THE WORLD CUP : THE LOWDOWN

Animal Kingdom
(Image : Cecil Scene)

$10,000,000 DUBAI WORLD CUP (Group 1)
Meydan, All Weather, 2000m
30 March 2013

America’s TDN ran an illuminating scientific study on Animal Kingdom’s victory in the Dubai World Cup yesterday. Here it is:

How impressive was Animal Kingdom?

Quite. The first winner of the G1 Kentucky Derby/G1 Dubai World Cup double since Silver Charm capped the feat in 1998, Animal Kingdom (Leroidesanimaux) plotted a wide, but clear trip from an outside barrier draw Saturday. His final winning margin of two lengths was misleadingly cozy. At the finish, Animal Kingdom traveled 17 metres more than Red Cadeaux (GB) (Cadeaux Genereux), closing fast at the rail. Covering an extra 17 meters is the equivalent of approximately 6.5 lengths of added ground traveled. Adjusting the final margin of victory for this ground coverage suggests that the Graham Motion trainee was more than eight lengths better than rail-skimming Red Cadeaux. Given several days to absorb the data, it seems appropriate to suggest Animal Kingdom ran the best race of his life to date.

One added way to review the data from the Dubai World Cup is to compare the average speeds of horses. Horses asked to plot wider courses have to run faster to maintain their position. If four horses were lined across the course and began to corner, in order for a widely planted horse to hold his position, he would absolutely have to run faster than a horse to his inside. Animal Kingdom never lost position in running, expending more energy with the highest cruising speed in running.

After 1,200 meters of the Dubai World Cup, here is the position of each horse, in order, with their average speed to this point in the race.

Following these first six furlongs, Animal Kingdom had traveled seven meters (about 2 3/4 lengths) more than leader Royal Delta (Empire Maker), and 11 meters (about 4 1/4 lengths) more than Red Cadeaux.

At the finish, Animal Kingdom was still in control, running the second fastest final 100 metres behind only Red Cadeaux’s time, and averaging 0.7 kph more than that rival over the course of the race. Overall, Animal Kingdom’s individual sectional times are massively impressive, running 0.33 seconds faster in his fifth 400-meter segment than the fourth segment, and clocking the single fastest split in the race, from the 1600-meter pole to the 1200-meter pole in :23.20. Once Joel Rosario recognized that neither Planteur (Ire) (Danehill Dancer), who made all the running in his previous race, nor African Story (GB) (Pivotal), stretching-out off mid-pack trips in one-turn races, were interested in running forward, Rosario seized the initiative and prompted the obvious front-runner in Royal Delta.

Take note of Animal Kingdom’s sectional times below (North American readers should note that race-timing in the UAE, and much of the world, begins with an electric pulse tied to the starter’s gate-opening mechanism, yielding the slow, in appearance, opening quarter).

Animal Kingdom’s Sectional Times
400m	:26.98
800m	:23.20
1200m	:23.60
1600m	:24.88
2000m	:24.55

While the entire final 400-meter segment of the race is run in the home stretch, given Animal Kingdom’s earlier fractions, his ability to stay on really puts this performance into magnificent territory. In three previous runnings of this race at Meydan, Gloria De Campeao (Brz) (Impression) walked slow and free on the lead, Victoire Pisa (Jpn) (Neo Universe)’s fastest 400m segment was his last after he made a last-to-first backstretch move into a mind-bogglingly slow pace, and Monterosso (Fr) (Invincible Spirit) had the pleasure of running into the fastest of the four early paces in the running of the race on Tapeta.

Over the history of all-weather racing at Meydan, 38 races out of 51 at 1,200 metres were faster than the 2013 G1 Dubai Golden Shaheen, 46 races out of 49 at 1,900 meters were faster than the 2013 G2 UAE Derby, and 59 out of 65 races at 1,600 meters were faster than the 2013 G2 Godolphin Mile.

The all-weather surface at Meydan has shown a tendency to quicken slightly as temperatures cool in the desert, a phenomenon experienced in past years. The sun was setting as the Derby ran, while it was dark during the Golden Shaheen. Still, there was no cold front that swooped in and provided a wildly different course roughly two hours after the Golden Shaheen; let there be no doubt that Animal Kingdom’s race in the Dubai World Cup was phenomenal. Overall, this year’s edition ranks as the fifth-fastest race from 31 at the distance, significantly faster than the trends from earlier races on the night.

