Brian O'Connor, along with most racing enthusiasts, is fervently hoping that the race of the decade goes ahead at Leopardstown today
RACING IS full of clichés such as “the bigger the field – the bigger the certainty” or “always back the outsider of three”. As befits most clichés they can contain an element of truth and usually are just plain harmless. One of the more irritating though is the old chestnut that “a good horse can win on any ground”.
It is long odds-on that it will be flung about with abandon today on the run-up to the Tattersalls Millions Irish Champion Stakes at Leopardstown, despite last night’s indications that John Oxx’s most fervent hopes about the surface may have been answered. It’s a lot better – but still a long way from ideal for Sea The Stars.
Desperately keen to run this outstanding colt in what will be his last opportunity to run in Ireland, and more importantly continue a season that has propelled Sea The Stars towards legendary status, Oxx could still be taking his judgement for a walk on the fine side.
Normally the idea of running Sea The Stars on ground that has been softened by persistent rain all week would be dismissed. But this is the one race that has been definitely pencilled into the horse’s programme ever since he put Fame And Glory and Co in their place at Epsom last June. He wants to run but in his heart of hearts he knows that Sea The Stars really needs to hear his feet rattle on fast going.
It’s an unenviable judgement call to have to make, and in the background will be the hoary old line about the really great ones being able to win on anything.
“It is bullshit really,” is the no-nonsense view of that theory from Christy Roche, the former champion who rode Assert to win the 1982 Champion Stakes.
“Horses can win on different sorts of ground but it doesn’t mean they are as good on everything. Assert for instance was a special horse on top of the ground and just a good horse when it was soft. It was the same with St Jovite. I have yet to see the horse that is as every bit as good, no matter what the ground,” Roche adds.
Even Secretariat, the now almost mythical winner of the American Triple Crown in 1973, was dismissed as “not being able to run worth a damn in the mud” by some of his contemporary critics. Nijinsky was given the fright of his life as a two-year-old by Decies in a Beresford Stakes run on soft ground. Other famous names such as the 1968 Arc winner Vaguely Noble couldn’t hack it on the firm.
The beauty of Sea The Stars already is that mentioning such names alongside his own doesn’t seem in any way inappropriate: Even less so alongside more modern names like Montjeu or Galileo. Both were ridden to their greatest triumphs by Kinane and the famously clinical veteran jockey has declared he believes Sea The Stars to be the best horse he has ridden during an illustrious 35-year career.
Oxx, a man equally averse to hyperbole, has trained superstars like the Derby and Arc hero Sinndar and he leaves no one in doubt about the extra-special regard he holds this year’s Derby and Guineas winner in.
Even those professional sceptics, the international handicappers, have had to combine their normal cold calculation with waving some cheerleader pom-poms, awarding Sea The Stars a rating of 133 that clearly makes him the best in the world right now.
What remains so tantalising, though, is the suspicion that this regally-bred colt with the perfect temperament and seemingly ideal amalgam of speed and stamina could get even better before the year is out.
A racing style that combines a high cruising speed and a disinclination to over-exert himself once in front means the bare form that has provoked those handicappers into raptures may be a long way from all that is inside that handsome frame.
“He is the most beautiful horse, magnificent to look at. To do what he has done he must be special,” Roche says. “It’s so difficult to compare different generations but Mick has always thought him a very serious horse.”
However, the task that will be put to Sea The Stars if he does get the green light to run today will almost certainly demand he go beyond even what he has achieved to date.
Fame And Glory and Mastercraftsman have both already tried and failed to beat Sea The Stars this year. Along with Rip Van Winkle they represent the cream of Aidan O’Brien’s Ballydoyle yard and they have consistently failed to match their contemporary from the Curragh.
But the possible equaliser now remains a surface that still won’t be as fast as Sea The Stars really likes.
It’s not the same as when Sea The Stars was ruled out of a Curragh re-match with Fame And Glory in last June’s Irish Derby but ever since Epsom, the O’Brien team have been itching for another crack at their 2009 nemesis with the son of Montjeu.
Fame And Glory is a top-class opponent who won’t be bothered by a drop back to 10 furlongs and whose CV includes a Group One triumph at the trip on heavy ground at Saint-Cloud as a two year old.
The only horse ever to beat him is Sea The Stars and nine times out of 10 he would be coming to Leopardstown as an unbeaten double-Derby winner with a licence to continue that winning-streak.
But it’s the fate of some outstanding athletes to end up in the same generation as an even more outstanding individual. Think Jurgen Hingsen always running into Daley Thompson or Andy Roddick coming up short against Roger Federer.
All the evidence of what we have seen so far this year is that Sea The Stars is an outstanding champion and one of those equine names that will resonate for many years after he has retired from racing and is enjoying the benefits of that talent at stud.
The opportunity to watch him in the flesh should be an irresistible prospect to any Irish sports fan. But if he does take his chance today, it will be far from some lap of honour around Leopardstown. Instead, if Sea The Stars is to win, circumstances could demand he produce the performance of a lifetime.
And if that isn’t something to get you through Leopardstown’s gates, then it might be a good idea to give up on this racing game completely.
