By Ryan Goldberg squeezed between horses set a course record for six a furlong and a half out and, and a half furlongs. Two On Aug. 11, the Prix with an acceleration that course records in a single Jacques le Marois at took your breath away, burst week. sun-drenched Deauville clear for what looked certain The horses in her wake, Racecourse on the Norman to be a comfortable victory. too, were not strangers to coast was billed as the race But Olympic Glory left the OQ?DODKNPH=UKBBO1DAłHHU of the season in Europe. Six pack and with a bold charge "HQOERA(=PA SDKłJEODA@ Group 1 winners graced its nearly caught Moonlight seventh, had won Deauville’s marquee, and as so often Cloud. She held on by a short Group 1 Prix Rothschild two happens in Europe, trainers head. weeks earlier. This was her went out of their way to The time went up, and third race in 30 days. Aidan łCQNA KQP SDK D=@ PDA >AOP the Deauville habitués O’Brien trainee Declaration of – in this case the best miler, rejoiced. Moonlight Cloud War, a respectable fourth, had regardless of gender or age. had lowered a course record łJEODA@ PDEN@ EJ PDA 0QOOAT It did not disappoint. held by Goldikova, another Stakes at Goodwood 11 days Moonlight Cloud, the French heroine and her earlier. Godolphin’s Dawn @EIEJQPERAłRAUA=NKH@I=NA former stablemate in trainer Approach, a disappointing with a truckload of courage, Freddy Head’s barn. It was łBPD=OPDAB=RKNEPA =HOK unanimously voiced that here came from the Sussex, losing there by a narrow margin. was a legendary performance, reinforced by this fact: Moonlight Cloud had raced one week before, triumphing in Deauville’s Group 1 Prix Mauricede Gheest for the third time as she

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October 2013 | 1 Horses Raced in 11 Horses in Europe EUROPE Were Champions and/or SWs They won 17 Stakes Races, 11 Group Races, 2 Championships

including Champion Older Staying Filly or Mare in England G1 Prix Vermeille winner SWEET STREAM Champion Filly at 2 in Ireland TORGAU G2 Futurity winner FIRST CORNERSTONE G2 Prix Eugene Adam winner TRIPLE THREAT G2 Prix Vicomtesse Vigier winner BRIGANTIN

Barry Irwin Bradley Weisbord INTERNATIONAL www.teamvalor.com The Jacques le Marois was enters the Breeders’ Cup Look at the human athletes. DEOłBPD?KJOA?QPERA$NKQL Classic after winning the They don’t dehydrate race in 99 days. Both horses -=?Eł? H=OOE?IKNAPD=JPSK themselves before the race.” D=@ŃKSJ months ago. What explains Lasix is one explanation to that question, and there from Ireland to England for this major divergence? are several. The particular the Sussex, back to Ireland George Strawbridge Jr., and later to France. nature of horse racing makes who bred and owns Moonlight anecdote and logic a clear Declaration of War showed Cloud, races in Europe frontrunner to the normally no wear and tear. Ten days and America and keenly O?=JP O?EAJPEł? ARE@AJ?A later, O’Brien saddled him observes both landscapes. He So for this article, the in the Group 1 Juddmonte immediately points to Lasix opinions of some of the most International at York. With as the main offender. “The successful trainers in Europe an added two and a half recovery time would not allow were solicited, plus American furlongs in front of him, trainers and owners. What it,” he says. “Whenever you he triumphed over the best follows is what they had to dehydrate a horse t o middle-distance horses in say. Britain – his third race in that extent, it is According to statistics three weeks. Only soft ground not possible. compiled by the kept him from headlining International Federal the Group 1 Irish Champion of Horseracing Authorities, horses Stakes at Leopardstown 17 in Europe average days after that. about the same This state of affairs number of starts, seems unthinkable in six per year, American racing. Two as horses races in a week? An domestically. extended campaign with a start every two and a half weeks? The best American horses routinely race every six weeks, save for the Triple Crown; Game on Dude, for instance, D=O N=?A@ łRA PEIAO since early February, his average layoff 49 days, = łCQNA OAP PK NEOA KJ?A DA

