Top American horse to run at Royal Ascot
Perhaps the name of the owner was a giveaway.
Following on from the success of juvenile runners at Royal Ascot last year another American trainer is preparing an ambitious challenge for the St James’s Palace Stakes.
Noble's Promise, who finished fifth in last Saturday’s Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs, will not be running in the second race of the US Triple Crown, the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico next Saturday.
Instead the colt, who runs in the colours of Chasing Dreams Racing, will be prepared for the St James’s Palace Stakes, which is run on June 15th, the first day of the royal meeting. Noble’s Promise was far from disgraced in the Kentucky Derby and was leading at the top of the home stretch, until he was passed by the winner Super Saver.
He seemed sure to be placed but faded in the final furlong to finlly be beaten by six lengths. Explaining the decision to come to Britain the colt’s trainer, Kenny McPeek, told bloodhorse.com: “The horse is fine, but I felt he needed more time. He came out of the Derby a touch dehydrated; on a scale of one to 10, he was probably a one or two. I’m just not convinced he wants to go that far. Up to a mile there isn’t a three-year-old in America who can hang with him.
“Unfortunately, there are no three-year-old mile Grade One stakes in this country. The timing is good for the St. James’s Palace and he’s already nominated. We had to scramble to get him ready for the Derby anyway, and he did good. I could have run him in the Preakness if I wanted to, but I felt I was pressing the issue, and if the dehydration got worse it would set him back for several months.”
Traditionally British racing has struggled to attract American runners for the top races partly because turf racing is not as popular in America as dirt but mainly because of an inability to be competitive in terms of prize money. However, Royal Ascot can play on its pageantry and the current economic climate has also played its part.
“You know me, I’m a bit unconventional anyway,” McPeek said. “One of our motives is that with the weakening of the American dollar their purses are actually up for us. When you find a Grade One, you hunt it down, and the partners are going to have an opportunity to meet the Queen, so it’s a once in a lifetime trip. And most important, the horse could very well win the race. He’s going to train right-handed on my course on my farm in Lexington. He’ll have a speed work, most likely at Keeneland on the synthetic or possibly Churchill, and then we can continue the repetition of him training right-handed and hitting his leads. And we’ll train him up a hill as well.”
Noble’s Promise, who cost just $10,000 as a yearling won the Grade One Dixiana Breeders’ Futurity at Keeneland last year, will be attempting to follow up the successes of trainer Wesley Ward. He brought a team of juveniles over last year and older sprinter Cannonball.
Ward took the meeting by storm as the first American-based trainer to win at Royal Ascot when Jealous Again won the Queen Mary and Strike The Tiger landed the Windsor Castle Stakes, while Cannonball was a neck second to Art Connoisseur in the Golden Jubilee Stakes after finishing fifth to Scenic Blast in the King's Stand Stakes on the opening day of the meeting.
McPeek is no stranger to Ascot himself. He came over in 2004 with a horse called Hard Buck who finished three lengths third to Doyen in the King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes, but the American connection with Ascot stretches back more than 80 years.
In 1929, Kentucky Derby winner Reigh Count finished second to Invershin in the Gold Cup and in 1936 Omaha, the third horse to win the Triple Crown, was beaten just a short-head by Quashed in the same race.
In other news in across the Atlantic, Eskendereya, the winner of the Wood Memorial and Fountain of Youth Stakes and early favourite for the Kentucky Derby, has been retired due to a soft-tissue injury that was the reason for him being scratched from the Derby just days before the race.
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