It’s been three years since TRC published an article featuring ten European runners who left a big mark on North American racing after being permanently transferred across the Atlantic. Here we look at a top ten of Euros who also had an impact across the Pond but did so while still representing European stables.
Since the advent of the Breeders’ Cup in 1984, a plethora of European-trained horses have landed gongs for turf championships at the Eclipse Awards after winning a single race. Generally speaking (albeit with a couple of notable exceptions), we have avoided those one-hit wonders, preferring those who made a more enduring impact.
This list also refers to the modern era of US racing, which for our purposes means from 1970 onwards, thus neglecting the earliest years of the Washington DC International, for a long time the only truly international race on the calendar before the likes of the Canadian International (an older race, though not in transcontinental terms) and Arlington Million took up the gauntlet.
All three races can be seen as paving the way towards the creation of the Breeders’ Cup, and several transatlantic runners won early runnings of the pioneeering Laurel contest, starting with British-trained Wilwyn, who claimed the inaugural running in 1952.
Several other notables – among them Diatome, Sir Ivor and Karabas – won in the next couple of decades, with France by far the most successful nation, rather like in the first decade of the Breeders’ Cup, when their horses succeeded as the British and Irish noticeably failed.
DAHLIA
foaled 25 March 1970
ch f Vaguely Noble - Charming Alibi
Owner: Nelson Bunker Hunt
Trainer: Maurice Zilber (France)
Career record: 15 wins from 48 races
US honours: Champion turf horse (1974); Hall of Fame (1981)
At #50, the highest-ranked European in Blood-Horse magazine’s Top 100 Racehorses of the 20th Century, a formidable performer who was an intercontinental pioneer. Carrying the famous green chequerboard silks of Texas oilman Nelson Bunker Hunt, she became the first mare to win $1 million, she won a litany of G1s in Europe – headed by two King Georges and two Benson & Hedges Gold Cups (now the Juddmonte International) – and broke new ground in being sent to chase North American riches while still in her prime.
Duly unleashed an awesome turn of speed to run down a top-class field in the Washington DC International at Laurel (then the only race in which Europeans took on the locals) as a 3-year-old in 1973 before adding the Man o’ War and Canadian International the following season, when she was a fast-closing third in DC (Lester Piggott slammed for exaggerated waiting tactics). A long career had seemingly taken its toll by the time she was switched to Charlie Whittingham’s barn, but she nevertheless added another G1 in the Hollywood International Handicap.
YOUTH
foaled 1973
b c Ack Ack - Gazala
Owner: Nelson Bunker Hunt
Trainer: Maurice Zilber (France)
Career record: 8 wins from 11 races
US honours: Champion turf male (1976)
Despite a fine career record and a big Timeform rating of 135, this US-bred son of Ack Ack is something of a forgotten horse in the annals of European racing, maybe because he was a beaten favourite in both the King George (on fast ground) and Arc after an emphatic French Derby triumph. However, he was hugely impressive on his final two career starts on soft ground under Sandy Hawley in North America, winning the Canadian International as he pleased before thumping his Washington DC International opponents in a ten-length victory over French compatriots On My Way and Arc winner Ivanjica.
His owner, who had won the race with Dahlia and Nobiliary in the 1970s (all trained by Zilber), syndicated him to stud for a reported $6 million, claiming he was “one of the best if not the best” horse he ever owned. Youth went on to sire Epsom Derby winner Teenoso.
ALL ALONG
foaled 7 April 1979
b f Targowice - Agujita
Owner: Daniel Wildenstein
Trainer: Patrick Biancone (France)
Career record: 9 wins from 21 races
US honours: Horse of the Year (1983), champion turf female (1983); Hall of Fame (1990)
Equine racing pioneer who earned a special place in US racing history when becoming the only European-trained horse ever to be named Horse of the Year after a spectacular transcontinental 6-week international spree in autumn of 1983. The Wildenstein homebred followed a surprise 17.3/1 victory in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe as a 4-year-old under Walter Swinburn with a quickfire hat-trick across the Atlantic, taking the Rothmans (Canadian) International, Turf Classic and Washington DC International, in the process netting a $1 million bonus.
