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City Of Troy’s career – along with the Derby – reaches compelling crossroads
City Of Troy has a binary form line of 111-01 after his smooth and comprehensive success in the Derby at Epsom on Saturday, and when his racing career concludes – hopefully in November 2025, but perhaps more plausibly in five months’ time – the zero in the 2,000 Guineas last month may well prove to have been every bit as significant as any of the ones.
There is an alternate reality in which City Of Troy did not get upset in the stalls before the Guineas and remains unbeaten, and in which this column is discussing the pros and cons of sending him to the St Leger at Doncaster in September, the final leg of the Triple Crown.
Related: Derby trading on past glories as public interest dwindles beyond bubble | Barry Glendenning
But he did and he isn’t, and as much as many of us would love to see another attempt at the Triple Crown – the atmosphere on Town Moor as Camelot went to post in 2012 was extraordinary – the possibilities for City Of Troy in the here and now are equally compelling.
The success on Saturday – and City Of Troy’s subsequent anointing by Aidan O’Brien as the best of his 10 Derby winners – was a double‑win for the Coolmore Stud syndicate that owns him. They have another exceptional stallion prospect when the time comes, who will earn a huge multiple of Saturday’s £800,000 first prize in covering fees before any of his foals even see a track. The effect on his sire Justify’s fee, meanwhile, could be just as dramatic.
The path that “the lads” in the syndicate map out for the Derby winner now will be as much about Justify as it is about City Of Troy. The latest star of the Coolmore roster has sired Grade One and Group One winners on dirt and turf in his first two crops, and now has a winner of the most prestigious European Classic.
Justify is already well on the way towards being the first dual-purpose stallion of Flat racing’s global era, capable of siring high-class middle‑distance winners whatever the surface and conditions. The remainder of City Of Troy’s career could conceivably complete the process.
There was talk of a run in the 10-furlong Travers Stakes at Saratoga in late August before City Of Troy’s flop in the Guineas and the potential payoff from a win in America’s “Midsummer Derby”, against a field that could well include the Kentucky Derby winner, Mystik Dan, would be huge.
It would be a gamble, of course. There are more traditional targets for a Derby winner, including the Irish Derby, the Eclipse in July, the International Stakes at York in August and, in early September, the Irish Champion Stakes.
Ayr 2.15 Haazeez 2.45 Desert Quest 3.15 Little Empire 3.45 Boy Douglas 4.15 Ayr Poet 4.45 Monhammer
Brighton 2.30 Voltaic 3.00 Mutamanni 3.30 Blenheim Star 4.00 On The Cards 4.30 Oh So Audacious 5.00 Bluebells Boy
Windsor 5.10 Noisy Music 5.45 Cayman Tai 6.15 Gutsy Girl 6.45 Jimmy Speaking (nb) 7.15 Silver Gunn 7.45 Angel On High 8.15 Miss Harmony 8.45 My Ambition
Wetherby 6.30 Unspoken Love 7.00 Night Of Desire 7.30 Glistening Nights 8.00 Yazaman (nap) 8.30 Wintercrack 9.00 Smooth Silesie
The Travers, though, is also a natural springboard to the Breeders’ Cup Classic, a race that has been unfinished business for Ballydoyle and Coolmore ever since Giant’s Causeway’s narrow defeat behind Tiznow in a race for the ages nearly a quarter of a century ago.
City Of Troy was quoted at about 8-1 for the Triple Crown before his flop in the Guineas. He is now the same sort of price to become the first horse to win the Derby and the Breeders’ Cup Classic, and with all due respect to Doncaster and the St Leger, that would be an achievement to surpass even a Triple Crown.
City Of Troy was certainly one of the more memorable Derby winners of recent years, and could yet prove to be one of the more significant of recent decades, so it took a little of the shine off the day to hear that his victory was watched by a paying attendance of “about 27,000”. That is around 25% down on the figure of 37,274 just two years ago, and only slightly higher than the 2023 total of 25,413.
Jockey Club Racecourses, which runs Epsom, can fairly point out that a number of factors can explain the sudden drop in ticket sales since 2022, when the Derby was part of the late Queen’s platinum Jubilee celebrations. The cost of living crisis, clearly, continues to exert a significant effect, while there were no trains to Epsom in 2023 and the race was also up against the FA Cup final.
It is also possible to attend the Derby for free, so the official attendance tells only a part of the story and is also subject to significant variations from year-to-year. The official number to see Dr Devious land the Classic in 1992, for instance, when the recently un-retired Lester Piggott was aboard the favourite, Rodrigo De Triano, was just 26,178.
But you can see just from looking at the Hill from the stands that numbers have been ebbing away year-on-year, and the punters seemed to be spread more thinly than ever on Saturday.
Very few of the paying racegoers from 2022, or those in the regular crowds of between 35,000 and 39,000 in the immediate pre-Covid seasons, have opted to save the admission price by standing on the Hill. Instead, the decline in ticket sales seems to reflect a more general decline in interest, and the Derby now joins the other crown jewels in the Jockey Club’s crown – the Festival meetings at Cheltenham and Aintree – on the list of events in urgent need of attention.
