City Of Troy has become only the third Derby winner to receive the sport’s most prestigious accolade, Cartier Horse of the Year.
The trophy was presented at the 34th Cartier Racing Awards on Wednesday night in London to Sam Magnier, daughter of owner-breeder John Magnier – the Coolmore supremo – and her husband, Charlie Pearson.
After regaining his winning thread in the Betfred Derby, City of Troy, the Aidan O’Brien-trained colt, went on to win the Coral Eclipse before breaking the track record in the Juddmonte International at York. The audacious plan to take on the best American dirt horses in the Breeders’ Cup Classic came unstuck at Del Mar.
City of Troy also won the three-year-old colt category.
O’Brien’s son Donnacha’s Porta Fortuna took the accolade for Cartier Three-year-old filly after finishing second in the Qipco 1,000 Guineas but winning the Coronation Stakes at Royal Ascot, the Tattersalls Falmouth Stakes at Newmarket and the Coolmore Matron Stakes. She stays in training at four. Two of her owners, Steve Weston and Dean Reeves, were on hand to pick up her trophy.
Nurlan Bizakov, the owner of Charyn, and Roger Varian, his trainer, had hot-footed it back from Japan where the grey had finished fifth in the Mile Championship at Tokyo on Sunday to be at the the awards to receive the Cartier older horse on behalf of the four-year-old. He won the bet365 Mile, the Queen Anne, the Prix du Haras de Fresnay-Le-Buffard Jacques Le Marois at Deauville and the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes (sponsored by Qipco). He was also runner-up in the Al Shaqab Lockinge and Prix du Moulin and retires to take up stallion duties at his owner’s French stud.
Back in February trainer Archie Watson thought Bradsell might have suffered a career-ending injury but not a bit of it. It might have delayed his start to the season, forcing him to miss Royal Ascot, but what a comeback – it did not blunt his speed and he was the only European sprinter to triumph in two Group Ones.
He won the Coolmore Wooton Basset Nunthorpe Stakes and the Bar One Flying Five Stakes at The Curragh in Ireland before finishing second in the Prix de L’Abbaye. He took the award for Cartier sprinter which was received by his Bahrain-based owners Victorious Racing’s manager, Oliver St Lawrence.
It is not often Godolphin gets passed over at these awards and trainer Charlie Appleby and chief executive Hugh Anderson were able to pick up the Cartier Two-year-old Award for Shadow of Light, only the third horse in a century to complete the Middle Park-Dewhurst double.
