Twelve months ago this weekend, Able Friend lined up as an odds-on favourite in the Champions Mile. He was beaten. Convincingly.
A wily South African horseman, Mike de Kock – unmatched at the art of travelling horses globally – left the Sha Tin crowd shell-shocked, becoming the first foreign trainer to win the spring feature with Variety Club.
This weekend, there will be no déjà vu. Moore and Able Friend will vie for redemption against a field lacking any real depth and with only one opponent – BMW Hong Kong Derby winner Luger – even the slightest possibility of matching him.
There are no international contenders for the first time since the race opened to global competition in 2005.
Even De Kock could not be enticed to return – or, more accurately, he didn’t have the right horse.
Instead, he is in Louisville, Kentucky, trying to add to his status as world racing’s groundbreaking globetrotter – attempting to become the first trainer based outside the Americas to win one of the world’s biggest races, the Kentucky Derby, with UAE Derby winner Mubtaahij.
The Run for the Roses is the greatest two minutes in American sport, although it can be said that this year it is merely an entrée to an even bigger American sporting event hours later – the ‘Fight of the Century’, the multi-million dollar Floyd Mayweather Jnr-Manny Pacquiao bout in Las Vegas.
Still, the Derby is the pinnacle in a mammoth 24 hours that leaves racing fans drooling like Homer Simpson. The 2000 Guineas at Newmarket, the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs, the Tenno Sho (Spring) at Kyoto and the Champions Mile at Sha Tin – who needs sleep?
Throw in the fillies’ equivalents for the two cross-Atlantic classics, the 1000 Guineas and the Kentucky Oaks, and it is heaven in a neat little package.
Stories abound in all of them. Can Coolmore add another English classic with Gleneagles? Will the nutty Gold Ship finally get his act together in the Tenno Sho? Is Able Friend able to atone for last year’s defeat and set himself up for a tilt at Royal Ascot?
But a De Kock celebration under the Twin Spires at Churchill Downs would trump them all and then some. It’s been a mountainous trek from his beginnings in Alberton, near Johannesburg, to one of the world’s top races, and success would represent a peak unlikely to be matched in a very successful and storied career.
And while there are serious and legitimate doubts on whether Mubtaahij is suited in the Kentucky Derby, let alone whether he is good enough to win, it is simply foolish to dismiss De Kock on a whim.
The trainer’s Champions Mile win last year was the latest in a long list of global triumphs, but one in which he challenged long-held conceptions and it serves as a blueprint for his Derby aspirations this weekend.
Taking on Hong Kong’s milers on home turf is considered to be one of the toughest tasks in world racing. It’s been a decade since a foreigner won the Hong Kong Mile – and not for lack of trying, either, with 58 horses trying and failing in the prevailing years. Variety Club became the first raider to win the Champions Mile and only the third to ever run a place. Two of those placegetters were prepared by De Kock.
If Hong Kong milers strike fear, then American three-year-olds at a mile and a quarter on dirt are as good as untouchable.
Only one trainer from outside North America has ever won the Kentucky Derby with Venezuelan Juan Arias producing one of the race's biggest shocks, winning with Canonero II in 1971.
Even horses bred outside the States are few and far between. The Canadians produced 1983 winner Sunny’s Halo and the immortal Northern Dancer in 1964, while the last from outside North America was 1959 winner Tomy Lee, bred in England but taken to the United States as a weanling.
With all that in mind, the thought of a South African-trained, Dubai-owned, Irish-bred colt wearing the blanket of roses reserved for the Derby winner seems truly absurd.
The Kentucky Derby may not achieve the same attention in Hong Kong as it does elsewhere. Unlike other features, it is rarely a hunting ground for future talent, with 2013 seventh placegetter Lines Of Battle, now Helene Super Star, the last Derby runner now based at Sha Tin. Ironically, like Mubtaahij, Helene Super Star also won the UAE Derby.
And yet once Able Friend had completed his Champions Mile preparation on Thursday morning, the gaggle of media at Sha Tin trackwork, both local and international, were swept up in the Derby post-position draw rather than the Hong Kong feature.
Mubtaahij is the story garnering attention overseas. It is De Kock’s crusade which is of the most interest as he attempts to go where no man has gone before.
In the States, though, he’s more a fascination, a great story but a long way from a serious hope – received somewhat like Dermot Weld and Vintage Crop before the 1993 Melbourne Cup. We all know how that turned out.
The task does look monumental and in this case it appears too great an ask. The gateway to Derby success looks blocked, and standing in his way is another horseman that has seen off the Hong Kong threat in recent times, Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert.
The three-time Derby winner, who stood in the way of back-to-back Hong Kong victories in the Dubai Golden Shaheen when his Secret Circle held off Super Jockey and Rich Tapestry, has the two favourites for Saturday’s race.
American Pharoah, incorrect spelling and all, is the likely top fancy after a string of easy victories, culminating in an eight-length romp in the Arkansas Derby. Draw 17 makes it tough though, as he is likely to have to press forward on a fast speed.
Instead, it is the stablemate Dortmund who looks the most likely winner. The latest in a long line of successful giant chestnuts – he looks a twin of Able Friend and stands at over 17 hands – he is six from six and took the Santa Anita Derby in scintillating fashon last time out.
Owned by Kaleem Shah, who names his horses after football teams – he won the Breeders’ Cup Classic in controversial circumstances with Bayern – he looks a potential superstar in the making and has drawn to get the perfect run. He still looks to have the scope for improvement too, something which is questionable with American Pharoah.
After the weekend is done, it is likely the racing world will be talking about two giant chestnuts who can dominate on both sides of the globe in years to come.
Able Friend will be the standardbearer, with Royal Ascot on the horizon after a Champions Mile blitz, but Dortmund could be anything once he develops. Hopefully, he can take the first step this weekend with Derby glory – and perhaps a Triple Crown tilt may await.
That is, of course, unless De Kock plays the role of the spoiler once more.
The Griffin’s Kentucky Derby tips: 1 DORTMUND, 2 Upstart, 3 Frosted, 4 Firing Line