Critics said she was favoured by yielding turf conditions and clocked only slow times, but it was enough to persuade Eclipse Award voters. Also runner-up in the inaugural Breeders’ Cup Turf in 1984, she entered the US Hall of Fame in 1990 and was No. 68 in Blood-Horse’s Top 100 Racehorses of the 20th Century.
MIESQUE
Foaled 14 March 1984
b f Nureyev - Pasadoble
Owner: Stavros Niarchos (Flaxman Holdings Ltd.)
Trainer: François Boutin (France)
Career record: 12 wins from 16 races
US honours: Champion turf female (1987, 1988); Hall of Fame (1999)
Still spoken of with a degree of awe among the US racing community, the formidable Miesque was a champion in each of the three countries in which she raced, never out of the first three in 16 career starts, all but two of them in G1 company. A dual Classic winner with a famous finishing kick, the daughter of Nureyev (known as ‘La Concierge’ at the Boutin yard owing to her interest in what was going on around her) was already established as the top miler in Europe by the time of her US debut at the Breeders’ Cup at Hollywood Park in 1987. She proceeded to slam her rivals by 3½ lengths in track record time, under a hand ride from Freddy Head.
Her legacy was assured 12 months later, when she became the first horse to win back-to-back Breeders’ Cup races, overcoming her distaste for soggy conditions at Churchill Downs to score by four lengths from perhaps the strongest Mile field ever assembled with rivals including top European miler Warning, Belmont Stakes victor Bet Twice and Steinlen, who was to win the race in 1989.
ARAZI
foaled 4 March 1989
ch c Blushing Groom - Danseur Fabuleux
Owner: Allen E Paulson & Sheikh Mohammed
Trainer: François Boutin (France)
Career record: 9 wins from 14 races
US honours: Champion 2YO colt (1991)
The little chestnut with the crooked white blaze certainly left his mark in no uncertain terms, even if his legacy is ambiguous to the US racing community. A new adjective entered the racing lexicon when he completed his spectacular 2-year-old campaign – enough to be named European Horse of the Year above any of his elders – with that never-to-be-forgotten display at the Breeders’ Cup at Churchill Downs, where he treated America’s best dirt juveniles with absolute contempt on their home patch. ‘Arazi-esque’ was how many a stunning come-from-behind victory would be described in the years to follow.
A blizzard of hype followed before he started favourite for the Kentucky Derby, with the New York Times calling the colt “mythical and almost mystical” and TIME magazine suggesting “Arazi is fast winning a reputation as the second coming of Secretariat”. It was all too much. After knee surgery, he was never the same again, crushed beneath a blizzard of hype as hot favourite for the Kentucky Derby, where he could finish only eighth after fading in the stretch, his name a byword for anticlimax for some folk.
ARCANGUES
foaled 12 March 1988
ch c Sagace - Albertine
Owner: Daniel Wildenstein
Trainer: André Fabre (France)
Career record: 6 wins from 19 races
US honours: none
Responsible for one of the biggest shock results in US racing history via his unlikely success on his dirt debut in the Breeders’ Cup Classic. Despite the presence of Jerry Bailey in the saddle at Santa Anita in 1993, the unconsidered 5-year-old was sent off a 133/1 shot on the pari-mutuel. Even his rider thought he was a no-hoper. “I agreed to ride Arcangues simply because it beat the alternative – which was to watch the race in the jocks’ room,” Bailey admitted.
What followed was the longest-priced winner in Breeders’ Cup history, while the French colt remains the only European-trained horse to win America’s most prestigious race on dirt (Raven’s Pass beat Henrythenavigator on the synthetic Pro-Ride strip at Santa Anita in 2008). And here’s a quiz question: Which horse was the beaten favourite who was two lengths behind in second place? Bertrando, who had also been runner-up to Arazi in the Juvenile 12 months previously.
HIGH CHAPARRAL
foaled 9 March 1999
b c Sadler’s Wells - Kasora
Owner: Coolmore Partners
Trainer: Aidan O’Brien (Ireland)
Career record: 10 wins from 13 races
US honours: Champion turf male (2002, 2003)
Given his European exploits, nobody would suggest High Chaparral’s legacy rests primarily on what he did in the States. After all, apart from his career debut, the only occasions on which this redoubtable racehorse was beaten came when he twice finished third in the Arc, his successes featuring a pair of Derbys in Britain and Ireland and an Irish Champion Stakes. However, he was the first dual winner of the Breeders’ Cup Turf – on the second occasion dead-heating with Johar at Santa Anita with Falbrav just a head away in a titanic finish, a thunderous duel that ended with three horses almost inseparable – and that was enough to be named America’s champion male turf performer twice.
OUIJA BOARD
foaled 6 March 2001
b f Cape Cross - Selection Board
Owner: Lord Derby
Trainer: Ed Dunlop (UK)
Career record: 10 wins from 22 starts
US honours: Champion turf female (2004)
But for arguably being given too much to do at Belmont Park in 2005, this immensely popular globetrotting mare might have ended up with a more prominent place in US racing folklore as the first horse to win three Breeders’ Cup races. Instead, she had to settle for two, claiming the Filly & Mare Turf 12 months earlier under Kieren Fallon at Lone Star Park (where there is a G3 named after her) and again in 2006 at Churchill Downs, with Frankie Dettori in the saddle as she unleashed her trademark surge in the stretch to overwhelm her rivals for an emotional success.
As game as they come, in a long, much-travelled career, she won seven races altogether at the highest level, including Oaks in both Britain and Ireland, the Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot, a memorable duel with Alexander Goldrun in the Nassau Stakes at Goodwood and a Hong Kong Vase.
CAPE BLANCO
foaled 20 April 2007
ch c Galileo - Laurel Delight
Owner: Mrs F Hay/Coolmore Partners
Trainer: Aidan O’Brien (Ireland)
Career record: 9 wins from 15 starts
US honours: Champion turf male (2011)
Unlikely to be the first name on any list of European ‘greats’, though possible he’s been slightly hard done by over the years in comparison to some of his more illustrious Ballydoyle stablemates as he won both the Irish Derby and Irish Champion Stakes (by 5½ lengths) as a 3-year-old.
Sent on his travels the following season, he claimed a US turf championship with a flawless 3-race campaign in 2011 taking in the Man o’ War Stakes, Arlington Million and Joe Hirsch Turf Classic under Jamie Spencer, in the process twice beating US turf star Gio Ponti. Short of winning the Breeders’ Cup Turf, you couldn’t ask for much more, and Cape Blanco was denied his chance to run there when a knee fracture ended his career and he was sent to stud.
GOLDIKOVA
foaled 15 March 2005
b f Anabaa - Born Gold
Owner: Wertheimer et Frere
Trainer: Freddy Head (France)
Career record: 17 wins from 27 races
US honours: Champion turf female (2009, 2010), Hall of Fame (2017)
Left an indelible mark in the US as the first horse to win three Breeders’ Cup races with her hat-trick in the Mile between 2008 and 2010 for trainer Freddy Head, who had also been associated with that other great filly Miesque as her regular rider.
Always ridden by her adoring jockey, Olivier Peslier, Goldikova’s reputation was huge on both sides of the Atlantic, her career record of 14 top-level successes altogether (nine of them against males) still a record for a European horse. In the States, she was regarded a standing dish thanks to her once-a-year exploits, considered as near-invincible thanks to her fine turn of foot in the stretch. What’s more, after chasing too strong a pace, she was only a length away from completing an unprecedented Cup four-timer when coming third aged six on her final start in 2011. It was testament to her Stateside reputation that she was still sent off hot favourite, despite there being signs in Europe she wasn’t quite the force of old.