City Of Troy will shuttle to Coolmore Australia later this year with the global thoroughbred breeding empire anointing the four-time Group 1 winner as the successor to his own champion dual hemisphere sire Justify.
An unbeaten two-year-old, City Of Troy immediately emerged as an elite talent for trainer Aidan O’Brien in his juvenile year, winning three successive races emphatically including a season-ending domination of the Group 1 Dewhurst Stakes, a race with a rich history of producing stallions.
As a three-year-old, City Of Troy was a winner of the Epsom Derby, the Eclipse Stakes and the Juddmonte International Stakes at York, but it was his Dewhurst performance at two that saw him compared favourably against recent winners of the renowned two-year-old feature such as Too Darn Hot, Pinatubo, St Mark’s Basilica, Native Trail and Chaldean.
In winning that race at Newmarket, City Of Troy recorded a Timeform figure of 125, a mark bettered in the race by only Frankel this century, and the victory helped his cause in being crowned the Cartier two-year-old colt of 2023.
A year later, he was named Cartier Horse Of The Year, an accolade achieved only once in successive years previously and that was by Frankel.
City Of Troy, who stands for a fee of €75,000 (A$128,000) in his maiden European season at stud, was retired to stand at Coolmore Stud in Ireland after finishing unplaced in last November’s Breeders’ Cup Classic, just his second defeat in a career spanning eight starts over two seasons.
He will stand for an introductory southern hemisphere fee of $49,500 (inc GST), Coolmore announced on Wednesday night.
Coolmore’s Tom Moore is confident that City Of Troy can add to the growing influence of shuttle sire’s on the Australian racing industry given the stallion’s race record, pedigree and conformation.
“It's abundantly clear at the moment that the shuttle stallions that have been coming to Australia in recent years are working and there are very few that have the race record, pedigree and profile to match City Of Troy,” Moore told The Straight.
“You look at the likes of Justify, Too Darn Hot, Wootton Bassett and even Harry Angel in the last couple of seasons and they've developed into high-class out-cross stallions in this part of the world.”
Standing 16.1hh, City Of Troy is out of Group 1-winning two-year-old Galileo mare Together Forever, whose own race record is backed up by her pedigree, being a sister to Group 1 winner Forever Together and a half-sister to the Group 1 winner Lord Shanakill, leaving Moore to suggest he will match well with a host of Danehill-line mares.
Tim Rowe
“He is by Justify, who has an incredible affiliation with Fastnet Rock mares, highlighted by Learning To Fly and Storm Boy, and the Galileo-Fastnet Rock cross is regarded as one of the most dominant crosses in the world,” Moore said.
“Being the best son of Justify and out of a Group 1-winning two-year-old by Galileo, he is tailor-made for Fastnet Rock mares and Danehill line mares in general.”
He is the second European shuttle stallion to be confirmed for the Hunter Valley in the space of two days, with Arrowfield on Tuesday announcing that Vandeek, a son of Havana Grey who won two Group 1 sprints, the Prix Morny at Deauville and the Middle Park Stakes at Newmarket.
Coolmore initially flagged its intention to shuttle City Of Troy to its Jerrys Plains stud in 2025 when in January its Australian arm paid $1.15 million for North American stakes-winning broodmare Fashion Faux Pas through an Inglis Digital sale.
City Of Troy winning the Dewhurst Stakes
It was then that stud manager Justin Carey indicated that the mare, whose yearling colt by Snitzel had been bought by Coolmore for $1.7 million at the Magic Millions sale earlier that month, was likely to be covered by City Of Troy in his maiden southern hemisphere season.
At the time, before committing to shuttling City Of Troy, Coolmore wanted to monitor how he handled his first stint in the breeding shed.
That appears to have gone to plan, with Wednesday’s confirmation that City Of Troy will board the plane to Australia in August.
“Physically, he's a great blend of both Justify and Galileo. And he had the strength and precocity to come out as a summer two-year-old and have the speed to win three races up to 1400 metres,” Moore said.
“But then he has the class, action and scope that allowed him to train on a three and become the Horse of the Year.
“He's a stallion that we feel will suit the physiques of the typical Australian mare.”
City Of Troy’s sire Justify shuttled to Jerrys Plains four times in five years, from 2019 to 2023, but he did not return to Australia last year as his value in the northern hemisphere soared.
“It's abundantly clear at the moment that the shuttle stallions that have been coming to Australia in recent years are working and there are very few that have the race record, pedigree and profile to match City Of Troy” - Coolmore's Tom Moore
From his southern hemisphere crops, he is the sire of Magic Millions 2YO Classic winner Storm Boy, who is also a multiple Group-winning colt, as well as high-class two-year-old filly Learning To Fly and six other stakes winners.
Justify remained at Coolmore’s Ashford Stud in America last year where he covered 15 mares to southern hemisphere time including Group 1 winners Booker, She’s Extreme and Shout The Bar.
