CANDY: LIMATO IS MY BEST YET
THE trainer has never had a runner in America before and is more comfortable wearing his Panama than the baseball cap he has been asked to sport.
His horse is a fruitcake — tricky to saddle and mount. And at £41,000, he cost nickels and dimes compared to the millions of dollars he will race for in California tonight.
In one of the hottest fields ever assembled for the Breeders’ Cup Mile, featuring 10 Group One winners, the four-year-old gelding is one of only four in the 14-horse line-up never to have won at the distance.
And his young jockey has never had a ride on the tight, sun-baked circuit here.
Step forward Limato, trainer Henry Candy and jockey Harry Bentley, who could pull off one of Europe’s greatest wins at the world’s biggest race meeting.
Brilliant when winning the July Cup over six furlongs and Prix de la Foret over seven, Limato has looked the part. Now he has to play it.
In many ways, the most compelling argument in the case for Limato are the words of Candy, 72, whose natural demeanour edges more to pessimism than optimism. When the man who has trained since 1973 and produced horses such as Time Charter, who won the Oaks, King George and Champion Stakes, Eclipse Stakes winner Master Willie and sprinters Airwave and Kyllachy, says Limato is on a higher level, it is significant.
‘He is probably the best I have ever trained and that is what you need out here,’ Candy said.
‘What this guy does at times is pretty exceptional and he is growing all the time.
‘He is a very late developer. As a two- and three-year-old he was a rat of a horse. How he achieved what he did, I don’t know. He doesn’t look out of place now.
‘I was very lucky to get Time Charter early on but Limato is something different.
‘It gives everyone such hope but there is some very strong opposition.’
That includes Tepin, last year’s Mile winner who defied conditions alien to a US racehorse at Royal Ascot in June in winning the Queen Anne Stakes over a straight course.
Defeat after eight wins in a row for the Mark Casse-trained filly arrived last time after jockey Julien Leparoux handed front-runner Photo Call way too much rope.
In the build-up to tonight’s race, Casse has talked about tactical ‘lessons being learnt’. Then there is Alice Springs, three times a Group One winner this season and bidding to give Aidan O’Brien victory in a rare race to have eluded him.
Candy feels the likely fast pace will cancel out most of the negatives of Limato’s wide draw in stall 10 and the quick ground will suit. Crucially, he has no concerns about the stamina of Limato, the 3-1 joint favourite with Tepin at Coral.
With not one European runner in any of the Dirt races, the focus is on the grass-race contests.
Arc winner Found bids to land the Breeders’ Cup Turf for the second year running and lines up alongside not-tobe-underestimated stablemate and King George winner Highland Reel in a race O’Brien has won five times.
Ectot and Flintshire, both ex-French, lead the home defence while David O’Meara tries Arlington Million winner Mondialiste over his longest ever distance.
O’Brien’s Seventh Heaven was beaten in a tactical write-off at Ascot last month, but has huge credentials in the Filly & Mare Turf. Lady Eli is the one to beat.
If anything can beat the US horses in the Turf Sprint, it might be O’Brien’s Washington DC.
The meeting climaxes with the clash between hugely popular Art Sherman-trained California Chrome and Arrogate in the $6m Classic.
Chrome has already shown himself to be a giant performer, winning the 2014 Classic and bouncing back from an aborted attempt to take in Royal Ascot last year with five dominant wins this year — including the Dubai World Cup and Pacific Classic.
Bob Baffert’s Arrogate has one huge run on his record — a track-record-shattering win in the Travers Stakes at Saratoga in August that earned Frankel-like reviews.
Most around Clocker’s Corner here at the track, where punters have gathered to watch great horses such as Seabiscuit, are in the Chrome camp. Just.