Flatter: Why City Of Troy will not win the Breeders’ Cup Classic

Photo:

Andrew Parker / Eclipse Sportswire

Stand by for one of those declarations that leads to stupid
bets being paid off. Like the time I dared someone to yell my name so loudly at
a Knicks road game that it could be heard back in New York on the telecast. More
than a decade later, my wife still remembers the stupidity that led to my having to pay off
that steak dinner.

Twelve years ago Aaron Rodgers went on the artist formerly
known as Twitter and insisted that his friend Ryan Braun was not a juicing
baseball star. He promised some guy in Denver a year’s salary if Braun ever
failed a drug test. Even at the bargain rate of $4.5 million, Rodgers
apparently did not pay up.

Where does NBC’s Nick Luck weigh in on this?

Never one to learn my lesson, I had to pay off four dinners
after I boldly proclaimed the Oakland Raiders never would move to Las Vegas.

Against that backdrop, here goes nothing. It says here City Of Troy will not win the Breeders’ Cup Classic, because Coolmore is going about
it all wrong.

Quick show of hooves. How many horses have won America’s most
valuable dirt race with a final prep on the other side of the ocean, without a U.S.
breeze and with connections who habitually have not won on a main track in
America?

For City Of Troy’s much-ballyhooed final gallop in Europe before
going into quarantine, Coolmore went to the trouble of recruiting four
workmates and as many other riders. It also hauled in what was said to be a U.S.
starting gate to the track in Southwell, England, where the dirt was as fake as
the sincerity of a Division 1 basketball coach.

That run around the synthetic loam was photographed with a
camera so far away that I thought Roger Bannister was going to come into the
frame to finish the first human four-minute mile.

Like a quarterback who skips the combine to throw in front
of NFL scouts, City Of Troy was declared to be a can’t-miss proposition for the
$7 million Classic at Del Mar. The evidence comes from London bookmakers who have
shortened him to as little as a 2-1 favorite to win a race that has been run 38
times on real dirt and won all of once by a horse from Europe. Ah, the fluke who
was Arcangues at 133-1 in 1993.

The other 37 winners came from North America. They breezed and
prepped and got bathed and ate and slept in North America. They were battle-tested
on real tracks against real horses and real jockeys from North America. The
idea that this four-decade trend can be changed with some transoceanic answer
to playing Grand Theft Auto before a driver’s test feels like a fool’s errand.

Now throw in some bald-faced statistics. Trainer Aidan O’Brien
is 0-for-17 in the Breeders’ Cup Classic. Of his 18 wins in the self-proclaimed
world championships, the only one on real dirt was with Johannesburg in the
Juvenile. That was in 2001. That makes him 1-for-38.

Working mostly with O’Brien, jockey Ryan Moore has yet to
find any success on U.S. dirt. Not just in the Breeders’ Cup. He is 0-for-21 on
our soil, and it has been nearly six years since he even tried to change that. Moore
has been on the favorite only twice, but that zero might have contributed to
the low number. Chicken and egg. In this case, they equal a duck.

There is no doubting O’Brien and Moore are among the best
who ever have worked at their crafts anywhere in the world. That does not make
them impervious to potential holes in their résumés. There is nothing more
gnashing to loyal U.S. racing fans than hearing someone from over there snort
that Secretariat was not as accomplished on turf as he was on dirt. Never mind
that he was 2-for-2 on grass with a track record and a farewell victory. That
message still may be in a bottle.

So here I am making a crass pronouncement about Europe’s
best active trainer and best active jockey and two men whose faces could be
carved on a Mount Rushmore of racing if only such a thing existed outside a
remote mountain location far from the 13 colonies.

Just because O’Brien and Moore cannot win on our dirt does
not water down their accomplishments. Frankel was the best turf miler of all
time, and Winx never took her winning streak outside of Australia. Are we to
question their greatness just because they never got their passports stamped?

We can, however, question the ability to succeed outside the
individual terms of professional engagement. I would not expect Shohei Ohtani
to succeed in the NFL. At least not without a full training camp.

Bring O’Brien and Moore over here to compete every day on
our dirt tracks, and I have every confidence they would succeed wildly. The
same goes for City Of Troy. That is just the point. Instead of spending a few
months over here, team Coolmore is parachuting in, hoping to cash a $3.64
million check. At best it is foolhardy. At worst it is insulting.

I have as much conviction in the belief that City Of Troy
will not win the Breeders’ Cup Classic as I have been in my contention that the
UAE Derby never will produce a Kentucky Derby winner.

Technically, I have been right about that, but only by two
noses. In truth Forever Young proved me wrong five months ago. Only a little
bit of racing luck kept me from having to pay off on more than just the one bet
where I said he would not finish in the money. I owe a colleague a serving of
hard liquor for that.

Dan Bankhead, the first Black pitcher in Major League
Baseball, got into a clubhouse debate with a better-known pioneer back in the
day. More than 70 years ago, Bankhead declared to his Brooklyn Dodgers teammate
Jackie Robinson, “Not only are you wrong, Robinson. You are loud wrong.”

If City Of Troy wins Nov. 2 at Del Mar, I shall be just
that.

Ron Flatter’s column appears Friday mornings at Horse
Racing Nation. Comments below and at RonFlatterRacingPod@gmail.com
are welcomed, encouraged and may be used in the feedback segment of the Ron Flatter Racing Pod, which also is posted every Friday.