Monday, 6 January 2025

How many times has Sir Michael Stoute won the Breeders' Cup Turf?

At the time of writing, Ballydoyle trainer Aiden O'Brien has recently extended his already impressive record in the Breeders' Cup Turf by saddling Auguste Rodin – who, like his namesake, has lived a life full of contrasts – to win the $4 million showpiece for the seventh time. The Breeders' Cup Turf was inaugurated in 1984 and, not altogether surprisingly, the mile and a half contest has proved a happy hunting ground for European trainers, particularly those from Britain and Ireland, with the likes of Clive Brittain, Saeed bin Suroor, Brian Meehan, John Gosden and Charlie Appleby among the names on the roll of honour.

Aiden O'Brien aside, though, Sir Michael Stoute is the most successful trainer in the history of the Breeders' Cup Turf, with four winners to his name. Based at Freemason Lodge on the Bury Road in Newmarket, Stoute, 78, is well into the veteran stage of his training career, having first taken out a licence in his own right in 1972. Of course, he will forever be associated with the brilliant, but ultimately ill-fated Shergar, but it should not be forgotten that he has saddled 16 British Classic winners, including six Derby winners, and won the trainers' championship 10 times between 1981 and 2009.

As far as the Breeders' Cup Turf is concerned, Stoute opened his account with the outstanding middle-distance colt Pilsudski, who beat stable companion Singspiel at Woodbine in Toronto, Canada in 1996. Two years later, Stoute was knighted for the promotion of sport tourism in his native Barbados and, in 2000, doubled his Breeders' Cup Turf tally with Kalanisi – owned, like Shergar, by Aga Khan IV – at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky. Later the same decade, he completed his quartet of wins, courtesy of Conduit, who recorded back-to-back victories at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, California in 2008 and 2009.

Tuesday, 17 December 2024

Which trainers have won the Eclipse Stakes most often?

Run annually over a mile and a quarter at Sandown Park in Esher, Surrey in early July, the Eclipse Stakes is a Group 1 contest open to horses aged three years and upwards. Indeed, Eclipse Stakes provides the first opportunity for three-year-olds of the 'Classic' generation to meet older rivals at the highest level, so it follows that it is one of the major middle-distance races of the European Flat racing season. Established in 1886, the race is named after the prolific racehorse Eclipse, who retired unbeaten after 18 starts, many of them walkovers, in 1770 and subsequently became one of the most influential stallions in bloodstock history.

As far as the most successful trainers in the history of the Eclipse Stakes are concerned, at the time of writing, three men jointly hold the record with six wins apiece. The first of them was twelve-time champion trainer Alec Taylor Jnr., a.k.a. the 'Wizard of Manton', who saddled Bayardo (1909), Lemberg (1910), Buchan (1919, 1920), Craig an Eran (1921) and Saltash (1923; Lemberg, the 1910 Derby winner, dead-heated with old rival Neil Gow, who had beaten him a short-head in the 2,000 Guineas.

More recently, ten-time champion trainer Sir Michael Stoute saddled his first Eclipse Stakes winner, Opera House, in 1993, but has since added Ezzoud (1994), Pilsudski (1997), Medicean (2001), Notnowcato (2007) and Ulysses (2017) to his winning tally. Pilsudski, who won the Breeders' Cup as as three-year-old, twice finished second in the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe and won the Japan Cup on his final start, as a five-year-old, was probably the best known of the sextet, although Ulysses also won the Juddmonte International Stakes and finished third in the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe.

More recently still, Aidan O'Brien – who didn't start his training career until 1993, 21 years after Sir Michael Stoute – has saddled Giant's Causeway (2000), Hawk Wing (2002), Oratorio (2005), Mount Nelson (2008), So You Think (2011) and St. Mark's Basilica (2021) to victory at Sandown Park. At the time of writing, his St. James's Palace Stakes winner, Paddington, is 11/4 second favourite for the 2023 renewal of the Eclipse Stakes, so it may not be long before he becomes the most successful trainer outright.

Sunday, 10 November 2024

Which trainer has won the King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes most often?

Run annually over a mile and a half at Ascot in July and open to horses aged three years and upwards, the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes has the distinction of being the most prestigious, and valuable, all-aged Flat race in Britain. Indeed, with guaranteed prize money of £1.2 million, it is the second most valuable Flat race, of any description, behind only the Derby.

Established, as the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Festival of Britain Stakes, in 1951, the race has been one by some of the truly great middle-distance performers of the modern era, including Nijinsky, Mill Reef, Brigadier Gerard, Shergar, Dancing Brave, Reference Point and Harbinger. Two of that illustrious septet, Shergar, in 1981, and Harbinger, in 2010, were saddled by Sir Michael Stoute who, with six wins, is the most successful trainer in the history of the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes.

Fresh from facile victories in the Derby at Epsom and the Irish Derby at the Curragh, Shergar was equally untroubled to land odds of 2/5 at Ascot, drawing clear in the closing stages under Walter Swinburn to beat fellow three-year-old Madam Gay by four lengths. After a 12-year hiatus, Stoute won his second King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes with the five-year-old colt Opera House, owned by Sheikh Mohammed, in 1993.

In 2002, Stoute produced Golan, who had won the 2,000 Guineas as a three-year-old, but had been absent since finishing unplaced in the Japan Cup the previous November, to win on his seasonal debut and, in 2009, saddled an unprecedented 1-2-3, courtesy of Conduit, Tartan Bearer and Ask. More recently, he has added to his winning tally with Harbinger, who won by an impressive 11 lengths in 2010, but sadly never raced again after fracturing a cannon bone on the gallops in Newmarket, and Poet's Word who, in 2018, beat his marginally better-fancied stable companion Crystal Ocean by a neck, with the pair nine lengths clear, after what the 'Racing Post' described as a 'stirring battle'.