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October 2013 | 2 four times – on turf, like his European peers – since then. “When you handle a horse that can run like this the temptation is to run him every couple of weeks,” Morton Fink, Wise Dan’s owner, said after the six-year- old gelding’s record-setting Woodbine Mile performance on Sept. 15. “He is a money machine. It will never happen as long as Charlie [Lopresti, his trainer] and I have anything to do with him.” Fink however signaled that Wise Dan would likely SKRWR3DWULFN0F&DQQ race in the Shadwell Mile at Keeneland three weeks It is well a regular “I’d have to say that later, his same setup for the known that participant Breeders’ Cup Mile as last American in the best many of the best year. horses used mile races, Declaration of War, a four- to race horses we’ve had Bolger’s year-old son of War Front almost twice three-year- bred in Kentucky by Joe as frequently here, like Giant’s old homebred Allen, raced seven times in before the Trading Causeway, Galileo, @=UO =HH>QPKJAKBPDAI introduction Leather has Group 1 races. O’Brien said of Lasix in Rock of Gibraltar kept longer the 1970s. distances; he does not make any hard In group or were able to show he began and fast rules on the spacing graded races, his season of races; with some horses, however, up for the big races on May 16 the next day he would hardly horses in time after time.” at York and know they’d had a race, while Europe raced three others can take longer to appear to —Aidan O’Brien PEIAO EJ  recover. In other words, the compete days. Then individual horse tells you. with greater he won the “As I’ve said many times frequency than their Irish Derby at the Curragh before Declaration of War has American counterparts, even KJ 'QJA   NA?AERA@ = BKQN an unbelievable constitution, though the latter – or perhaps SAAG NAOP  =J@ D=O łJEODA@ so I don’t think it’s entirely because of this – encounter second or third against older fair on the American-trained year-round racing, as horses in three Group 1 races horses to use him as a basis compared to the spring-to- since then. for comparison,” O’Brien says. fall European calendar. By comparison, reigning “But I’d have to say that many This season, trainers Aidan American champion Wise of the best horses we’ve had O’Brien and Jim Bolger have Dan made his seasonal bow here, like Giant’s Causeway, become models for running a month before Trading Galileo, Rock of Gibraltar their hardier horses time and Leather, in the Maker’s Mile were able to show up for the again. With Dawn Approach at Keeneland, and has raced big races time after time.”

October 2013 | 3 GRADE 1 EXACTA

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THINK THOROUGHBRED… THINK IRELAND! 3OHDVHFRQWDFW,70RQRULQIR#LWPLH YLVLWXVRQOLQHDWZZZLWPLH SKRWR(GZDUG:KLWDNHU “Obviously a lot of the horses are pretty tough here... But it’s a strange thing. It’s slightly like saying the ˆ‘‘–‹•„‡‹‰ϐ‹––‡†–‘–Š‡•Š‘‡Ǥ” —Trainer John Gosden The season, too, is shorter. list as the principal reason two of Gosden’s stars, are O’Brien pointed out that for these short layoffs. proper examples. The Fugue, there are no Group 1 races in “Obviously a lot of the horses a four-year-old daughter Britain and Ireland until the are pretty tough here,” he of Dansili, easily defeated IKJPD KB *=U 1DA łTPQNA says. “But it’s a strange her own sex in the Group 1 list, as they call it, shoe-horns thing. It’s slightly like 6KNGODENA,=GOKJQC =O the big races from April to O=UEJCPDABKKPEO>AEJCłPPA@ part of the British Champion mid-fall, and they often lay to the shoe.” He continues: Series, and so returned close to one another, as in “The program is becoming the 13 days separating the increasingly crowded with quickly against the boys in Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe at major festival races. And the Irish Champion Stakes on Longchamp and Champions we have the highest quality Sept. 7, where she outstayed Day at Ascot. of turf racing here….People Al Kazeem, a winner of three John Gosden, one of want to compete.” Group 1 races this season Europe’s most successful The aforementioned who was making his sixth PN=EJANO  ?EPAO PDA łTPQNA Elusive Kate and The Fugue, start since late April.

