Legacy of Giant's Causeway lives on at Belmont Park

Classic Causeway's unexpected victory in Saturday's Grade 1 Belmont Derby Invitational was also one very much against the odds for his much-admired late sire Giant's Causeway.

The 'iron horse', who died in April 2018 at Coolmore's Ashford Stud in Kentucky, left a final crop of just three colts to represent him.

Kenny McPeek's individual is one of that scarce trio and pinched a lead that he managed to maintain to the line from a closing Frankie Dettori and Nations Pride on what was his very first start on the grass.

A homebred for Kentucky West Racing and the Clarke M Cooper family, he had won the Tampa Bay Derby on dirt in March and been tried in the Kentucky Derby.

Classic Causeway was his sire's 36th top-level winner and the other members of his final crop have performed well. They are Giant Game, third in last year's Breeders' Cup Juvenile, and Monaadah, a winner for Saeed bin Suroor last month and fourth in the Sir Henry Cecil Stakes at the July meeting behind Mighty Ulysses.

Giant's Causeway, the popular chestnut by Storm Cat who landed five consecutive Group 1s in the summer of 2000, has also been an elite sire whose genes have been passed on by sons such as Shamardal and Footstepsinthesand.

“We knew he was pretty much the speed in the race,” co-owner Patrick O’Keefe of Kentucky West Racing said to the NYRA website. Connections had moved the colt from Brian Lynch after his 11th in the Kentucky Derby.

“He’s like a 14-year-old kid that can throw a baseball 100 miles per hour. Now, he’s slowed down a little to 90 miles per hour and can hit the play.

“[McPeek] is amazing. To me, he’s a life send. I have someone who really knows the breeding and knows where to put them. I loved [the idea of running him on the turf].”

The Belmont Oaks Invitational an hour earlier resulted in a one-two for Frankel with Chad Brown's McKulick motoring past Godolphin and Dettori's With The Moonlight inside the final furlong.

Victory was particularly notable as it came on the birthday of the late training legend, and the Juddmonte phenomenon's namesake, Bobby Frankel. Brown worked as his assistant and named this filly after his former bookkeeper, the late Mary McKulick.

Bred by Essafinaat UK, she was bought by Mike Ryan for owner Seth Klarman at Tattersalls Book 1 in 2020 for 180,000gns from Hazelwood Bloodstock.

The half-sister to Sceptre Stakes winner Just Beautiful and German Guineas scorer Fearless King had been hitting the bar at a decent level and is Frankel's 24th worldwide Group or Grade 1 winner

Brown said: “It’s an extra special win with it being Bobby Frankel’s birthday today. This horse is the first offspring of Frankel that I actually bought.

“Seth Klarman was nice enough to let me name this filly after my very first employee after I left Frankel, that’s why I chose this horse being by Frankel. And wouldn’t you know on his birthday she wins a Grade 1. The irony and the importance of it today, his birthday means everything to me personally.”

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