Wherever Animal Kingdom goes from here, there is no doubting his performance in the 2013 Dubai World Cup will rank as one of his most impressive.

Makes you wonder how good Golden Sword was, at his best. To this day, no horse has bettered his 2000 metre record for Dubai, and to put it into perspective, remember there have been 18 renewals of the Dubai World Cup at the distance.

Editor’s Note: We were recently in touch with Barry Irwin (CEO Team Valor) and owner and breeder of Animal Kingdom. This is what he had to say about the horse:

“I am glad most of all for what the horse has been able to do for himself. He is a real character and has a wellspring of talent that is very deep. The good ones need the right temperament and interest in order to capitalize on their talent and this horse fortunately is the complete package.”

STARS AND STRIPES AND STAR-SPANGLED BANNERS

Jean Cruguet with A.P. Arrow
(Image : Leigh Willson)

JEAN CRUGUET
“1977 US Triple Crown Winning Jockey”

If there’s any virtue in hardship, it’s that it makes us appreciate the good times when they come around, and there are any number of stories among the champions of the business, political and sporting worlds of people who grew up tough. How many kids have emerged from poverty with a greater hunger than their coddled contemporaries, how many rags-to-riches stories are there of people who’ve been driven by the memories of their deprivation and their envy of those who had it all?

Just as France’s “impregnable” Maginot Line was overrun by German invasionary forces in the spring of 1939, a toddler who was to inscribe his name into thoroughbred lore, was born to an impoverished French family in Agen. At the tender age of 5, Jean Cruguet was placed in an orphanage after his father abandoned the family, leaving his mother destitute. She had no choice, and from 10 to 16, the young Cruguet lived at a secondary school run by Catholic priests, where he faced all sorts of abuses, not the least because he was the smallest guy in the school. At 16, his size became his greatest asset, as an associate of his grandfather offered him work at a thoroughbred racetrack. A budding career in its embryo stages as a jockey was interrupted by mandatory military service in the French Foreign Legion in Algeria. Cruguet returned to thoroughbred racing after four years, and replaced the army-bound future champion, Yves St-Martin at the all-conquering stable of Francois Mathet, famed for his association with the Dupre horses which were to form the foundation in later years of the Aga Khan’s powerful breeding enterprise. A chance liaison led to his marriage to the supremely talented horsewoman, Denyse, a pioneering female in the French racing industry. Later in life, Jean acknowledged her abundant skills of horsemanship, when he said she was “the best horse I ever rode”. They soon decided to take their chances in the United States; it was the beginning of an explosion.

Cruguet had hardly arrived when he was offered the plum position of stable jockey for the celebrated conditioner, Horatio Luro, famed for polishing the talents of one of America’s greatest racehorses and certainly the world’s greatest stallion of all time, Northern Dancer. In 1969 he gave notice of things to come when he replaced Roberto’s rider, Braulio Baeza on the future Hall Of Fame inductee, Arts And Letters, charging home in the time-honoured Metropolitan Handicap at Belmont Park. In 1971, he was connected with the horse he claimed was the best he’d thrown a leg over thus far, coaxing Hoist The Flag to an unbeaten two and three-year-old campaign. Hoist The Flag suffered a career-ending injury in his preparation for the Wood Memorial in the lead up to the Kentucky Derby; the decision to pack him off to stud at the Hancock’s Claiborne Farm denying the colt a shot at the Triple Crown. That was the beginning of a highly productive career at stud where his progeny included the dual Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe champion, Alleged. The cruelty of fate raised its head again, when Hoist The Flag broke a leg at a time when his stud life was just beginning to blossom.

Little did Cruguet realise that there were even bigger fish to fry in the United States, as he and his wife decided to return to France for the 1972 season; this time he landed with his proverbial “bum-in-the-butter”, as he swept the major Group One races for fillies including the Prix Vermeille and the Poule d’Essai des Pouliches in France, as well as the Champion Stakes in England and wound up second in an abbreviated calendar in the French Jockey’s Championship. In the final session, he strapped his saddle over the back of the champion San San, whom he rode to all her wins, including the King George VI & Queen Elizabeth II Stakes for the storied Angel Penna Snr, bar one, and that was the only one that mattered to a Frenchman. He was prevented by injury from taking the ride in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, and the filly duly obliged for the flamboyant Countess Bathiany.