October 2013 | 4 Gosden suggested however But, Gosden adds, “We would So much purse money is that short layoffs generally say that you run your Triple concentrated in races for demand a longer one Crown in a little bit of a two and three-year-olds, thereafter. Moonlight Cloud, DQNNU &P†O =HH KRAN EJ łRA which offers disincentives for instance, will return to weeks, isn’t it?” for hanging around, but this the races about seven weeks Indeed, the Triple Crown OPEHH @AłAO >AHEAB OEJ?A PDA older horses should better after her course-record reveals a lesson that when handle the rigors of frequent double, in the Prix de la Foret their hands are forced, racing. Take Cross at Longchamp on Arc day. American trainers – and 1N=Bł?  PDA DECDHU NAC=N@A@ But for the Cambridge their exceptional charges – Whitney winner. The four- graduate, who trained in are occasionally still up to year-old son of Unbridled’s California for a decade until the challenge. The old-school Song didn’t make the races returning to England in barns of Shug McGaughey until this year, so you might 1989, Gosden remembers a and D. Wayne Lukas, for assume he had a lot in the much hardier horse then. example, made every dance tank. His average layoff has been almost 50 days. “In the old condition books this year with Orb, Oxbow Following a heartbreaking everything used to turn and Will Take Charge. Will loss in the Met Mile on May around every two weeks,” he Take Charge then ran second  „ DEO BKQNPD N=?A OEJ?A says. “If you were going for in the Jim Dandy and won the breaking his maiden on Jan. the Santa Anita Handicap, Travers and Pennsylvania  „ DA NAPQNJA@  @=UO you’d have the San Antonio Derby, starts separated by later in the Whitney. His win two weeks ahead of the Big four weeks; the Breeders’ that day offered a glimpse of Cap. But two to three weeks Cup Classic will be his 10th a breakout star. was very much the norm.” start of the year. The best It looked like he’d wheel The San Antonio now sits older horses are seen far less. back in the Woodward, but four weeks before the Big trainer Todd Pletcher decided to pass the race and wait for Cap. Game on Dude won both the Jockey Club Gold Cup. this year. %A łJEODA@ OA?KJ@PK last after stumbling 7KH)XJXHZLQQLQJWKH*URXS'DUOH\ badly at the start. AEJCPD=P NKOO1N=Bł? either couldn’t handle both races, or his trainer saw no reason to try.

October 2013 | 5 Horses Raced in 23 Imports NORTH From Europe AMERICA Have Won 45 Stakes, 22 Graded Stakes including winners of G1 Santa Anita Derby THE DEPUTY G1 Santa Anita Handicap MARTIAL LAW G1 Woodbine Mile BECRUX G1 Goodwood Stakes GITANO HERNANDO

Barry Irwin Bradley Weisbord INTERNATIONAL www.teamvalor.com 7UDLQHU6KXJ0F*DXJKH\ZLWK'HUE\ZLQQHU2UE +RUVHSKRWRVFRP “There are so many opportunities around that you can afford to wait to race and train in between...We have 12 months of top racing in different places and different jurisdictions. We can miss a good race here or there.” —Trainer Shug McGaughey There are other similar @=UO H=IAN=?A@łRAPEIAO might generate more starts, examples. Last year, Wise PD=P UA=N &J   /=?DAH but then again the largest !=J SAJP łRA BKN OET  BNKI Alexandra never tasted defeat stables there, like Godolphin late April to early November, in eight starts, and of course or Coolmore, are driven by with an average of 41 days won the Preakness two weeks prestige, not dollars. between starts. He had after the Kentucky Oaks. “There are so many no trouble winning the There is a thinking among opportunities around that 0D=@SAHH *EHA  @=UO =BPAN American trainers that the you can afford to wait to race the Woodbine Mile, and the opportunities of year-round and train in between,” says NAA@ANO† QL *EHA  @=UO racing and purse largess trainer Shug McGaughey. after the Shadwell. Havre de across the country allow them ļ4A D=RA  IKJPDO KB PKL $N=?A  EJ   I=@A OARAJ to pick their spots. There is racing in different places and trips to post in seven-and- also a desire among the new different jurisdictions. We a-half months. During her generation of trainers to can miss a good race here or  ?D=ILEKJODEL OA=OKJ  keep their win percentages there.” Zenyatta raced six times, high. Prize money in Britain The Breeders’ Cup, for an average layoff of 48 is famously low, which McGaughey added, dictates

October 2013 | 6 the late summer and fall is the incongruity of that who won’t run their horses schedule; wanting to keep the decision in American racing back quickly and there are powder dry, no trainer will circles that it was met with owners who won’t let us run race close to that weekend. shock. them back in a fortnight.” Moreover, he pointed out Back in England, trainer 1SKPEIA $NKQL  SEJJAN Belmont recently carded a Mark Johnston attempts Universal, who Johnston   KRANJECDP OP=GAO to answer this question trains for Abdullah al whereas Churchill had a by delineating between Mansoori, was one of the hard similar $150,000 stakes the American and European knockers of the European following week. A trainer training methods. He is often season. He raced four times in can enter and scratch if he singled out for running his under two months this winter chooses. “We’re not forced to horses back quickly. in Dubai, including two races run back on short rest,” he “I think nothing of it at in a week, and then came to says. all frankly,” he says. “But England, where he earned You’d expect sprinters at the same time, I wouldn’t his way out of handicaps and would take less time to be breezing – what you into group races. His layoffs recover, and to some degree call breezing, what we call looked like this: six days, 14, that seems true. For example, galloping – at home. I’m a 14. Following a short break, Trinniberg raced eight big believer in letting them this pattern was mostly times last year during his do their fast work on the repeated with a pair of Group championship season, about racecourse. It fascinates  łTPQNAO =J@ PDA $NKQL  once a month between March me that there are trainers – King George VI at Ascot. and September, when he was particularly when you look Sadly, the tough horse afforded a six-week layoff to the United States – but broke his pastern in early before the Breeders’ Cup. there are trainers at home, September, an injury which Probably the only trainer occurred during his longest to embrace short layoffs period away from the races. in recent years was Rick He would have tried for Dutrow, like when Group 1 glory thrice more, in Willy Beamin Ireland, Canada, and Japan. upset last year’s Besides the style of King’s Bishop training, there is the setting. Stakes three Most horses in days after Europe are winning graced the state- bred Albany Stakes; such with

