Just Give them a bit of Time, The Story of The Late Bloomers
When a Flat horse is three years old, it is said he/she enters their 'classic' season. This is due to three year olds being allowed to compete against their age group in a group of races called 'The Classics', these races include the Guineas, the Derby and the Oaks. Due to the prestigious nature of these races, people have the impression that if a horse doesn't deliver the goods at three, he won't ever be thought of as a great. This is a point of view I am looking to contest. Ulysses winning today in the Juddmonte International at York only strengthens my point, some horses are like a fine wine, they get better with age.
The Sir Michael Stoute trained Ulysses is now a dual Group 1 winner but both those victories have been registered as a four year old, this and the Coral Eclipse at Sandown earlier in the summer. However, despite this, Ulysses was quite a frustrating and overly disappointing three year old in his previous term. Having won his maiden convincingly at Newbury early in 2016, Ulysses went on to bomb out completely in the Derby won by Harzand. By the end of his three year old campaign, the son of Galileo had accumulated a Group Three win and second to his name but nothing to suggest that wins at the highest level were in the reckoning. This being said, this year Michael Stoute has managed to get a tune out of him that many didn't think there was to get. Alongside his two wins at the pinnacle, he also put up a brave performance to push Enable close in the King George over a testing trip. Ulysses shows that one doesn't have to be greatest horse at three to prosper in the Flat game.
If you were not sold by just the thought of Ulysses, I will talk you through another who carried the baton for the late blooming horses. That horse is Cirrus Des Aigles. Cirrus was an extraordinary horse for a flat campaigner as he was a remarkably durable and straight forward type for the majority of his career. A sign of this was his ability to continue running until the age of nine at the highest level. Despite his consistency and his constant knocking at the door, Cirrus only recorded his first top tier victory when winning the Champion Stakes at Ascot in the latter part of his fifth year of age. Cirrus Des Aigles was a French trained gelding and was in the care of Corine Barande-Barbe for his entire career. One of the greatest tragedies of Cirrus' career was due to being a gelding, he was not allowed to take his chance in some big races including the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe. Despite this, due to his victories at Ascot and in his native France, he was world-wide known as one of the greatest to grace the track on the European shores. To this day he is still the biggest earner of any European trained horse, not a bad feat for a horse who didn't win a group race till the age of four.
Obviously there will always be a lot of attention thrown towards three year old's every year especially when entering the Classic campaign. However, in the world of Flat Racing where very few horses stay in training after the age of three for Stallion duties, an older horse always appeals to the heart strings of the viewer. Ulysses' victory today in the Juddmonte was magic to the racing public, seeing the older horse stride by the more touted and more 'exciting' younger pretenders. As much as both Churchill and Barney Roy both ran very admirable races in defeat, they were truly put in their place by the son of Galileo.