Vino Rosso Classic win reflective of 36th Breeders' Cup - good but not great

Future results might prove otherwise, but chances are history will decree that the 36th Breeders’ Cup wasn’t a vintage one. They can’t all be.

In time, we might look back at Santa Anita’s tenth hosting of the Stateside gala and marvel at a meeting that showcased the precocious talents of Four Wheel Drive, Structor and British Idiom.

Or maybe we’ll reflect after the first weekend in May how unlucky Dennis' Moment was in the Juvenile if he secures an elusive first Kentucky Derby for trainer Dale Romans. It’s possible.

Still, in terms of the older horses, ahead of the event there was a suspicion that the glorious San Gabriel backdrop might struggle for an equine rival to vie for the title of the occasion’s most spectacular individual feature.

The landscape duly won out, although Irad Ortiz's pearly whites are similarly wondrous.

Ortiz's Classic-winning partner Vino Rosso, brilliant as he was on Saturday, illustrates the point. A good horse, just not a great horse.

His performance in victory was unequivocal and we certainly never wanted for competitive drama or entertainment, but the calibre of his opposition didn’t have the clout you’d normally associate with the $6 million Grade 1.

After all, Bricks And Mortar looks a shoo-in for the Horse of the Year accolade. Since 1970, only five horses who raced primarily or exclusively on turf have earned that distinction.

Irad Ortiz celebrates passing the line in the Breeders' Cup Turf aboard Bricks And MortarCredit: Edward Whitaker

Saturday’s Turf hero would be a worthy champion and he maybe hasn’t got the recognition he deserves.

We were all too busy watching Anthony Van Dyck’s Turf challenge crash and burn to fully appreciate the Chad Brown-trained five-year-old. While the Derby winner was tying himself up in knots under Ryan Moore, Bricks And Mortar swept by on the outside to seize his destiny.

It was a frustrating spectacle that summed up Aidan O’Brien’s two days, with Arizona and Circus Maximus also enduring a bit of a nightmare.

Your race could be over if you missed the break, so speed out of the gate was critical, yet then it looked as though the pace would drop off, leaving those desperate to make ground late with their wheels spinning, ruing the slow gallop.

Read about Iridessa's spectacular Breeders' Cup win here

It’s a place where everything needs to fall into place, but one winner and two places from 30 runners confirms just how trying it was for the travelling delegation. All told, it was Europe's worst return since the Monmouth Park washout in 2007.

Of the home winners, Belvoir Bay’s Turf Sprint success was in the fairytale realm. A two-time British winner for Richard Hannon in 2015, she had been released into the wild and spent two days missing during the San Luis Rey fire in 2017.

Suffice to say, her recovery to beat the colts in a record time on a night that showcases the very essence of America’s star-spangled ideology is the sort of narrative that might appeal to those folks over the road in Hollywood.

Anthony Van Dyck, dark blue silks under Ryan Moore, didn't get the gaps he needed in the Santa Anita straight before finishing third in the TurfCredit: Edward Whitaker

If that’s one for the romance genre, we soon got a dose of realism when Mongolian Groom was fatally injured in the Classic.

Given the intense scrutiny the track has been under, it felt like a blow to the solar plexus when the sport in California might have just been getting on top in the fight to justify its existence.

Everything had been going so well, but in the final furlong of the last race, with the world watching, a galling sucker punch.

Nearly 200 horses ran at the Breeders’ Cup. Sadly, despite all the remedial work to the track and what was described by officials as an unprecedented level of veterinary scrutiny and enhanced medical protocols, one didn’t return home.

Maybe the pending independent report will show that the vets missed something, but what the incident ultimately proves is that you cannot eliminate risk. That doesn’t sit comfortably with some, but the alternative is no racing, and no thoroughbred, at all.

There were 30 vets on site at Santa Anita, but it doesn’t matter how many vets you have doing pre-race assessments if a horse suffers fractures like Mongolian Groom did.

When we go over on an ankle, it can be fixed. With a horse, if often can’t be, which is why there will always be an element of futility about the well-intentioned advancements that are taken in the name of welfare, be it changes to the Grand National course at Aintree or the raft of measures that have been implemented at Santa Anita.

You simply cannot legislate for everything. Life doesn't work like that.

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