Europe’s challenge for the Breeders’ Cup meeting at Santa Anita in California this weekend lost one of its major players on Wednesday when Magician, the winner of the Turf at the same track 12 months ago, was ruled out of his attempt to follow up on Saturday due to lameness in his off-fore leg.
Magician had failed to recapture his best form in six starts this season, recording only a single victory in a Group Three race at The Curragh in May, but his entire campaign had been built around a return to Santa Anita to attempt a repeat of his Turf success last year under an excellent ride by Ryan Moore. He was the 6-1 third-favourite to do so, behind fellow European challengers Flintshire and Telescope, before news of his injury emerged.
“We were really looking forward to him and we thought he was coming back to where he was for the [Irish 2,000] Guineas and Breeders’ Cup last year,” Aidan O’Brien, Magician’s trainer, said. “When he came out for a trot this morning, he was acutely lame on his off-fore.
“This is the race we were looking at all year with him. We hadn’t got him back to where he was last year yet but we were taking it gently. It’s just a big pity.”
O’Brien shares the record for victories in the Turf with Sir Michael Stoute, thanks to four previous successes, and will still have a representative in Saturday’s race in Chicquita, the winner of last season’s Irish Oaks. Frankie Dettori is booked to ride Chicquita, who threw away a chance of victory in a Group One contest on Champions Day at Ascot by drifting left in the closing stages, and he will keep the ride as Joseph O’Brien, the stable’s principal jockey, is unable to make her weight of 8st 11lb.
“It was Joseph’s idea to run her in the race,” O’Brien Sr said. “She has very good form over a mile and a half and needs to be ridden patiently and delivered late. At Ascot she got to the front a furlong out and still veered, so she will have to be delivered.
“She has a great man on her in Frankie to do that and it won’t be a disadvantage that she’s going the other way around.”
O’Brien’s team for the meeting is now down to four, with Chicquita joined by War Envoy (Juvenile Turf), Qualify (Juvenile Fillies’ Turf) and The Great War, who will run on dirt in the Juvenile, a race O’Brien won with Johannesburg in 2001.
“Qualify is in very good form and we think a mile on the grass will suit her well,” O’Brien said. “War Envoy is in good form and has a good draw and he’s progressed from stepping up in trip as the year’s gone on. The Great War is a fast horse who wants a strong pace and fast ground. It’s a bit of a gamble going on the dirt with him for the first time but he’s in good shape.
“Qualify was a pacey filly [earlier in the season] and we were riding her too forward and the minute we pulled her back she was a better filly. She loves fast ground and she’s big and powerful and she quickens really well.”
O’Brien’s horses will not exercise on the track until Thursday but the remainder of Europe’s significant challenge at the meeting, which includes runners in 10 of the 13 races over Friday and on Saturday, exercised on Wednesday morning, including several with their big-race jockeys aboard.
Richard Hughes steered Toronado, the favourite for the Mile, through a gentle spin on the turf, while Frankie Dettori partnered Osaila, who runs in Friday’s Juvenile Fillies’ Turf. Brown Panther, who is owned by the former footballer Michael Owen and due to line up in the Turf, also worked strongly on the turf course and looked particularly well afterwards and looked particularly well as he returned afterwards.
“I was very happy with him,” Hughes said of Toronado. “You never know here how the race will go, but you just have to jump quick and ideally I’d like to be in the first four going to the first turn. If I’m not, it’s Plan B straight away and God knows what that could be.”