Jean Cruguet
Career Record 

MAJOR RACING WINS
Travers Stakes	1968
Metropolitan Handicap	1969
Toboggan Handicap	1969
Lawrence Realization Stakes	1969/1970/1975/1978
Cowdin Stakes	1970
Laurel Futurity	1970
Prix Vermeille	1972
Poule d’Essai des Pouliches	1972
Champion Stakes	1973
Manhattan Handicap	1974
Stuyvesant Handicap	1974
Alabama Stakes	1975/1983
Hopeful Stakes	1975/1976
Champagne Stakes	1976
Mother Goose Stakes	1976/1977
Flamingo Stakes	1977
Wood Memorial Stakes	1977/1984
Kentucky Derby	1977
Preakness Stakes	1977
Belmont Stakes	1977
US Triple Crown	1977
Futurity Stakes	1978
Washington DC International Stakes	1978/1993
Canadian International Stakes	1978/1989
Jerome Handicap	1979
Ladies Handicap	1979
Saranac Handicap	1979
Withers Stakes	1979
Blue Grass Stakes	1983
Tremont Stakes	1983
Coaching Club American Oaks	1984
Dwyer Stakes	1984
Knickerbocker Handicap	1985/1986/1988/1992

Cruguet paid us a surprise visit on Sunday, having been advised by any number of Kentucky horseman, that if he was to make the journey to South Africa, he was compelled to visit Summerhill. He tells us that his childhood reminds him constantly that life gives you one chance, and you need to make the best of it while you have your faculties about you. He and Denyse returned to the United States in 1973, and it wasn’t long before the diminutive Frenchman was setting the tracks of America alight again. The crowning moment came in 1976, when he teamed up with Billy Turner to ride the two-year-old colt Seattle Slew, who’d at $17,000 had been pretty much overlooked at the sales. “Slew” cruised to victory in the Champagne Stakes at Belmont Park, crowning an unbeaten season, and claiming the Juvenile champion’s title, as well as putting his hand up as a legitimate contender for the Triple Crown. To put this into perspective, the previous Triple Crown winner was Secretariat in 1971, and before him you’d have to go back to Citation in the 40s. The most recent Triple Crown winner was Affirmed in 1978, and no horse or rider since has been good enough to do it.

Watch Seattle Slew winning the 1977 Kentucky Derby
(Image : Racing Archives - Footage : Awis Dooger)

Seattle Slew warmed up for the Kentucky Derby with facile victories in the Wood Memorial and Flamingo Stakes (both Group Ones) on his way to the Twin Spires at Churchill Downs. His running style was on the lead, and as he took his place in the stalls for the 103^rd renewal of America’s most famous race, he was the only unbeaten aspirant for the Triple Crown in history, never headed for a single yard in any race before. He jumped awkwardly however, and for the first time, he missed the break: within a hundred yards there was just one horse behind him, and Cruguet knew he was in trouble. He shook the reigns for a moment, and surged through the field to be second before the horses entered the clubhouse turn, then proceeded to destroy his field in the closing 600 metres with a spectacular display of power galloping. It was the same story in the Preakness Stakes, and while Cruguet maintains to this day that Seattle Slew’s best trip was at a mile, his class carried him unchallenged to heroism in the Belmont Stakes, to complete the third leg.

In a moment which still occupies the columns of journals more than 35 years down the road, attracting praise and derision in equal measure, with more than 30 yards to the finish line, Cruguet raised himself out of the saddle in triumph in the manner of a gladiator, extending his right arm over his head and saluting jubilantly to an equally jubilant mass numbering well over 150,000. It’s against the rules, we know, but this was a Triple Crown hero in the true sense of the word, and in any event, there was nothing in sight to alter the outcome.

