It would therefore come as something of a surprise when on scanning the entries, or being notified by tracker e-mails, to discover that he was engaged in a Grade 1 event at Keeneland the Friday before last and was now running from the Chad Brown barn.
We know Juddmonte have long operated successfully stateside, from the times when John Gosden was based in California, followed by Bobby Frankel. In fact the rise in the number of valuable Group races in Europe confined to older fillies and mares was a response to the number of female horses continuing their career in North America.
But in this case with a lightly raced four year old gelding who evidently is not a bleeder, the only reason he could be continuing on in another continent while remaining in the Juddmonte ownership would be for prize money reasons only. He was touched off by a nose at Keeneland and received over the equivalent of £70,000 sterling for his efforts.
It's hardly a new trend. Theatrical who was a smart performer with Dermot Weld went stateside with great success in the mid 1980's. The 1990 Juddmonte owned Derby winner Quest For Fame, continued on with Bobby Frankel and won a moderately contested Grade 1 at Hollywood Park. He had been a below average winner of the Epsom race. Further back, the 1974 Derby winner Snow Knight continued on in the states, not to mention three notable French trained animals in Flying Water, Exceller and the legendary Dahlia.
And in recent times the Epsom Derby runner up Main Sequence improved massively over there - though in his case he bbv'd regularly when racing in England and clearly left to take advantage of the anti bleeding medication permitted in most of the North American states.
It probably would be unfair to include the top 1976 juvenile J.O. Tobin. Noel Murless was retiring and his American owner preferred to take the colt back home, a move that most certainly impacted on some of the top mile and ten furlong races in 1977. With Blushing Groom remaining in France for the Poulains you would have at least expected him to have won the Newmarket 2,000 Guineas in which Nebbiolo defeated The Minstrel. As things turned out he proved a massive success racing in the land of his birth.
For someone who in 1976 was in his second year of being completely smitten by the sport, you had to wonder whether top of the tree juveniles would be regularly making one journeys across the Atlantic, as from memory you had no precedent to go on.
But returning to the present, the possibility of an increased number of horses moving to another continent before even being tested in the early stages of their three year old careers is disquieting. The Donnacha O'Brien trained Sissoko was a highly promising juvenile who finished runner up to Luxembourg in the Vertem Futurity and being by Australia appealed as one who would be a much better three year old, up to competing in the valuable middle distance events.
Many would therefore have a little bewildered when the announcement was made that he was bought to race on in Hong Kong, a peninsula that is better known for sprinters with the majority of purchases from Europe falling into this category. His new name is not yet listed over here but he has gone for sure, holding no future European entries and missing from the list in O'Brien's entries in Horses In Training. One surely would have thought that they would at least give him half a season in Europe to accurately assess the level he could reach.
This long established trend whereby horses sold to race in Hong Kong undergo a name change seems unnecessary and to a small extent messes up many of the modern, computerised form books.Timeform’s database will at least have a note in the entry under the original name, that the animal has moved to Hong Kong to be campaigned under the stated new name. If on the other hand you search under the new name, there is no link to the animal under the original one. There are no updates as of yet with Sissoko.
The Racing Post database is even more unhelpful. Once an animal changes name it copies over into all previous races. Thus if for example you look at the 2006 St Leger Yearling Stakes, the one staged at York when they were rebuilding the stand at Doncaster, you may be a tad baffled at not being able to remember the winner, Helene Brilliant, ridden by Frankie Dettori.
The runner up will of course be most familiar being the following season’s 2,000 Guineas victor Cockney Rebel, making that renewal of the York race one of the most significant events of its type in the last couple of decades. But you’d need to dip into a paper form book to discover that Helene Brilliant won that restricted sales race under the name of Doctor Brown ( in picture).
Similarly, as the significant Derby trials will soon be upon us, many might start refreshing the memory by delving into the Dante’s over the past 15 years to assess whether the race is holding up its significance as a trial.
The 2009 renewal which resulted in Ballydoyle filling the first two places headed by Black Bear Island, was not one to have an impact on the Epsom race, but you’d need the loose leaf editions of the form book to assist after wondering why the name of the runner up, Straight Forward, fails to ignite the memory cells - again being another Hong Kong export job, the Galileo colt’s original name Freemantle perhaps vaguely still being in the memory. At least he was allowed to race for half of his three year old season in Europe, culminating in a fourth place finish in the Grand Prix De Paris, marking him as very smart but clearly off the very top level.
Admittedly, the purchase and transfer of horses to race in other jurisdictions has not up to now had any real notable detrimental impact on the sport here, the exception being horses being horses sold to race in Australia and the Middle East, who in times gone by would have been eyed up as prospective hurdling recruits by the big jumping yards.
But sooner or later something that is not even a steady trickle of equine talent to other continents may turn into a running tap with a continuous one way flow away from this part of the globe. It’s a trend now predicted by some of the most influential and respected voices in the game, a result of course of the failure of the overall prize money levels here being unable to even keep the other continents in sight. This is nothing new but the gap is widening and will increase at an alarming rate once the after affects of the unavoidable soon to be imposed gambling affordability checks.
This gloomy expectation now appears inevitable.Tradition and prestige only have so much mileage. And prestige itself cannot run on fresh air - it requires continued prize money boosts. In a time when programme changes and new races appear at a rate previously unimagined, expect to see more potentially top class horses leaving this continent before beginning their three year old career -and don't rule out one even in the J.O. Tobin league leaving early.
image taken by author
This tune was prominent in the charts when J.O.Tobin won the Champagne Stakes at Doncaster.
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