The reality is that a few million pounds in prize money cannot compete with the stallion-making power of established events
Aidan O'Brien is famously reticent in his post-race interviews but he was adamant on one issue at least after So You Think's victory in the Irish Champion Stakes at Leopardstown on Saturday evening. So You Think, Coolmore Stud's middle-distance standard-bearer now that Pour Moi has been retired, will be a stallion himself soon enough. In the meantime, though, O'Brien seemed eager to stress that this is a horse that will stand some racing.
Back in Australia, where So You Think started his racing career, the idea that a top-class horse might have two or three races in a short period of time would not surprise anyone. A run in the Cox Plate or Caulfield Cup, both Group One events, is considered a standard preparation for the Melbourne Cup, no more than a fortnight later, and So You Think himself won the Cox last year before running third in the Melbourne Cup.
In America the Triple Crown is played out over the space of five weeks and the belief that one cannot win the Kentucky Derby without plenty of seasoning is all but written into the Constitution. In Europe we prefer to take our time. The Prix Niel, to be run at Longchamp this Sunday, was named as the unfortunate Pour Moi's next assignment as soon as he won the Derby in June whereas Frankel will have been off the track for nearly three months by the time he goes to Ascot in mid-October.
O'Brien's insistence that a mature So You Think could cope with a busy autumn schedule has particular relevance, given the arrival of Ascot's Champions Day in the end-of-season calendar. The new card, the richest ever staged in Britain, falls 13 days after the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe and three weeks before the Breeders' Cup meeting in Kentucky. The standard, cautious European approach would be to target the events at either end of the sequence but, where So You Think is concerned, O'Brien seems to feel that Longchamp-Ascot, or, perhaps more plausibly, Ascot-Kentucky, would not be an issue.
But whether John Magnier, the owner of both So You Think and Coolmore Stud, will concur is another matter and it is pointless to pretend that commercial considerations will not be just as important in the decision-making process as sporting ones.
On that basis the Arc and the Breeders' Cup have a significant head-start over Champions Day and seem likely to keep it for as long as the Ascot meeting is the mid-October meat in the sandwich. Prize money has little to do with it. What matters at this level is how much you can charge per cover when a champion goes to stud and an extra �10,000 on 150 covers a year will soon overtake any amount of winnings on the track.
If Champions Day is ever to enjoy the same allure as Arc weekend or the Breeders' Cup ? and, given Britain's racing heritage, that should surely be an ambition ? it will need to escape from its current slot, to a position in the calendar where a suitable horse could conceivably complete an autumn Triple Crown in Britain, France and America.
The most realistic date, however, is the weekend coming up or the one just gone, as mid-September is a week too close to the Arc. Yet both already have Group One cards, at Doncaster and Haydock respectively, which neither track is likely to surrender.
Racing in Britain will realise its full potential only when, or if, the calendar is designed for the benefit of top-class racing as a whole and it would be a significant step forward to have a showpiece autumn meeting in its ideal spot in the calendar. Instead Champions Day seems to have been squeezed in where it causes the least offence, which shows how far we still have to travel.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2011/sep/05/racing-champions-day-badly-timed
No comments:
Post a Comment