Rock of Gibraltar chooses Mile

Rock of Gibraltar, Europe's top miler who was cross entered in the Breeders' Cup Mile and the Classic, will run in the Mile after all on Saturday in the World Thoroughbred Championships at Arlington Park.

Trainer Aidan O'Brien ended two weeks of speculation on Tuesday night when he informed Adrian Beaumont of the International Racing Bureau, the organization that handles Breeders' Cup entries for European horses, that his seven-time Group 1 winner will run in the race that is his best distance and surface. The Mile is run on grass while the Classic is run over 1 1/4 miles on dirt.

O'Brien had opened the possibility of Rock of Gibraltar's participation in the Classic, the race in which O'Brien trained Giant's Causeway to finish second two years ago. It would have been Rock of Gibraltar's first race on dirt. But Beaumont said that the trainer "had been telling me for the last month that it would be the Mile."

The decision means that the O'Brien-trained Hawk Wing will be the lone European representative in the Classic.