Seattle Slew
Career Record

MAJOR WINS
Champagne Stakes	1976
Wood Memorial Stakes	1977
Flamingo Stakes	1977
Kentucky Derby	1977
Preakness Stakes	1977
Belmont Stakes	1977
Woodward Stakes	1978
Marlboro Cup	1978
Stuyvesant Handicap	1978
AWARDS
US Champion 2-year-old Colt	1976
US Triple Crown Champion	1977
US Champion 3-year-old Colt	1977
American Horse Of The Year	1977
US Champion Older Male Horse	1978
Leading Sire in North America	1984
North American leading Broodmare Sire	1995/1996

While Cruguet was equally effective on both American surfaces, he was without peer on the turf, and a year later he was on board Mac Diarmada, whose victories in the Washington DC International and the Canadian Turf Championship saw him voted Champion Turf horse. The journeyman announced his retirement at 41 in July 1980 to join his wife as a full-time trainer, but the lure of riding had him back in the saddle two years later. His last major Grade One Stakes victory came aboard Hodges Bay, again in the Canadian International at Woodbine. Today he lives in historic Midway just outside Lexington in the vicinity of one of the world’s great stallion stations, Winstar Farm, and the late Sheikh Maktoum al Maktoum’s Gainsborough Stud. It’s no coincidence that the Woodford Bourbon Distillery is in the vicinity. For many years after his retirement, he made guest appearances for organisations such as Old Friends, a retirement and rescue facility for pensioned thoroughbreds. He almost completely disappeared from the public eye when he became the caregiver to his wife Denyse, when bedridden from a stroke in 2003, until she passed on in 2010 at age 80.

At 74 he remains active, working horses daily at the track, and he’s in excellent shape for a man who came off horses more often than he’d care to remember. He puts that down to a determination to make the number one box his home, and the fact that it often involves calculated risks which turned nasty. His pluck, his natural intuitions, his athleticism and dare we say, his upbringing, took him to the winner’s circle countless times, yet you know this is a man who remains comfortable in his own skin, “I crossed the line in front in more than 7000 races, but the truth is, I only won 500 them. Good horses did the rest”.

A couple of hours with Cruguet is riveting, and he speaks easily of the legends that forged the golden years of the game, Penna, Maurice Zilber, (for whom he rode the great Dahlia), Luro, Bill Mott, Woody Stevens and Charlie Whittingham. When you ask him to name the greatest horse of all time, and you toss in the names of Secretariat and Affirmed, he’s unhesitating: “There was none better than Slew. He could do a mile in 1 minute 31, and seven furlongs in 1 minute 20, and there’s no horse in history could go with that”.

If it’s at all possible, Cruguet offers that Slew’s legacy at stud may even have eclipsed his feats at the races. The dominant sire-line of the current era comes courtesy of his son A.P. Indy, and we owe it to Slew and his masterful rider, that we have A.P. Arrow at Summerhill today.

Enquiries :
Linda Norval +27 (0) 33 263 1081
or email linda@summerhill.co.za
www.summerhill.co.za

ANIMAL KINGDOM TO STAND AT ARROWFIELD STUD

Click above to watch Animal Kingdom winning the 2011 Kentucky Derby (G1)
(Image and Footage : Kentucky Derby)

“A Kingdom for a Horse”

I have only ever attended two Kentucky Derbies. It is part of the essential education of any budding horseman, and it is one of the fundamental reasons why Kentucky has become the racehorse breeding capital of the world. I “debuted” at what was arguably the greatest Derby of all time, the epic clash between Affirmed and Alydar, and as it happened, it was the opening stanza in what was the most memorable Triple Crown in history. That was 1978, and it took me 33 years to return, courtesy of an invitation from Team Valor’s Barry Irwin. It was prophetic (the invitation, I mean). A highly-charged 165,000 people thronged the Louisville course, part celebration of the horse, and as the chords of “Starspangled Banner” and “My Old Kentucky Home” resonated across that great plain, you knew the nation was also celebrating the vengeance of 9/11 with the death of Osama bin Laden a day or two before.

I used the word “prophetic” advisedly, as Animal Kingdom cruised home that day in the colours of our hosts to a dramatic two and three-quarter length victory over the accomplished Shackleton, to mark the summit in the many chapters of Team Valor’s history. For some years, they’ve topped the racing partnership charts of the world, yet here was one Team Valor not only owned, but they bred him, as well.

