Moore wins Breeders’ Cup Turf for record sixth time
Ryan Moore won the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Keeneland for a record sixth time, riding Benvenuto Cellini to victory in the £3.7m feature race. The win extended Irish trainer Aidan O’Brien’s record in the race to eight victories and came as O’Brien matched his own mark of 28 top-level wins in a calendar year.
Moore chose Benvenuto Cellini over stablemate Diamond Necklace, who had finished third in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe and came third here. The 3-1 favourite beat James Doyle on Map Of Stars by three-quarters of a length. In the Breeders’ Cup Classic, Venezuelan jockey Junior Alvarado won on Sovereignty, trained by Bill Mott; the four-year-old had missed last year’s race because of a fever and finished ahead of Japan’s Forever Young, who came fifth.
In short
- Ryan Moore claimed a record sixth Breeders’ Cup Turf win.
- Benvenuto Cellini beat Map Of Stars by three-quarters of a length.
- Aidan O’Brien extended his Turf record to eight victories.
Explained simply
The Breeders’ Cup is an annual series of major horse races in the United States, bringing together leading horses, trainers and jockeys from different countries. The Turf is its long-distance grass race, and Keeneland is a racecourse in Kentucky.
Ryan Moore is an Irish jockey who often rides horses trained by Aidan O’Brien, one of Ireland’s leading trainers. A stablemate is a horse trained at the same yard, so Moore’s choice between Benvenuto Cellini and Diamond Necklace was a choice between two of O’Brien’s horses.
The races matter because they test horses against international competition and can add to their standing and future value. The Breeders’ Cup also includes the Classic, a separate race on dirt, where horses such as Sovereignty compete.