Breeders Cup Classic: Don’t succumb to antepost madness on City of Troy

City of Troy. A place of legend, but – in case any horse racing fan has been living under a rock – also the undoubted star of the European flat racing season this year. This Irish-trained but almost exclusively English-campaigned colt has racked up a stunning Group 1 treble over the summer: Derby at Epsom, Eclipse at Sandown, International at York. In the aftermath of the latter victory, City of Troy’s connections (Messrs Magnier, Tabor and Smith, commonly referred to simply as “the lads”) gave the green light for their ultra-talented son of Justify to head stateside and fulfil their long-standing “Holy Grail” quest of winning the Breeders Cup Classic. Which would send the colt’s already stratospheric value as a potential stallion further into the outer cosmos.

Big market move in last month

A veritable head of antepost betting steam has since built up. City of Troy has shortened over the last month to a best-priced 11/4 to win the iconic end-of-season US championship race on dirt, which this year will be run at Del Mar, California. Adding a bit more fuel to the frenzy, the Racing Post’s top tipster – “Pricewise” (Tom Segal) – has penned a column in the midweek sister paper “The Weekender” in which he states in no uncertain terms that he expects Aidan O’Brien’s colt to take care of business at Del Mar. “I’m really excited about City Of Troy - and I think he’s going to win”. No doubt many a punter will be incentivized to act accordingly.

The AntePoster is rather concerned about all this. It’s not the City of Troy mania that alarms per se. After all, this is an extraordinarily talented colt, and as the top-rated horse in the race (on international figures) and with dirt genes on the sire side of his breeding, he clearly has a live chance of bringing home the booty. Heady anticipation over this impending spectacle and the corresponding newsflow is only natural, and a fine thing in itself for those who love the sport of horse racing.

A host of challenges await at Del Mar

Nor is the concern down to the nagging doubts over the obstacles City of Troy faces, although it should be pointed out how daunting these are. Starting in chronological order…

• There will be quite the “razzmatazz” at the Breeders Cup, and this has the potential to blow City of Troy’s youthful mind before he has even entered the starting stalls.

• Then he will have to deal with the undisputed superiority of most US horses over their European counterparts when it comes to gate speed: Much has been made of City of Troy’s ability to “go any pace”, but if he is one of the last out of the gate he may simply not be able to display that ability.

• And so to the challenge of racing against thirteen of the best dirt horses in training (from Japan as well the US, nota bene) who have all seen this kind of scenario unfold on this type of surface many times before. Unlike City of Troy (no, that gallop around Southwell doesn't count).

• As a compounding factor, there is a strong possibility of being buffeted around and muscled aside by elite dirt jockeys who will be far more savvy than Ryan Moore on their home patch – there is no jockey advantage gained by having arguably the best turf jockey on the planet riding for you in a race that is not even run over turf.

  
  

The list goes on, but as this paragraph is actually only an excursus...

Pool betting approach a no-brainer

No, what really concerns the AntePoster is that there are bettors out there who might even consider taking 11/4 now on a City of Troy winning outcome. This is a form of madness when there is another course of action offering far less risk and greater profit: Just wait and “play local” on the day in the US and international betting pools. In the AntePoster’s view, it is a stone-cold certainty that City of Troy will be a bigger price in these pools than the 11/4 currently on offer in Europe. What’s worse, playing now with antepost bookmaker prices means not only locking up your money for six weeks, but also embracing the risk that goes with any antepost bet (injury, travel sickness, vet interference, etc.). These are risks that can simply be stripped out by playing the betting pools on the day.

All those thousands of years ago, the City of Troy of antiquity might never have fallen to the Greeks if its citizens had not been so foolish as accept the “Trojan Horse” planted at their gates. Enemy warriors were hidden within. And make no mistake about it, the best price of 11/4 available in the antepost market for the equine City of Troy is another poisoned gift horse – so the AntePoster strongly urges all bettors to slam the gates in its face.