City Of Troy follows up Derby win by going deep for battling victory in Eclipse

It was a must-see moment for thousands of racing fans – including Victoria Starmer, the wife of the new prime minister – as City Of Troy raced in all-aged company for the first time in the Eclipse Stakes, and they saw a different side of the Derby winner, as he was forced to dig deep on rain-softened ground to beat the four-year-old Al Riffa by a length at odds of 1-4.

Aidan O’Brien, City Of Troy’s trainer, suggested afterwards that it had been touch and go whether we would see the winner at all.

“We were very worried in the Dewhurst [at Newmarket last October] and we took the chance, but walking it today, it was way deeper,” he said. “It was soft, tough, deep ground, and in all fairness to the lads [in the Coolmore Stud syndicate which owns City Of Troy], 15 years ago they would have taken him out.”

Ryan Moore, City Of Troy’s jockey, settled him a few lengths behind Hans Andersen, his stable companion and pacemaker, through the first mile and urged him to take closer with two furlongs to run. He was in front a furlong out but did not ease clear as he had at Epsom, and for a few strides it seemed possible that Dylan Browne McMonagle, on Al Riffa, was closing at sufficient speed to chase him down.

It was only in the final half-furlong that City Of Troy found a little more to secure the win, but while it looked like hard work from the stands – much harder than the starting price of 1-4 might have implied – the jockey on the runner-up had a slightly
different view.

“Dylan said to me coming in, he thought he had him, but then he went again,” O’Brien said. “I had it in my head that we’d be staying completely wide at the bottom bend and come up the middle of the track, where the ground was way better, but Ryan said after going [wide] to the first fence [on the National Hunt course], he was going to go back in.

“I was very afraid but obviously they made the right decision. That’s specialist ground for horses. It didn’t go according to plan, and I’m just delighted that the lads are that way now, and they’ll race rather than not race.”

As ever, the syndicate will take their time – and wait to be sure that City Of Troy has taken this tough race well – before making firm plans for his next race. The Breeders’ Cup Classic at Del Mar, though, seems increasingly likely to be the final race of his career, and he showed exactly the fighting qualities here that could be required in a stretch run on the Californian dirt.

“I would imagine they’ll have a look at either the Juddmonte [International at York in August] or the [Irish] Champion [at Leopardstown in September], and after that, maybe look at America,” O’Brien said. “Everything with him is good ground or better. I’d think it could be the Classic [at the Breeders’ Cup]. That’s what he’s bred to be, he’s a dirt horse on both sides really.”

Ground management at Haydock will come under renewed scrutiny after the track was forced to abandon its high-profile Lancashire Oaks card after four of the scheduled seven races due to unsafe ground on the home turn.

Three horses slipped independently on the final bend in the second race on the card, and while the feature race went ahead after an inspection of the course by officials, jockeys and trainers, some of the riders who took part still had concerns about the course. The decision was then taken to abandon the rest of the meeting, with the exception of a nursery handicap on the straight course.