John Messara’s Arrowfield Stud in Australia has acquired a majority interest in the breeding rights to the 2011 Kentucky Derby hero and Champion 3-Year-Old Male, who will begin his stud career next September and likely shuttle to the Northern Hemisphere beginning in 2014.

The deal is subject to Animal Kingdom passing importation protocols, which involve blood work that should be finalized in the next few days.

The 20 Team Valor International partners that have reached racing’s pinnacle with the home-bred colt will maintain a significant interest in his stud career. The recent runner-up to Wise Dan in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Mile, Animal Kingdom is slated for the Grade 1 Gulfstream Park Turf Handicap on 9 February as a prep for the $10-million Dubai World Cup (G1) on 31 March.

After the World Cup, the son of Leroidesanimaux out of Dalicia (by Acatenango) will be flown from Dubai to England and considered for an additional start, possibly at Royal Ascot in June.

John Messara says, “Animal Kingdom excites us as a rare kind of athlete with a truly international pedigree who is able to express his class on a range of surfaces. He is already rated among the world’s elite turf milers and has the potential to become a global superstar in 2013.”

Heavens know what they paid for him. In recent times, horses like Exceed and Excel and Sebring have fetched in excess of $30million Down Under, and while Animal Kingdom will have come at something of a discount to that number in these subdued times, he will nonetheless represent a very tidy sum. Big prices for racehorses are not a revolutionary thing, though; you might recall that, according to one William Shakespeare, King Richard III made an outrageous bid at Bosworth Field in 1485, when he offered his kingdom for a horse. Fortunately, the auctioneer missed the wave of his catalogue, otherwise England may have belonged to someone else these days and there’d have been no Diamond Jubilee for Queen Elizabeth in 2012.

Team Valor CEO Barry Irwin fielded a regular stream of offers for Animal Kingdom’s stud career ever since the Kentucky Derby, in which he prevailed by 2¾ lengths as the first horse to conquer America’s great classic in his first start on dirt. He stands to be the only Derby-winning stallion prospect to race as a 5-year-old since Silver Charm, who scored in the 1997 Run for the Roses.

“Originally it was our intention to race Animal Kingdom for the entire 2013 season,” Irwin said. “However, the prospect of getting the support of John Messara’s Arrowfield Stud in the Southern Hemisphere was so meaningful, that I advised my partners to sublimate their fun and take the deal. It is critically important to get a history-making stallion master behind a new prospect and in John Messara we have that. He has developed two of the world’s most successful sires in Danehill and his son, Redoute’s Choice. No way I was going to pass up this opportunity.”

Robin Bruss of South Africa’s Northfields Bloodstock brokered the deal, just as he’d done a decade ago in bringing the Chilean champion, Hussonet, to Arrowfield.

Team Valor will form broodmare partnerships to breed to Animal Kingdom, with the plan of selling and racing his offspring around the globe.

Trained admirably by Graham Motion, Animal Kingdom is a Graded stakes winner on dirt and synthetic racetracks, and he nearly beat a Horse of the Year candidate in the Breeders’ Cup Mile on turf off a 259-day layoff, overcoming trouble to finish in front of the elite Europeans Excelebration and Moonlight Cloud.

Animal Kingdom also finished second in the 2011 Preakness Stakes. He has finished first or second in 8 of his 9 career starts, the lone exception coming in the Belmont Stakes when he was sandwiched after the break and nearly went down, leading to 8 months on the sidelines with an injury. He has earned $2,327,500.

Extracts from Team Valor International

JOIN THE CLUB

Variety Club - KRA Guineas (Grade 2)
(Photo : Gold Circle)

“Imagine a day when
Variety Club and Camelot face off…”

The first of the Classics in the Northern Hemisphere’s most important racing countries, the United States and the United Kingdom, were staged on Saturday. The Derby (pronounced “dirby,” as in “birdy” in America) fell to I’ll Have Another, and while his form going into the race was solid, most fans would say they were surprised at the ease of his victory. Last year’s winners, Team Valor, can take solace in the fourth place of Went The Day Well, who put in a dead honest charge. Across the pond, there was any amount of hype around the performance in Newmarket’s 2000 Guineas, of the hitherto unbeaten Camelot, whose late surge for a neck victory suggested that while he’s a good colt at a mile, he could be an exceptional one come the mile and a half of the Investec Derby in June. The beginning of another legend?

