Kalanisi laid claim to being the best horse in the world with his lightning late run to win the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Churchill Downs in Kentucky.
His normally reserved trainer Sir Michael Stoute, could be seen with arms raised in triumph as Johnny Murtagh rode Kalanisi back to unsaddle.
“This horse is one of the very, very best in the world. One of the best I have trained,” exclaimed an ecstatic Stoute. Praise indeed from the man who saddled Pilsudski to win the 1996 Breeders’ Cup Turfat Woodbine, Toronto.
And who can argue? After Kalanisi’s narrow defeat by Giant’s Causeway in the summer he has just got better and better. He beat mighty Montjeu in Newmarket’s Champion Stakes, and now he has grabbed a slice of the glory in America.
Giant’s Causeway upheld his part of the form, despite being beaten by Tiznow in the Breeders’ Cup Classic. Michael Kinane accepted that he had made a mistake when momentarily losing the reins as he changed his whip hand on Giant’s Causeway as they roared head-to-head with Tiznow in the dying strides.
If Giant’s Causeway passes on a hint of his never-say-die attitude to his offspring when he takes up stallion duties at Coolmore in Ireland for the 2001 covering season, we are going to be entertained with many more enthralling battles of the turf.
