BC Internationals: Classic contender Churchill

It would be fitting for Aidan O’Brien to score an elusive Breeders’ Cup Classic (G1) in 2017, a year defined by his quest to surpass Bobby Frankel’s single-season Group 1 record. But his prospects at Del Mar are particularly challenging, as he takes on a stellar cast featuring defending champion Arrogate among Bob Baffert’s murderers’ row, and a red-hot Gun Runner, with a pair of three-year-old colts at different stages of their careers.

While War Decree is primarily about the future, Churchill is the established class on the verge of a Coolmore stud career in 2018. He’s already got his stallion ads lined up, so to speak, as Europe’s champion two-year-old of 2016 and a dual Guineas winner this campaign. If his reputation isn’t quite as lofty as it once was, thanks to a subsequent losing streak, he can take pride in his past accomplishments.

For that very reason, the Coolmore brain trust may not (probably won’t?) enter Churchill in the Breeders’ Cup Mile (G1) on his proven surface, turf. It’s the better spot for him to revisit the winner’s circle, but from a purely commercial perspective, it doesn’t add to his appeal. Win or lose, we already know he’s a top-class turf miler. But if he can demonstrate dirt ability at this level, his portfolio suddenly expands.

Churchill is therefore vaguely reminiscent of O’Brien’s most recent Classic runner, Gleneagles (2015). He too was a top juvenile, and dual Guineas winner, who ended his career in anticlimactic fashion tailed-off behind American Pharoah at Keeneland.

But the more apt parallel may be with another dual Guineas winner for O’Brien, Henrythenavigator (2008), who likewise became beatable as the season wore on but kept up the good fight to the end. Henrythenavigator concluded his career with an admirable second in the Classic – the rub being that it came over Santa Anita’s old synthetic, and it’s questionable if he could have replicated the feat on dirt.

The surface is indeed the biggest concern for Churchill. Otherwise, he’s got the class, and he’s stayed the trip well enough. But there’s not much of a compelling pedigree angle for dirt. He’s by all-world turf sire Galileo, sixth in his Classic attempt in 2001. And his Group 3-winning dam, Meow, is by Storm Cat but out of the brilliant turf sprinter Airwave, from a thoroughly Anglo-Irish family. Churchill’s action, to my eye anyway, reflects that turfy pedigree.

Third on debut at the Curragh, Churchill broke his maiden as one of the proverbial “bankers” at the 2016 Royal Ascot meeting. His victory in the Chesham at odds of 8-11 marked the beginning of a seven-race winning spree. After the Tyros (G3), Futurity (G2), and Vincent O’Brien National (G1), Churchill captured the Dewhurst (G1) to clinch the position of Europe’s best juvenile.

CHURCHILLالمهر
يتوج بطلا لشوط Dubi Dewhurst Stakes pic.twitter.com/NnT7BOuQKn

— صحيفة الفروسية (@horsesnewsnet) October 8, 2016

The Dewhurst, with Lancaster Bomber giving him a lovely set-up as the pacemaker, was a foreshadowing of the 2000 Guineas (G1) back at Newmarket May 6. Picking up right where he left off last fall, Churchill rolled off a steady pace to beat the troubled Barney Roy (watch how the blue-cap Godolphin runner stumbled badly into the “Dip”) and France’s Al Wukair.

Neither of those rivals tried the Irish 2000 Guineas (G1), where Churchill swept past Thunder Snow to complete the classic double. Always described as preferring better ground, he had won over softish going as juvenile, and he handled the yielding course well enough here.