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October 2013 | 7 THE PAULYN DISPERSAL

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THINK THOROUGHBRED… THINK IRELAND! 3OHDVHFRQWDFW,70RQRULQIR#LWPLH YLVLWXVRQOLQHDWZZZLWPLH SKRWR(GZDUG:KLWDNHU “My experience in America, training on American ovals in cities and such, it is without question a much harder environment to train a racehorse than a European environment.”

—Trainer Jeremy Noseda opportunities to train over says a dirt horse must run furlongs are normally the stamina-building terrain in through dirt and a turf horse penultimate two furlongs – pastoral settings. runs over turf, and Noseda maybe not the last furlong, “It’s much easier to get returns time and again to but the second-last and third- = DKNOA łP  D=N@  D=N@ łP  the contrasting tempo and last furlongs are normally under European training style between races on these the quickest part of the race. conditions than it is training surfaces. So our horses aren’t being KJ = Ń=P @ENP KR=H ‡ O=UO “The demands on a horse taken to that same level of… English trainer Jeremy in a dirt race are acutely exhaustion at the end of a Noseda. “My experience more than in a turf race,” race, like American horses.” in America, training on he says. “Our turf races This observation begs American ovals in cities and would not bear resemblance the question if American such, it is without question to a dirt race where a horse grass horses are racing with a much harder environment is decelerating in the last greater frequency than their to train a racehorse than a quarter mile and running dirt counterparts. This seems European environment.” OHKSANPD=JPDAłNOPMQ=NPAN only intermittently the case. There is a refrain that In our races, the quickest Wise Dan had an easy summer

October 2013 | 8 before a likely three-race fall “I’ve looked back on short rest….I think some campaign. Big Blue Kitten of the horses today, you SKJ PDA 2JEPA@ +=PEKJO  at my older horses have to space them out a days after the Monmouth and they could little bit.” This squares with Stakes; otherwise, his layoffs physiological sense. Owner averaged almost 44 days. handle a lot more. Bill Casner, who took his Last year, Little Mike ably It takes a little bit horses off the popular traveled from east to west diuretic, observed extreme and in between, for a start longer to bounce weight loss in some of his every 46 days in a seven-race back, with the time horses. campaign from January to “We weigh them the November. The Phipps bay to dehydrate and morning after they’ve -KEJPKB"JPNUSKJPDA the weight they lose. hydrated all night long, and Elkhorn Stakes at Keeneland horses will lose anywhere 15 days after snagging an I think it makes it from 35 pounds on up,” he told the Thoroughbred Daily allowance there; after two hard to bounce back News last year. “A bucket and a half months off, he won of water weighs 40 pounds three Grade 1 turf routes in from that on short and these horses will usually New York before losing to rest….I think some drink a couple of buckets of Little Mike in the Breeders’ of the horses today, water from the time they’re Cup turf. His average layoff cooled out until the next between those races was 37 you have to space morning. They’ve consumed days. This is at the mercy of 80 pounds of water, yet the NYRA stakes calendar. them out a little bit.” they’ve still lost 35 pounds When this subject was —Shug McGaughey on up.” łNOP >NK=?DA@ SEPD “Trainers in this day McGaughey, he immediately /DVW\HDU¶V+RUVHRIWKH

October 2013 | 9 Mares Bought Breeding Fillies & Mares in Europe When WORLDWIDE Mated by Barry Irwin Have Produced

EclipseE Champion, G1G Kentucky Derby, G1 World Cup, $8.4$ Million in Earnings ANIMAL KINGDOM Champion,C G1 Japanese Derby, LeadingL Sire in Japan KING KAMEHAMEHA G2G Prix Eugene Adam TRIPLE THREAT G2G Prix Vicomtesse Vigier BRIGANTIN G1G Goodwood Stakes GITANO HERNANDO MaresMa Bought iinn EuropeE Produced ChampionC in Japan, GG1 American Oaks, Japanese Oaks CESARIO

