has the ideal blend for victory in this Classic. Interestingly, his full-brother Mars (Ire) was a real talking horse in Co. Tipperary in his time and lined up in the 2013 edition of this on only his second racecourse start at just 9-1. He was sixth and well-beaten, but was third in the St James’s Palace S. a month later. Gustav Klimt was prepped in the newly-remodelled Leopardstown 2000 Guineas Trial last month and showed a great deal more than any of his stable’s other runners to have been seen so far this term by beating the smart, race-fit Imaging (GB) (Oasis Dream {GB}) despite the testing ground and run of the race being against him. He is all class on that showing and he demonstrated there and in the G2 Superlative S. when things got tough that he has that will-to-win his sire is so effective at stamping on his progeny. It is something that Aidan O’Brien talks about a lot and has decided the outcome of so many tight finishes in the top events of recent years. He is the sole colt in the line-up by Galileo, whose 10 representatives since 2008 have yielded three wins and three places with the successful triumvirate of Frankel (GB), Gleneagles (Ire) and Churchill (Ire) interestingly all out of fast mares. With normal improvement from Leopardstown, Gustav Klimt will be a tough nut to crack and his trainer is full of hope. “We were anxious to get a run into him, as he had not run since Newmarket in the middle of the summer,” he explained. “We would have liked to have run him in the Dewhurst to find out a little bit more about him, so were a little bit in the dark. It was soft ground, very heavy really, and probably not ideal but we felt we needed to run him. We always thought he would prefer better ground and he did well to quicken in the ground. Ryan [Moore] rode him in the July meeting last year and was very, very full of him. You are never sure, but we were delighted with his run in Leopardstown. We think and hope he’s in good form.” Despite all of his prior eight 2,000 Guineas previous winners making their seasonal bow in this, O’Brien is quick to point out that that is just coincidental.

“This is the first time we had the seven furlongs at Leopardstown,” he added. “For us, the Craven is too close and maybe the race in Newbury is a little bit close as well. And then we had a Guineas trial at Leopardstown over a mile, which is too far, and the Gladness is against older horses and too tough. So up until now we’ve never had a prep. I suppose [the previous winners] were good 2-year-olds and they had done plenty and learnt plenty.”

Another foray for Coolmore in recent years has been the move to support War Front and despite two notable disappointments in this in War Command and Air Force Blue, who was 4-5 when 12th two years ago, two of his sons have been fourth in the last two renewals and he has a live contender this time in US Navy Flag who is bred more for this task. Out of the stable’s Irish 1,000 Guineas heroine Misty For Me (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}), who was beaten out of sight in the 2011 1,000 Guineas before turning herself inside out in three weeks to The Curragh equivalent, he has already achieved notoriety as one of very few to have completed the Middle Park-Dewhurst double. The highest-rated in this line-up as a result, his distant last of four on desperate ground in the Leopardstown Guineas Trial means very little in this context. If Saxon Warrior has the feel of Hawk Wing about him, then US Navy Flag could be this season’s Rock of Gibraltar–a tough and top-class juvenile who went through some big tests and kept getting better and stronger.

“U S Navy Flag is a very solid horse and improved with racing,” O’Brien commented. “He’d love really nice ground, fast ground and he could be an exciting horse this year. The ground wasn’t ideal [at Leopardstown], but we felt we needed to run him because the more we ran him last year the better he got. If it’s going to get too slow he might not run, we might wait.”

O’Brien Reveals Riding Assignments…

With Ryan Moore at Churchill Downs, O’Brien is keeping riding arrangements in-house. “At the moment it looks like Seamus [Heffernan] might ride Gustav, and that Donnacha [O’Brien] will ride Saxon Warrior. That’s what we are thinking at the moment, but all those things can change,” he said.

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