Highland smashes Europe cash record
HIGHLAND REEL, third in Breeders’ Cup Turf, is set to have one final run before he retires as the highest-earning horse in Europe.
Trainer Aidan O’Brien said the son of Galileo is one of a handful of runners he has for the final international races of the year with a shot at the Hong Kong Vase next month on the cards.
Highland Reel has run twice in that race, finishing second to Satono Crown last year.
Despite not being able to repeat his 2016 Turf win, the £292,000 Highland Reel secured with his placed effort behind Andre Fabre’s Talismanic on Saturday took his career earnings to £6,441,225 and carried him above France’s Cirrus Des Aigles, the previous highest European earner.
The Irish trainer brought 13 horses to the meeting and left with one winner, Ryan Mooreridden Mendelssohn in the Juvenile Turf on Friday.
O’Brien had to endure some near-misses with badly-drawn Rhododendron second to Charlie Appleby’s Wuheida in the Filly and Mare Turf and Lancaster Bomber runner-up to Royal Ascot possible World Approval in the Mile.
O’Brien, who runs Johannes Vermeer in tomorrow’s Melbourne Cup, said: ‘The horses have run hard all season so we can’t expect too much.’
With Lancaster Bomber and stablemate Deauville also Hong Kong possibles and O’Brien (below) revealing he was likely to have a rare Japan Cup challenge with Highland Reel’s brother Idaho, the trainer could add to his record 27 group one wins this year.
If there was a sense of anticlimax here on Saturday it was because, as well as Highland Reel, the big guns — Churchill (seventh in the Classic), Marsha (sixth in the Turf Sprint), Ribchester (fifth in the Mile) and Queen’s Trust (fifth in the Filly and Mare Turf) — didn’t deliver. Ulysses didn’t even make it to the start line because of a leg injury.
But the three successes by Mendelssohn, Talismanic and Wuheida is above par. In 34 runnings of the Breeders’ Cup, Europe has bettered that only three times.
The meeting climaxed with Gun Runner producing a stunning front-running performance to win the $6million Classic.
Aidan O’Brien’s Churchill was prominent early but was well beaten long before the home straight. The wins provided by Talismanic and Wuheida topped a more productive season in Europe for Godolphin.
Jockey William Buick, who broke a bone in his back on his last trip to the US, will walk tall into Kempton today after Wuheida gave him a first Breeders’ Cup winner after some near-misses.