Cape Blanco caps a brilliant day for Aidan O’Brien by winning the Arlington Million at Arlington Park
It was a European sweep of the Arlington International Festive of Racing, as three European raiders, the Aidan O’Brien trained Cape Blanco and Treasure Beach and the French Stacelita landed all the grade 1 races on 13 August, 2011.
The much anticipated race was the re-match between Aidan O’Brien trained 4-year-old chestnut colt, Cape Blanco and Christophe Clement trained 6-year-olc bay horse Gio Ponti in the Grade 1 Arlington Million at a rainy Arlington Park.
The turf was just fine for the Irish raider Cape Blanco, who registered his second win on the North American turf in the span of 5 weeks.
It was a massive day for trainer Aidan O’Brien and Cape Blanco couldn’t have capped in better, who also won the Grade 1 Secretariat with Treasure Beach, a race earlier on the card then Arlington Million.
In a field of six horses, Cape Blanco under Jamie Spencer drew from the outside and showed early speed to their opponents. The son of Galileo put up an impressive show as he went on to win the race by 2 ½ lengths over rival Gio Ponti.
Because of the rain, Cape Blanco clocked in a slow 2 minutes and 5.39 seconds of the 1 ¼ miles. Cape Blanco is not 8 wins out of 13 starts, and with the win in the Arlington Million, the colt surpassed a whopping $3 million in career earnings.
On the other hand, Cape Blanco had too much on Gio Ponti, as he also had the first run on the Christophe Clement pair. Roman Dominguez described of Gio Ponti’s effort that if he goes out too early, or you put him in striking range too soon, it puts him off
like it happened today.
Gio Ponti, in the final strides, edged past Dean’s Kitten, who was second behind Cape Blanco, to finish second in the Arlington Million.
The win gave Cape Blanco and his connections an automatic berth in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup turf, and with two victories stateside, Aidan O’Brien would more than fancy his colt’s chances in the Breeders’ Cup Turf.
Tags: