As I sat down to write on horserac­ing, I could on­ly hear the sound of the "Leg­ends are Com­ing" run­ning through my brain. And just as the or­gan­is­ers of this ma­jes­tic once-in-a-life­time event on Fri­day (May 10) have start­ed with four World Cup-win­ning play­ers from Brazil 2002 and be­yond in Cap­tain Ca­fu, Ri­val­do, Ka­ka and Ed­mil­son will be here. I pon­dered whether our horserac­ing he­roes could be shown in a sim­i­lar light to re­vive the sport in this coun­try.

Last week around the world the top three-year-olds in the UK and the USA strut­ted their stuff over the past week­end with the 1000 and 2000 Guineas in Eng­land and the Ken­tucky Der­by and Oaks in the US. One of the ma­jor fea­tures of the four races was the eclipse of the 2023 two-year-old cham­pi­ons, many of whom went in­to their re­spec­tive races as strong favourites but with the ex­cep­tion of the two-year-old fil­lies cham­pi­on in the US, all were com­pre­hen­sive­ly beat­en. If his­to­ry is any­thing to go by, this does not nec­es­sar­i­ly rep­re­sent the end of their ca­reers but com­par­isons to past greats have cer­tain­ly end­ed for at least one horse, the so-called Cool­more Frankel, City of Troy.

When you look at all the in­ter­est and the grow­ing mo­men­tum for this Leg­ends vs T&T All Stars match, it sends a strong sig­nal to many ahead of the match, that the peo­ple of this coun­try ap­pre­ci­ate a good prod­uct.

The first clas­sic to be con­test­ed was the Ken­tucky Oaks at Churchill Downs in the US. The two-year-old fil­lies cham­pi­on and Breed­ers Cup win­ner, Just FYI, was the luke­warm favourite giv­en she had al­ready tast­ed de­feat in 2024 when mak­ing her de­but in the Ash­land Stakes at Keeneland. Al­though she re­versed form with the win­ner that day, Leslie’s Rose, she was no match for the tough and cheap­ly bought, Thor­pe­do An­na. This fil­ly was well sup­port­ed in the mar­ket on the back of an im­pres­sive 2024 de­but win in the Fan­ta­sy Stakes and she made no mis­take when mak­ing all in the Oaks. This fil­ly cost US $40,000 at the sales and must give hope to every­one that mon­ey does not buy a cham­pi­on.

Just FYI ran on to be sec­ond but was al­ways be­ing held by the win­ner. Two fil­lies who showed promise for the fu­ture were Reg­u­la­to­ry Risk and Ways and Means, both trained by Chad Brown. None of the oth­er fil­lies showed much and it might be the bet­ter fil­lies did not con­test the Oaks, par­tic­u­lar­ly with the Bob Baf­fert fil­lies wait­ing in the wings for races out­side of Ken­tucky.

Next it was the turn of the colts in the UK, with the 2000 Guineas be­ing run off at New­mar­ket. This race was ex­pect­ed to be the three-year-old Coro­na­tion of the two-year-old cham­pi­on, City of Troy. This son of Jus­ti­fy took the two-year-old sea­son by storm, win­ning each of races with con­sum­mate ease. He was 4/6 to ex­tend his un­beat­en se­quence but looked a shad­ow of the horse we saw in 2023. It is al­so note­wor­thy that both Just FYI and City of Troy are two-year-old cham­pi­ons sired by the un­beat­en Jus­ti­fy who both failed to live up to ex­pec­ta­tions.

They are not the first Jus­ti­fy off­springs who ap­pear not to be quite as good as three-year-olds as they were as two-year-olds but more ev­i­dence is prob­a­bly need­ed. The flop of City of Troy threw open the race and the next best two-year-old in the race, Ros­al­lion, ran his race in fin­ish­ing sec­ond to the un­beat­en and un­raced, as a two-year-old, No­table Speech. There is a strong sus­pi­cion that the 2000 Guineas might turn out to be not quite as good as in pri­or years but time will tell.

The third home, Haatem, did win the Craven Stakes but he is a very well-ex­posed horse. Of the oth­ers, Ghost­writer (4th) and Task Force (7th) might progress to be the best of these al­beit at dif­fer­ent dis­tances.

The Ken­tucky Der­by at Churchill Downs was next and al­though it pro­duced an ex­hil­a­rat­ing three-horse fin­ish, it is ar­guable that the qual­i­ty was some­what down on pri­or years. Once again, the two-year-old cham­pi­on and Breed­ers Cup win­ner, Fierce­ness, was com­pre­hen­sive­ly beat­en, hav­ing been sent off favourite af­ter a dom­i­nant win in the Flori­da Der­by. Jus­ti­fy had two sons in the race but nei­ther fig­ured with Just Steel (17th) and Just A Touch (20th) hav­ing their sup­port­ers but show­ing lit­tle in the race.

The win­ner Mys­tic Dan had the run of the race, scrap­ing the in­ner rail through­out while the two hors­es that he nosed out Sier­ra Leone and For­ev­er Young, hav­ing to take the over­land route to make their chal­lenge. Like the win­ner of the Ken­tucky Oaks, Mys­tic Dan was trained by Ken McPeek and rid­den by Bri­an Her­nan­dez, giv­ing rid­er and train­er, a clas­sic dou­ble. Sier­ra Leone who cost 2.3 mil­lion as a year­ling com­pro­mised his chances by hang­ing to his right and would sure­ly have won if he kept a straight line. His run­ning style will al­ways make him sus­cep­ti­ble to hors­es with greater tac­ti­cal pace for all he looks a Bel­mont horse. The Japan­ese run­ner has come clos­est for his coun­try to date and with their oth­er rep­re­sen­ta­tive T.O. Pass­word stay­ing on strong­ly to be fifth, the Japan­ese are cer­tain­ly get­ting clos­er. Mys­tic Dan was no match for Baf­fert’s Muth in the Arkansas Der­by, and so a re­match be­tween the two in the Preak­ness Stakes should be mouth-wa­ter­ing. Two hors­es who shaped well in the Der­by with the fu­ture in mind are Catch­ing Free­dom (4th) and Re­silience (6th) while it might be un­wise to rule out Fierce­ness, giv­en his wide draw and slow start may have com­pro­mised his chances on this day. And yet again I keep tak­ing a page from the Leg­ends cam­paign where our own lo­cal foot­ball leg­ends can join with over­seas foot­ballers and won­der what has hap­pened to those who man­age the sport of Horserac­ing in terms of ide­ol­o­gy.

The fi­nal clas­sic of the ear­ly part of the sea­son was the 1000 Guineas at New­mar­ket. As with the pre­vi­ous three clas­sics, the race fea­tured the two-year-old cham­pi­on, Fall­en An­gel; a daugh­ter of Jus­ti­fy, Ra­mat­uelle – who was al­so an out­stand­ing ju­ve­nile; Dance Se­quence, aim­ing to give train­er/jock­ey com­bi­na­tion of Char­lie Ap­ple­by and William Buick, a clas­sic dou­ble in the UK; and nu­mer­ous un­ex­posed fil­lies who showed abil­i­ty in their clas­sic tri­als. In the end, the win­ner was the light­ly raced, El­mal­ka, who had on­ly pre­vi­ous­ly won her de­but on the all-weath­er be­fore a nice third in the Fred Dar­ling. The first five hors­es were cov­ered by a length which sug­gests the form may not be very strong with the two hors­es to take out of the race be­ing the fourth and fifth, Ylang Ylang and Tam­fanawho were both stay­ing on strong­ly at the end. Ra­mat­uelle gave Jus­ti­fy an­oth­er sec­ond-place fin­ish in a fil­lies’ clas­sic while the two-year-old cham­pi­on, Fall­en An­gel, like the UK two-year-old ju­ve­nile cham­pi­on City of Troy, was com­pre­hen­sive­ly beat­en.

The qual­i­ty of the races in the UK and US, give lo­cal horse rac­ing tur­fites quite a bit to en­joy. Long may it con­tin­ue giv­en the poor na­ture of the lo­cal rac­ing fare and the fact that our three-year-old race is end of the month in East­er Guineas.

We need some "Leg­ends in Horserac­ing" to come to this coun­try to help re­store the im­age of the sport.