RACING:AIDAN O'BRIEN heads into this week's York Ebor festival in sizzling Group One form after Cape Blanco and Treasure Beach provided Ireland's champion trainer with a memorable top-flight double in Chicago on Saturday night.
Cape Blanco again comprehensively defeated America’s top turf horse Gio Ponti when winning the Arlington Million under Jamie Spencer while Treasure Beach (Colm O’Donoghue) got the better of a sustained stretch-duel with the French horse Ziyard to land the Secretariat Stakes.
Only once before had a trainer won two of the three Grade One features on the prestigious Million card and that was the late Bobby Frankel who also completed the Million-Secretariat double with Chester House and Chiselling in 2002.
The legendary California-based Frankel still holds the world record for Group/Grade One wins in a year with his 25 in 2003. O’Brien has twice hit the 23 mark, in 2001 and 2008, and after his Arlington weekend exploits, the Irishman’s top class tally for 2011 is currently 11.
Await The Dawn is a hot favourite for Wednesday’s Juddmonte International at York and Wonder Of Wonders is also a likely starter in this week’s Yorkshire Oaks.
Cape Blanco notched a second prize of the year in America with his two and a half length success in the Million, a race O’Brien also won with Powerscourt in 2005. The year before Jamie Spencer had been on board Powerscourt when he was demoted from first by the stewards.
It was a happier experience for Spencer this time.
“He’s a good tough horse and he’s brilliantly trained. All I did was the steering,” Spencer added.
“He is very lazy, he only does what you ask him but you know he will get you there and always is going to find plenty. Even in the last furlong I had a look around and he idled for a few strides.”
The Irishman paid tribute to Cape Blanco’s owners, Jim and Fitri Hay who retain his services, and the 2010 Irish Derby winner could return to the US again later in the year for the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Churchill Downs.
This year’s Irish Derby winner Treasure Beach was heralded as the best European runner ever to have started in the Secretariat and he lived up to the billing by a neck.
“I wasn’t too sure if there was going to be a whole lot of pace in the race, so I would have been happy to make the running myself.
“But I felt that the pace was consistent throughout, I thought Christophe (Lemaire) on Ziyard gave a perfect pace,” O’Donoghue said.
“He came back from France (Grand Prix de Paris) well and conditions were perfect today. I think he goes in anything really. Even though he possibly didn’t run as we thought he would in the Grand Prix, he came out of the race perfect.
“Aidan was quite bemused by it. But he was in good form so Aidan just sent him,” the jockey added.
O’Brien didn’t travel to Chicago for the races but the Coolmore representative Charlie O’Connor was emphatic when asked about the importance of Grade One victories in the USA.
After Treasure Beach’s win, he said: “Absolutely. Being a son of Galileo, that is the goal, to make these horses stallions.”
The third Grade One on Saturday night’s card, the Beverly D Stakes, was won by the 2009 French Oaks winner Stacelita who was having her first start for new American trainer Chad Brown, a former assistant to Bobby Frankel.
