WON: Breeders Bowl Turf(G1), Derby De English(G1), Adelaide Derby(G1), Sydney Derby(G1), Sim Sports Irish Derby(G1), Owner's Stakes(G1), Prix du Jockey Club(G1)

2nd: Pine Ransom Stakes

Horseshoe Bay: Champion Turf Male, Champion Three Year Old Colt

By- Sand

Horseshoe Bay.  The name wasn’t on anyone’s “watch-list” when January 1^st rolled around, and only a handful of astute horseplayers knew anything about the stocky, compact Red Ransom colt.  Fast forward 12 months, and everybody knows his name.

He traveled a path blazed by two titans of the turf before him, but his is no copy-cat act: when Allied Assault, the first of the three year old turf titans, claimed his title, he was the odds on favorite to repeat as a four year old, but it would be a new player, the heralded Sunnybank Memorial, who would instead claim the title in 2004. Surely, those two were no longer fresh-faced youngsters running on talent alone: they were seasoned, grizzled veterans who wouldn’t be fazed by some spring chicken come crunch time in the fall. For a *new* three year old to continue that streak, it would have to be a truly special colt.  He’d have to go through not only his own division and not only the previous year’s winner, but *two* horses who were looking more like two of the best to ever touch a racetrack. Racing pundits said it couldn’t be done.

But now those same racing pundits have started to whisper that 2005’s Turf Titan (version 3.0!), may be the best yet. Turf Titan 3.0, Horseshoe Bay, didn’t simply win, as the previous models had done. Horseshoe Bay annihilated his opponents: his average winning margin in the 7 G1 races he captured was an astounding 3.1 lengths.   And, unlike previous years when detractors had cried that the three year olds were weak and Allied Assault and Sunnybank Memorial had been simply thrashing little more than allowance competition, a few late-season heroics from other members of the three year old class put to rest any lingering questions about just how good Horseshoe Bay was.

So how did this colt go from an afterthought who hadn’t won a graded stakes, was 3: 0-0-0 in races over 1 mile, to a world beater? Trainer texasace must be given much of the credit: recognizing that his colt was just a cut below the best in the division to start the year, he dropped Horseshoe Bay back to allowance company, where a 4-horse, $10,700 allowance field was at the mercy of the newly minted three-year old. For the first time, Horseshoe Bay displayed the closing kick that would ultimately carry him past the top turf horses in the country, but texasace was still content to play conservatively: next up was an allowance in the Big Apple, where Horseshoe Bay barely broke a sweat while cruising home an easy 4 ¼ length victor.

Finally, the dreams that had dimmed through the end of the colt’s juvenile season sparked to life again, and texasace sent his charge Down Under for a crack at the Pine Ransom Stakes in New South Wales. He wasn’t disgraced, finishing a hard-closing 2^nd while going only 9.5 furlongs, and following yet another solid prep in a $40,500 allowance over 10 furlongs, where he simply ran out of ground, texasace decided to take another shot at the big time. Certainly, he was expecting his colt to put in a good showing, but he got a little bit more than he had dreamed of.

At 11-1, Horseshoe Bay ran off and hid from the good colt Jupiter’s Moons in the G1 Sydney Derby, winning for fun. His final margin was 4 lengths, and he did himself one better when winning the Adelaide Derby by 4 ¼. Then it was back to the northern hemisphere for the most prestigious grass race for three year old colts in the world, the G1 Derby de English. The Wonder From Down Under, as the press had playfully dubbed the colt, would go off as the third choice behind the Irish bred Woette’s Delight and the solid Valmar, both of whom had been racing in Europe leading into the Derby and were certainly, if not more accomplished, at least more visible than Horseshoe Bay. Horseshoe Bay needed only slightly more than 2:29 to change all that: validating the Australian form, he led Jupiter’s Moons home by 3 ¼ lengths.

Now the established leader of the three year old turf marathon colts, he survived his next test, the SIM Sports Irish Derby, winning by a bare length, the only time victory of his championship season in which he would fail to open daylight on his opponents. Jupiter’s Moons tested him that day, and the numbers experts, finally convinced that the Horseshoe Bay had the guts to win a tough race, rewarded his efforts with a career-best 109 speed figure.

A one-race sojurn back to North America proved to be little more than a working vacation for Horseshoe Bay: he provided American and Canadian race fans with a first-hand look at his brilliance while simply cantering home in the G1 Owner’s Stakes at Ontario. A promising colt named Princeton Lights followed him home, but the effort sapped him, and in five starts since that effort Princeton Lights has gone 5: 1-0-0. Jupiter’s Moons, trailing in third, had seen enough of Horseshoe Bay and gave up the futile endeavor of chasing him home.  While Horseshoe Bay caught the next plane to France (where he would smash the promising Rapid Grey in the G1 Prix du Jockey Club) Jupiter’s Moons stayed stateside, suffering a tough loss at the hands of Sunnybank Memorial in the Man Of War Stakes before taking down a G1 in Ontario, the Canadian Turf. Jupiter’s Moons victory was the first indication that the three year olds were on par with the older horses this year, but by the time the horses all arrived in New York for the Breeders’ Bowl, everything wasn’t status quo.

From the Prix du Jockey Club, Horseshoe Bay had ventured back to Australia, but it seems as though the frequent-flier miles had finally caught up to a colt that, having outrun everything else, was now attempting to outrun jetlag. Unsuccessful in that attempt, Horseshoe Bay finished a flat 7^th, while Minesweeper, another three year old, instead rolled home the victor.

The betting public questioned whether yet another trip, this time from Australia to New York, would be too much for the three-year old star to overcome, and their trepidation was reflected in his 13-1 odds. He would go off as no less than the 7^th choice: prevailing sentiment that the older horse were the class of the turf division had not been dissuaded by the events of the previous seven months. All the chips were on the table, and the Breeders’ Bowl was regarded as a showdown between the “Big Three.” Rain God, Sunnybank Memorial, and Allied Assault certainly figured to be 1-2-3 across the line, though the order was hotly debated in the lead-in to the race, while the three year olds were mostly ignored. Somebody, as the saying goes, forgot to tell the horse that he wasn’t supposed to win. Somebody, as the results show, forgot to tell the horse that he was facing larger, more accomplished, older rivals. Someone, as the overpowering three-length margin of victory attests to, forgot to tell Horseshoe Bay that this was supposed to be one of the most hotly contested races in history.

True to its billing, the Breeders’ Bowl Turf crowned a champion that day, and while the year certainly wasn’t over (Horseshoe Bay would go on to finish a dull 8^th in the Japan Cup, perhaps finally showing the results of flying an equivalent of 3 ½ times around the globe in 8 months, though Jupiter’s Moons would ultimately take that race and reinforce the form of the three year old group, and Allied Assault would bid farewell to the racing world with a 3^rd victory in the Penn Marathon), the championship race was: Horseshoe Bay had won on the one day when everyone insisted the winner would be chosen, and he had done it in style.

For his efforts, Horseshoe Bay was named champion turf male (over, in no particular order, nominees Allied Assault, General’s Chariot, Rain God, and Sunnybank Memorial) and champion three year old male (over, in no particular order, fellow nominees Anticosti, Fly For Buda, General’s Chariot, and Macho Niner). Certainly, the racing world is looking forward to seeing what Horseshoe Bay can do for an encore in 2006!

Congratulations to trainer texasace and his wonderfully talented colt!