Rock is caught in hard place

RACING: In the bars, restaurants and taxis of Chicago's urban sprawl, one phrase spilled from a hundred thousand mouths on Saturday night. The US is a country obsessed by winning, where they would rather play baseball into the middle of the night than agree to call it a draw, but now they wanted to talk about a runner-up. From Greg Wood

Again and again, people were insisting that "I have never seen a horse do that in my life."

The horse, of course, was Rock Of Gibraltar, who fell out of the stalls for the Breeders' Cup Mile, was still sitting last at halfway, and then passed eight opponents on the 300-yard strip of turf that Arlington likes to call the home stretch.

It was an extraordinary effort, but he could not pass the ninth. Domedriver won the Mile, and Rock Of Gibraltar, the winner of seven straight Group One races, went into retirement as a beaten horse.

The 19th Breeders' Cup produced several deeply impressive performances, but the finishing speed and iron will which carried Rock Of Gibraltar to within a length and a quarter of Domedriver were the abiding memories as 40,000 racegoers left Arlington Park. That, and the image of Landseer, Aidan O'Brien's other runner in the race, frozen in the instant when he snapped a fore cannonbone on the home turn.

Any analysis of the Mile should start with that moment, when a Classic winner stumbled to a halt to wait for the vet's injection. Rock Of Gibraltar did at least come home alive, and his first crop will be on the track in three years. Finishing second in a horse race is never a cause for despair.

But at the same time, there was so much at stake. Thirty seconds before Rock Of Gibraltar went into the stalls, the six-figure display next to his number on the Tote board, which counts the bets on every runner, "clocked" back to zero. It meant $1 million dollars was riding on his back at the track alone. Thirty-two seconds later, it was as good as lost.

It was always possible Rock Of Gibraltar would miss the break from his wide draw in stall 10. He lost at least three lengths in the opening strides, but it is what happened next that will start arguments for months to come.

Mick Kinane seemed to want to drop in behind, but then went wide around the turn instead. Then, in the back stretch, he sat in last place until the run out of the first bend turned into the run to the second one.

"He was a bit fractious in the gate and I missed the break," Kinane said. "I just had to bide my time after that. The horse who broke down came over when I wanted to make my move, and I lost my momentum."

In fact, the replays showed that there was never any danger of contact between Rock Of Gibraltar and Landseer. If he lost any ground, it was far less than Domedriver's winning margin. American tracks - and the tight turf circuits in particular - give horses relatively little chance to make ground. To have any hope, Kinane needed to pass a few horses early on the far side. It was, according to one local journalist, the ride of a "pinhead".

Theirry Thulliez, by contrast, rode a beautifully judged race on Domedriver, saving ground on the inside and then bravely grabbing a gap when it appeared a furlong out.

Thulliez's smart steering probably earned his employers an extra $300,000 on Saturday, the difference between first and second prize. Since Rock Of Gibraltar should soon be making roughly as much every week at stud, though, his connections, including part-owner Alex Ferguson, will soon get over it.