Cape Blanco’s victory at the Arlington Million qualifies him for the Emirates Airline Breeders’ Cup
The turf proved to be lucky and complimented Cape Blanco, who got to experience his second straight grade 1 score on North American soil, which benefited Aidan O’Brien, his trainer.
Cape Blanco is a 4-year old Irish chestnut colt ridden by Jamie P. Spencer. He won at the Arlington Million Stadium on 13th August, 2011, covering a distance of one and 1/4 miles.
His achievements, prior to the Arlington Million include the Secretariat Stakes with Treasure Beach.
His sire is Galileo, an Irish champ, and the broodmare sire, Presidium.
The victory proved to be over joyous for Cape Blanco’s jockey, Spencer, who previously got discouraged after being disqualified in the 2004 race.
Cape Blanco has already defeated his opponent, Gio Ponti, in this race and twice earlier as well. In March it was the Dubai World Cup.
The pair confronted each other yet again a month ago in the Man O’War Stakes at Belmont Park. Gio Ponti was a good 2¼ lengths behind Cape Blanco.
Gio Ponti is a 6-year-old, son of Tale of the Cat and the broodmare sire, Alydar Chestnut. He has been trained by Christophe Clement.
Evidently on Saturday, history repeated itself once again. However the jockey, Ramon Dominguez, was pleased with the performance of his ride that day as nonetheless they did stand second.
Cape Blanco has proved to be a winner on all sorts of ground conditions, soft, firm, good. It is as if his energy for winning and going ahead of the pack has gone beyond such deviating issues.
Enviable he is and an apple of the eye for his trainer who is finding it difficult to contain himself with all the victories!!
Besides the Derby, Cape Blanco has also won the glorious Irish Champion Stakes by 5 1/2 lengths last year.
The Million proved to be the golden colt’s eighth win in 14 lifetime starts and drastically boosted his career earnings to $3,555,230 as this one alone was worth $576,000.
“There are very few horses that have the will to win like he has”, winning jockey, Jamie Spencer, said. “The more you ask from him, the more you get from him".
Jockeys of opposing horses have been reported to have said that he is a horse who likes to lead. The win has completed a European sweep of Arlington’s International Festival of Racing.
He might even claim yet another rivalry!!
The Arlington Million victory carries an automatic invitation to the Emirates Airline Breeders’ Cup Turf at Churchill Downs in November which is a mile-and-a-half so there is more to look forward to. He will for sure offer intense competition there.
Now the upcoming races in November will set further benchmarks for the career profile of Cape Blanco along with enhancing his career earnings. His trainer again has his hands full and would be feeling more than glad to prepare the chestnut colt for further
victories.
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