Hovdey: Hill Rise set high bar for U.S. invaders

California Chrome will attempt the improbable on Wednesday when he runs in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot. The race is a clockwise mile and a quarter around two corners. The purse of 525,000 British pounds converts to around $820,000. The current Prince of Wales is Charles Philip Arthur George Windsor, first in line to the British throne and the former Mr. Lady Di, who is 66 and at this rate may never be king.

The challenge to the very American California Chrome will not be the opposition as much as the environment. The colt has had time to adapt to British training since he arrived in Newmarket in late March, and there’s no doubt he is in better condition now than when he left Dubai after finishing second in the World Cup. But there is no way he can be ready to run in a major European distance race without the experience of actually running in a European-style race.

If a minor miracle occurs and he wins, he will restore a reputation that has been frayed at the edges in the 12 months since his valiant attempt to win the Triple Crown. But even if he wins, California Chrome would not be the first American-trained runner to conquer a major race for all comers at Royal Ascot. He would be the second.

The first was Hill Rise, a bona-fide American star of the mid-1960s, who was bred by his owner, George Pope Jr., at his El Peco Ranch near the town of Madera in California’s Central Valley. Pope, who won the 1962 Kentucky Derby with Decidedly, had a thing about European racing, and in Hill Rise he thought he had the perfect weapon with which to tackle the greatest prizes the Old World had to offer – beginning with Royal Ascot.

In early 1964, under Bill Finnegan’s training, Hill Rise dominated California’s 3-year-olds and entered the gate for the Kentucky Derby favored in a field that included Northern Dancer, Roman Brother, and Quadrangle. He was beaten a neck by Northern Dancer in Derby record time, and to this day the Hill Rise fan club insists that the result would have been different had Pope not replaced Don Pierce with Bill Shoemaker. We do hold a grudge.

Hill Rise was a big, stout 3-year-old and even more impressive at age 4 when he won the Santa Anita Handicap and San Fernando out West, and the Man o’ War Stakes at Aqueduct by six lengths. Hill Rise and champion Parka were the co-highweights on the year-end Free Handicap among older turf horses.

The following winter, Hill Rise ran five times at Santa Anita Park. He won the San Antonio Handicap, finished second in the seven-furlong San Carlos, and was fourth in the San Juan Capistrano Handicap, which was also Johnny Longden’s last, victorious ride – which is all a very long way of saying that if you want to send an older horse from California to run against the best in Great Britain, you’d better send a fully grown man of a horse like Hill Rise.

On May 12, 1966, Hill Rise arrived at Warren Place, the Newmarket yard of Noel Murless, one of England’s top trainers. I will now toss the Hill Rise narrative to Tony Morris, the respected British turf writer and my Rosetta Stone when it comes to remembrance of many things past.

Morris, whose work can be found on the Thoroughbred Owner & Breeder publication website, was kind enough to unearth a comprehensive narrative of Hill Rise’s British adventure, which began in earnest on June 17 in the Rous Memorial, a one-mile race that roughly corresponded to the modern day Queen Anne Stakes. It was named for Henry John Rous (1795-1877), the revered steward of British racing who devised the weight-for-age system still employed today. He also fought Napoleon.

“Silly Season, narrowly defeated in the previous year’s 2000 Guineas and winner of the Champion Stakes, was a hot favorite at 8-15,” Morris related. “Hill Rise was ridden by Bill Rickaby and started at 20-1. As the odds implied, he was quite unfancied, and just the second string for his stable – the preferred Murless contender was Sweet Moss, the 4-1 second favorite.”

Morris added a gem from Murless, shared after the race, that touted the trainer on the Californian.

“Naturally I have taken him very easy, but he amazed me when he did a sharp seven furlongs, his first real work, on Saturday,” the trainer said. “I nearly fell off my hack.”

Which means Murless was not all that surprised when Hill Rise beat Silly Season a head, with Sweet Moss another head back in a thriller.

“It was generally felt that Silly Season ought to have won, as his rider, Geoff Lewis, had apparently ridden as though Sweet Moss represented his only danger,” Morris wrote. “But there was plenty of praise for Hill Rise, whose owner, accompanied by his wife, had arrived in England that morning and reached Ascot just in time for the Rous, the first race on that day’s card.”

The Royal Ascot triumph of the horse from California marked a giddy moment, but Hill Rise was far from through. He ran three more times in England, winning the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes at Ascot in the fall and finishing fourth in both the King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes and the Champion Stakes, run at Newmarket. For his trouble, Hill Rise was honored as topweighted British miler for the 1966 season. His reward was retirement, and a return to California.