Barry Irwin Bradley Weisbord

INTERNATIONAL www.teamvalor.com “I never found a problem with a horse performing below par 96 hours later,” he says. “So without knowing, I’m not sure if Lasix is a good enough reason.” There is certainly a desire in the States, for commercial breeding purposes, to remain spotless on the track. NAA@ANO ARANUSDANA @AłJA what happens on the track. In Germany, all the big races =NA NQJ =P  BQNHKJCO  OK breeders produce sturdy horses. Australian trainers seem to delight in racing their horses on short rest – making Europe look mild %DUU\,UZLQZLWK.HQWXFN\'HUE\ZLQQHU$QLPDO.LQJGRPSKRWR+RUVHSKRWRV by comparison – and the best ones often contest a problem, anything of that “Whittingham would train 10-furlong Group 1 on nature, she could still be bred them long. They would be doing three-eighths, two half- Saturday before tackling because she had the pedigree IEHAO  PSK łRAAECDPDO  PSK the two-mile Melbourne and then the foal would go to three-quarters, two seven- Cup on Tuesday. Hence the sales.” eighths, two mile works. Australian horses are bred “It is very noticeable to me as a trainer,” he continues, Then, if they’d done that and for durability. It’s no secret done it to his liking – and that the majority of American “and you can discuss this with any trainer in Europe, we’re talking proper works breeders prioritize speed and now, on the clock, miles in 37 precocity over durability and but the breed has got a lot softer and weaker. And that and change, 38 – once they’d resilience. done that they could run.” Gosden says you have to is largely due to the fact that people bred a lot to the Gosden says nobody trains assume the breed is getting that way any more because softer, and American horses sales, and the old traditional breeders would’ve culled that the horses cannot handle it. more delicate and fragile, if So the horses changed, not stock. They wouldn’t have they require a large amount the trainers? dreamt of breeding to it. Nor of recovery time between “There was a lot of that major races. would they dream of breeding adapting to the horse and “We can talk about to a stallion that required also there was a lot of…” he medication as long as various medications.” sighed, “I don’t know, there you like, but medication He believes that European was a lot of protecting the obviously allows a less horses are not as tough as horse more. For the old purist durable individual to race,” he remembers from 30 years trainers, if the horse could he says. “But I think the ago, perhaps in part because not stand its preparation, other major factor is that, of imported American then it doesn’t really deserve from 1980 onwards, people stock. Of course, American the right to run. They didn’t started breeding for the sales horses were once heralded PNUPKł@@HAPDAI=HKJCPKPDA and not so much breeding the world over for the very races, they trained them.” to race. And that meant thing they now lack. Gosden Barry Irwin, the globe- PD=P EB = łHHU S=O NAH=PA@ PK recalls watching Charlie trotting president of something decent, even if Whittingham during his Team Valor International, she was unsound, had a wind time in California. concurred with Gosden.

October 2013 | 10 *HRUJH6WUDZEULGJH OHIW ZLWK0*:U)DQWDVLDDIWHUWKH*URXS1HOO*Z\Q6DW1HZPDUNHW SKRWR(GZDUG:KLWDNHU “In Europe you see the beauty and nobility of this animal. It’s a different feeling running there because it’s the horse’s ability against the other horse’s ability.” —George Strawbridge “I can’t begin to tell you how Mott as one of the few. the track makes it harder to IQ?D łPPAN PDA DKNOAO KRAN In his early years on the market the sport, harder to there are,” he says. “They’re track, Irwin says, a horse sell the stars. Rarer still to training on a forgiving would jog a minimum of łJ@PDAIANE?=J*KKJHECDP surface, so they can go 30 days and gallop 60 days Cloud. all out on turf. Here we’re before a recorded breeze, As a result, George training around soundness.” often up to 45 and 90 days. 0PN=S>NE@CA łJ@O DEIOAHB Horses racing on dirt “give “Now, a guy jogs two weeks breeding and racing more everything they’ve got and and gallops a month before often in Europe. He likes to they can’t run back in a he starts breezing,” he says. see his horses race. week.” “Sometimes less.” That said, Irwin says he sees What’s left is a horse “In Europe you see the a follow-the-herd mentality that cannot race with any beauty and nobility of this =J@H=?GKB?KJł@AJ?A=IKJC regularity even if the trainer animal,” he says, “It’s a trainers here. “There are so wants to. Given all the different feeling running few guys in this country who explanations, the effects seem there because it’s the horse’s put a foundation in a horse,” clear-cut: the rarity of seeing ability against the other he says, singling out Bill the best American horses on horse’s ability.”

October 2013 | 11