Gleneagles, Aidan O’Brien’s contender for the Breeders’ Cup Classic, made his first trip on to the dirt surface here on Thursday, on a morning when Beholder, the second-favourite for the Breeders’ Cup’s feature event on Saturday, was ruled out through injury. American Pharoah, the Triple Crown winner, is now odds-on to win the Classic with most bookmakers as a result, while Gleneagles, a 16-1 chance earlier in the week, is now top-priced at 12-1.
Joseph O’Brien, who rode Gleneagles during a brief canter on the dirt, admitted that it is impossible to be sure whether the colt will act on the surface. The 10-furlong trip is also an unknown, as Gleneagles has yet to race beyond a mile. However, his dam was a full-sister to Giant’s Causeway, who finished a close second in the Classic 15 years ago, and the colt arrives as a relatively fresh horse after only four races this season.
“He’s in good form and moving well and we’re very happy with him,” O’Brien Jr said, “but, as far as handling the dirt, Ryan [Moore, his jockey] will know after a couple of furlongs.
“He’s a lot of pace, he’s a good mover, he travels and he can quicken. It’s his first time going a mile and a quarter and we’re not 100% sure [about the distance], we never thought he needed a mile and a quarter and it’s his first time on dirt, so it’s a shot in the dark. If he’s travelling and he’s happy after going half a mile, then he’s in with a shout but, if he’s not travelling, it’s not because he’s not able. It’s because he’s not liking it.”
O’Brien rode his first major winner on the international stage on his father’s colt St Nicholas Abbey in the Breeders’ Cup Turf in 2011. Four years later he has won two Derbys and more than a dozen other Group One events but O’Brien also stands nearly six feet tall and knows that his riding career at the highest level is drawing to a close.
He also seems ready and happy to move on. If Gleneagles looked fit, strong and relaxed here, then so too did O’Brien, now that he has decided that “I’m not going to kill myself worrying about [my weight].” He is already responsible for training seven or eight point-to-pointers at his father’s former yard about half an hour’s drive from Ballydoyle and, even at 22 years of age, knows that training will be his long-term career.
“Dad has a good few horses where he trained initially and a few of the point-to-pointers are running under my name,” O’Brien said. “I’ve been riding for five or six years and I’ve been so lucky to have the rides and the winners that I have had; it’s unbelievable. I can’t ride forever and I never thought that I would be able to ride forever, so the time comes when it’s best to see what happens.
“Nine stone was tough at the end of this season, so I don’t know if I’ll do nine stone next year. I’m not going to put myself under pressure always watching my weight and I’ll see how I’m going in February or March.”
As always, Aidan O’Brien has a large team of runners at the Breeders’ Cup, including the favourites for both the Juvenile Turf and the Juvenile Fillies’ Turf on Friday in Hit It A Bomb and Alice Springs. He also saddles Found, the second-favourite, in Saturday’s Turf.
“I’d say it will depend on how the grass is going to be riding,” Joseph said. “Our two two-year-old colts [Hit It A Bomb and Shogun] would be happier with firm ground, so ground on the slow side isn’t going to be ideal for them. Found has handled a bit of juice in the ground before, so it mightn’t be as big a problem for her as for some of them. She takes her racing with a great attitude.”
O’Brien was talking an hour before news emerged that Beholder, the second-favourite for the Classic after three consecutive wins in Grade One events since August, would miss Saturday’s race. The five-year-old mare was found to have blood in her lungs when scoped after a workout on Thursday morning.
“After she galloped this morning, we scoped her and found her to have bled,” Richard Mandella, Beholder’s trainer, said. “Knowing this, we feel it is too great a risk to start her in the Classic.
“There’s obviously some irritated lung tissue there. She will be fine but if I put her under the pressure of a race situation, it could cause some real damage.”
Along with Gleneagles and American Pharoah, the Derby and Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winner Golden Horn will also be making the final start of his career on Saturday, on rain-softened ground that John Gosden, his trainer, knows is far from ideal.
Golden Horn exercised around a circuit of the turf course on Thursday under his big-race jockey Frankie Dettori and remains a hot favourite for the Turf, despite Gosden’s concerns about the ground.
“It’s soft, good to soft in places,” Gosden said. “We’re in a period now of hopefully drying weather and it will improve all the time, so we very much feel we’re here, the horse will retire after this race and we’re very clear that we plan to run. We could have done without the rain but that’s life.
“The horse did a nice canter this morning and handled it well. He wouldn’t have been in love with it but he was professional enough.
“If the ground was on the fast side, he would take all the beating in the world. If it wasn’t for the ground that I’ve just seen and walked out there, I’d be as confident as you can be in the situation of running first time in America around tight turns. But it’s going to ride a bit loose out there and that won’t be ideal for a horse who has such a beautiful action and flies off the ground.”
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