Sea The Superstars?
June 8th, 2009 by Donn McCleanSo just how good is Sea The Stars? Difficult to tell exactly at this stage, but somewhere between very good and brilliant is probably accurate enough.
He could be brilliant, he could be the horse of a generation. He was a shorter price for the Derby than he was for the Guineas during the winter, yet the speed that he showed to win the Guineas was so impressive that many people – this person included – thought that he was far from certain to stay a mile and a half.
John Oxx said that it was 50-50 in his mind, but he had to have a go. From a man who rarely tells you that his geese are swans – he tells you that his geese are geese, that his swans are swans, that some of his geese may indeed turn out to be swans and that this particular bird, well, he’s not quite sure if he is a goose or a swan, but he sure as hell isn’t a seagull – it is just possible that he was thinking 51-49. Mick Kinane, in his almost inimitable quiet, matter-of-fact way, thought that he would stay. “I think he’ll stay”, he said, quietly.
Before Saturday, no horse since Nashwan had done the Guineas/Derby double. Nashwan was 20 years ago. (Doesn’t seem like it, does it?) Fifteen Guineas winners had tried in the interim, and all 15 had failed. New Approach would have been the 16th last year had he flared his left nostril just a smidgen more in the duel with Henrythenavigator at Newmarket, and he would have succeeded, but New Approach was an exceptional racehorse, and even he couldn’t do it.
It isn’t often that you can call the Derby winner at the three-furlong pole. Slip Anchor maybe. Motivator perhaps. Authorized. Galileo. I don’t know how the in-running betting went on Betfair, but Sea The Stars had to have been close to even money at the two-furlong pole, and long odds-on at the furlong pole. Kinane said he never had a sweat, that he was able to enjoy the race. Sea The Stars travelled so well, he quickened so impressively, and he was never in danger of being caught, despite the ominous closing of the Ballydoyle ranks inside the final 100 yards. The winner was idling. He never wins by far. He was probably value for much more than the two-length winning margin, and this, by common consensus, was one of the best Derby fields assembled in years. This is impressive stuff.
There is an argument to say that he has to do it again if he is not to be classed as merely very good. It goes like this. The race was run to suit. It was run to suit a Guineas winner, a 10-furlong horse. James Willoughby had an interesting piece in the Racing Post this morning in which he compared Sea The Stars’s time with the time recorded by Oxx’s previous Derby winner, Sinndar, when he prevailed in 2000. Both races were run on similar ground, both races were run in almost identical times, yet the first five furlongs of Sinndar’s race was run in a time that was five and a half seconds quicker than the first five furlongs of Saturday’s race. Five and a half seconds is colossal in the space of five furlongs over a mile and a half. It is a Maserati compared to a 16A. It meant that this year’s Derby was probably more a test of speed than a test of stamina, and Sea The Stars has speed in bucketloads.
Hopefully the weather will relent and allow the Cape Cross colt take his chance in the Irish Derby. It looks like Oxx will not allow him line up at The Curragh if the ground is easy, which would be a shame, because a re-match between him and Fame And Glory and Masterofthehorse on good ground at The Curragh would be fascinating. Seamie Heffernan said today that he probably should have been more aggressive on Fame And Glory. Maybe he should have. Maybe he will be.
If Sea The Stars doesn’t run in the Irish Derby, we may never see him race over a mile and a half again, and it has to be, regrettably, long odds-against that he will try to emulate Nijinsky’s 1970 feat and land the St Leger, the third leg of the Triple Crown. He doesn’t have to. He looks for all the world like a 10-furlong horse. Races like the Eclipse (Nashwan’s subsequent port of call after he won the Derby in 1989), the Juddmonte International, the Irish Champion Stakes and, intriguingly, the Breeders’ Cup Classic – which will, like last year when Raven’s Pass won it, be run on the Pro-Ride at Santa Anita – are potentially his races now.
Brilliant? After all of that, we just may have to accept that he is.
* For more of Donn’s thoughts, visit www.donnmcclean.com
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Categories: Irish Racing
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