Hovdey: Golden Horn another Gosden masterpiece

John Gosden was on his way from a sale to his stables – driving on the wrong side of the road – when a caller from the States pestered him with the only question that matters on this side of the pond:

When does Golden Horn arrive?

“He’ll be flying in the week before,” Gosden confirmed, which marks the calendar at around Oct. 24. “We let him down quietly a bit after his last race and then began building him up again with normal exercise. He’s been in solid training since the first week of February, so it’s been a long year, but his constitution has dealt with it so far. We’ll want to do whatever we need to do so that he’s a fit horse when he gets on the plane. Obviously, he’s fit right now, so the idea is to maintain that fitness.”

This is all good news and perfectly consistent with the fact that American racing fans have been hopelessly spoiled this season. The first Triple Crown winner in 37 years should have been enough, but then came a brilliant mare to beat the boys silly, followed by the very real prospect that they would land in the starting gate at the same time for the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Keeneland on Oct. 31.

Now, as if American Pharoah vs. Beholder is not enough to give Aunt Edna the vapors, along comes one of the finest 3-year-olds to emerge from England since Dancing Brave with a lethal bead on the Breeders’ Cup Turf. This apparently was what the founders had in mind when the whole thing started way back when.

Gosden was front and center for that first Breeders’ Cup in 1984, winning the BC Mile with the filly Royal Heroine as a California trainer. Thoroughly repatriated to his native England, he has been back since then to good effect, with a score in the 2008 Classic by Raven’s Pass and a brace of wins in the Juvenile Turf. But he’s never brought anything like Golden Horn, simply because he’s never had anything like Golden Horn before. Few have.

After winning the Epsom Derby, the Eclipse Stakes, and the Irish Champion this season, Golden Horn already was considered a very good horse. His victory over two-time winner Treve in the Oct. 4 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in Paris was one of those moments when a horse steps into a different dimension.

“The dream came true,” said Gosden, who was winning his first Arc. “We used some slightly unconventional tactics staying wide early from his outside draw. In the end, he went his last quarter in 22, and if you fly the last quarter of a mile-and-a-half race like that, nobody’s going to catch you.”

Just as it made sense that if an American Pharoah came along, Bob Baffert was a likely candidate to be his trainer, Gosden’s involvement with Golden Horn is hardly a surprise given the roll the Englishman has been on.

In 2013, Gosden was the champion British trainer when he topped the table in purses. In 2014, he relinquished the title but found consolation in training Kingman, the Cartier Horse of the Year. This season, Gosden is again on top of the standings, far ahead of his nearest rival. He has won classic races in England, Ireland, and France, and he could set a British earnings record on Saturday when he sends forth Jack Hobbs and Journey in rich races on Ascot’s Qipco Champions Day program.

In a fantasy world far from reality, there would have been a way to pit American Pharoah and Golden Horn in the same Breeders’ Cup race – perhaps a Classic on an optimum synthetic surface at Santa Anita or Keeneland? Anyway, you won’t find Golden Horn anywhere near the main dirt track, opting for the Polytrack training oval.

“I’m quite happy to use the training track,” said Gosden, who has been a critic of the U.S. shift away from synthetics. “We might just do a little bit of cantering around the turns on the turf, but I’ll be giving the course a good look before we do anything. I just hope it doesn’t rain there like it did on Shadwell Mile Day.”

The Turf will be Golden Horn’s final race, a year and two days after his debut.

“I could see a lot of potential in him early on when we breezed him in August as a 2-year-old,” Gosden said. “I didn’t get a chance to run him until October, and he showed a lot of good acceleration that day. He’s always had that attribute, and he’s done nothing but grow in strength. His races through the year have been better and better except for that one blip.”

Golden Horn’s lone defeat in eight races came in the Aug. 19 Juddmonte International at York, where he failed to catch the fleeing filly Arabian Queen and lost by a neck. Ten days later at Saratoga, American Pharoah had a little of the air escape from his Triple Crown bubble when Keen Ice beat him by three-quarters of a length in the Travers.

“I was teasing Baffert at the Keeneland sale,” Gosden said. “ ‘It took you and me to get our horses beat, didn’t it, Bob? We really pulled that one off.’ I’m not sure he’d even heard of my horse, and he didn’t seem to think it was as funny as I thought it was. But that’s all right.”