But the horse that arguably put up the Classic performance of the weekend was South Africa’s Variety Club, who bolted clear under the Jooste silks, crushing a top class horse in Jackson in the closing furlongs of the KZN Guineas (Gr.2). While this was on the short side for Jackson, (and he’d not been seen since his facile Investec Derby (Gr.1) victory in January,) not even the benefit of a run was likely to have put him alongside Variety Club in this one. Jackson will have his day when they stretch out for the 2000m of the Daily News, but Variety Club looks ready to take on the world at a mile.

Whilst plans for the Guineas hero are obviously fluid, Joey Ramsden, who deserves credit for his handling of the horse, hinted in his victory speech that he was ripe for some globe-trotting, and somewhere in that conversation December’s Hong Kong Mile (Gr.1) crept in. The ludicrous impasse over South Africa’s export protocols at present, means that together with Igugu and Soft Falling Rain, he would have to exit via Mauritius (three months quarantine) before embarking for the UK, and then onto Hong Kong. Nonetheless, these are three horses that will stand their ground with the best anywhere, and if they can overcome the rigours of such an arduous travel schedule, they’ll make us proud down the track. Imagine a day when Variety Club and Camelot face off - all hell will let loose.

I'LL HAVE ANOTHER WINS KENTUCKY DERBY THRILLER

Click above to watch I’ll Have Another winning the 138th Kentucky Derby…
(Image : KVAL - Footage : Kentucky Derby)

KENTUCKY DERBY (G1)
Churchill Downs, Dirt, 2000m
5 May 2012

I’ll Have Another (USA) (Flower Alley) sat the trip in the 138th GI Kentucky Derby Saturday beneath jockey Mario Gutierrez, and came streaking down the Churchill Downs stretch to reel in the game-as-can-be pacesetter Bodemeister (USA) (Empire Maker). Dullahan (USA) (Even The Score) charged home for third.

Gutierrez settled his charge brilliantly in seventh after breaking from post 19 as Bodemeister whistled through fractions of :22.32 and :45.39 with Trinniberg (USA) (Teuflesberg) right on his heels. I’ll Have Another began to launch his bid on the turn for home, and came rolling off the bend four wide as Bodemeister kicked clear by three. Gutierrez kept plugging away right-handed and I’ll Have Another continued to respond, reeling in the pacesetter late to pull off the upset. “He broke sharp, as he usually does,” Gutierrez said. “He’s such a professional horse. I knew he was going to help me 100% through the first part. In the end, he just give 100% all the time. As soon as you ask him, he throws everything on the race, and he didn’t disappoint today.”

Owner J. Paul Reddam, whose white-and-purple colors have been carried to Breeders’ Cup victories by Red Rocks (IRE) (Galileo) and Wilko (USA) (Awesome Again), was surprisingly composed in the winner’s circle. “I don’t know how at this point anything could be bigger than the Kentucky Derby,” Reddam responded when asked to place the win in perspective with his other accomplishments as an owner. “If you hear of something, let me know.”

The one-time philosophy professor was asked by NBC’s Bob Costas to sum up his emotions and Reddam, without missing a beat, opted to paraphrase Ludwig Wittgenstein. “After all the philosophical problems have been solved, nothing will have been accomplished, so we decided to get into horse racing,” Reddam, president of the financial lending company CashCall, said on national television. “I’m kind of numb. This one is for the whole team: Doug, Dennis, and Mario, and to all those people behind the scenes.” What keeps Reddam going to stay involved in the Sport of Kings? “Well, horse racing is the most dangerous kind of addiction because it has intermittent reinforcements, right,” he replied. “Every once in a while something good happens, and that keeps you gambling or buying horses, what have you. I never really dreamed that I would be in a position to own racehorses, but I got very lucky in my life and it happened. I guess I’m still pretty lucky.” It’s on to Baltimore for the Derby winner. “We gave the horse only two preps this year,” Reddam offered. “Part of the idea was we knew we had a good horse, and we wanted to make sure he was fresh because the Triple Crown is a gamble and it looks like it paid off. We’ve only run three times this year, so Preakness, here we come.”

Extracts from Thoroughbred Daily News