City Of Troy 'not prepared well enough' says Aidan O'Brien as star colt flops in £5m race

Aidan O’Brien took the blame for star colt City Of Troy’s flop in the £5m Breeders’ Cup Classic on Saturday.

The Derby, Eclipse and Juddmonte International winner travelled to Del Mar, California with a huge reputation and a ringing endorsement from O’Brien that he was the best horse he had ever trained.

City Of Troy had won six of his seven starts and because he was a son of US Triple Crown winner Justify, his connections believed he had the attributes to switch from turf to dirt and deliver his trainer a first victory in the richest race in the US.

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O’Brien said he had ‘looked under every stone’ to ensure City Of Troy had the best possible preparation for the challenge, even taking him to Southwell for a gallop arranged to replicate a US dirt race.

Everything depended on how he broke from the stalls, but he was one of the slowest to exit and found himself in the second half of the field from which he never made any meaningful progress.

Jockey Ryan Moore said: "They went so hard and he just couldn’t get going. I let him get comfortable and he’s done well to keep going to the line.”

He crossed the line eighth of the 14-runner field, 13 lengths behind winner Sierra Leone, the Chad Brown-trained colt who is in the same Coolmore ownership as City Of Troy. Coolmore had also recently bought the stallion rights to the runner-up Fierceness.

O’Brien held his hands up for the result after City Of Troy took his losing streak in the Classic to 18.

He said: "He was left at the start where he lost three lengths and we didn’t have him prepared to break quickly enough. We thought we had, but we hadn’t. He was making up ground at the end, but Ryan had no chance.

“He inspired us as a horse that could do well in the Classic, and it was so sporting of the lads to run him in it.

“When you get back that far on a dirt surface you can’t do anything about it. I should have had him coming out quicker, it just left Ryan with no chance really.

"I need to step it up a bit, don’t I, have them a little bit better prepared. We’re learning all the time. Hopefully we’ll try harder next year.”

Sierra Leone had been beaten a nose in the Kentucky Derby and suffered three more defeats since the run at Churchill Downs.

Brown said: "“To lose a Kentucky Derby by a nose – for him to come out and show so much and be on the go since January he’s a remarkable horse in soundness and mind. He’s a good horse who is cooperative. He makes your job easy.

“For him to have this moment having seen what happened in the Derby and the Travers this more than makes up for it all.”

He went on: “To finally get this done (win the Classic). We haven’t had many runners and have just dabbled in the Classic. You never know when you will be up here again because this is the toughest race in the .

“Fierceness is a great horse, but our horse hasn’t ever thrown it in. Our horse is all consistency, for me it’s hard to see that he’s not the best three-year-old.”