When greatness isn't enough: how Life Is Good played his part against Flightline

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In Monday's email, Scott Burton sits in for Chris and reflects on Life Is Good's bold, but ultimately futile performance against Flightline in Saturday's Breeders' Cup Classic – and subscribers can get more great insight, tips and racing chat from The Front Runner every Monday to Friday.

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Was there a moment towards the end of the back straight in Saturday night’s Breeders’ Cup Classic when Flavien Prat might just have grown a fraction more urgent on Flightline, as Irad Ortiz clicked off another rapid furlong on Life Is Good? No? Just me then.

When you watch a really top-class performance like the one that crowned the Breeders’ Cup card, there is a difficult balancing act to be struck between keeping sight of your initial, 'live' impressions, and then building up a more rounded picture on the basis of replays, sectional times and interviews that follow.

It was the first time I’d watched Flightline race without already knowing the result and on a card when hotpot after hotpot was getting knocked over, I definitely felt the biggest one of all was briefly vulnerable, even if only for about ten seconds of a mesmerising two minutes.

Being on the ground at Keeneland, the Front Runner’s Chris Cook will have got a good feeling during the week building up to Breeders’ Cup Saturday as to quite how big a deal Flightline’s appearance in the Classic was going to be.

In March, Life Is Good arrived in Dubai as US racing’s hottest property, with trainer Todd Pletcher as well as Winstar’s Elliott Walden and Eden Harrington of the China Horse Club the coolest kids in school, fielding endless media questions about their prodigiously-talented colt.

Life Is Good (right) set a ferocious early pace in the Breeders' Cup Classic but ultimately was no match for FlightlineCredit: Edward Whitaker

Every appearance on the main track at Meydan under British-born work rider Amelia Green was an event, with photographers surging to the rail like a murmuration of starlings.

For we – non-American – scribes, the added interest was that Life Is Good had previously been trained by Bob Baffert who, also in March, had just had a three month suspension from the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission upheld in the wake of the positive steroid test returned by 2021 Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit.

The fates conspired against the storyline and while Life Is Good ran out of stamina on the deep dirt of Meydan, the Baffert-trained Country Grammer secured World Cup success in the colours of Medina Spirit’s owner, Amr Zedan (though Winstar also own a share in him).

Back on home soil Life Is Good produced consecutive Racing Post Ratings of 130, 129 and 129 in his next three starts. The pre-Dubai hype had been justified.

Why does any of this matter, given Life Is Good finished 12½ lengths adrift of Flightline in the Classic?

Because Irad Ortiz set out to see if he could expose any weakness in the top-rated thoroughbred on the planet, setting blistering fractions.

Among an eight-runner field, six jockeys decided they wanted no part of what was going on ten lengths or more in front of them, effectively riding for a place or else accepting that their horses could not match the gallop raised by the front two.

Life Is Good is arguably a miler at heart and has frequently shown his best form from the front but, even allowing for that, Ortiz was not prepared to accept the inevitability of Flightline’s superiority.

In what he knew would be Life Is Good’s final start, he set out to see if he could get the favourite off the bridle, to take what he and Pletcher felt would be the one shot they had at playing Bay Bridge to Flightline’s Baaeed.

They and we now know it did not work. But it added immeasurably to the drama of the race and arguably inspired an even greater effort from Flightline than the solo in the Pacific Classic that had all the weights-and-measures people in raptures.

Life Is Good (far left) falls back to the chasing pack after being unable to keep up with FlightlineCredit: Edward Whitaker

In strict handicapping terms, Flightline did not need to improve to do what he did to his rivals on Saturday.

But as New York Racing Association handicapper and Fox Sports analyst Andy Serling tweeted: "Lost in the midst of the utter brilliance of Flightline, is how good Life is Good is, as under those utterly impossible circumstances, he hung in for a VERY long time. You can’t win, or even finish second, in these circumstances. Life is Good was more than good.”

This is horse racing, not a velodrome time trial.

Would people recall Montjeu’s thunderous success on heavy ground in the 1999 Arc as fondly were it not for the hard-charging heroics of El Condor Pasa?

Would Flightline have stopped the clock at a shade over two minutes and with an eight-plus length advantage over his toiling rivals if he had not been hooked onto the quarters of the horse that used to be the next big thing? Maybe. Maybe not.

It could be that in years to come the legend of Flightline will be retold through video clips which begin with him surging past Life Is Good at the two furlong pole.

If that is the defining image, it will be a shame that his rival’s part in the whole is not better remembered.

Sham is recalled as the horse that couldn’t catch Secretariat during his 1973 Triple Crown run.

But he is still one of only three horses ever to break two minutes for the Kentucky Derby and, as Phil Dandrea observed in the title of his book on Sham, “great was second best.”

Monday's pick

8.00 Wolverhampton

None of the British-based jockeys riding at Keeneland on Saturday have rushed back for the first UK Flat action since at Wolverhampton this evening and in truth, that is a fair reflection of most of the horses on show. The best race on the card is the Class 4 Fallon's Fancies Expert Tips By BetUK Handicap (8.00) over 1m1½f.

Lucky San Jore has won both his starts since moving to Newmarket from Jessica Harrington and Marco Botti should know all about the family, having trained his half-brother Jakkalberry to finish placed in the Dubai Sheema Classic and Melbourne Cup, as well as another stakes performer in Crackerjack King. But Lucky San Jore’s two recent successes came in weaker races than this and my inclination is to try and take him on, for all Botti might still have a well-handicapped horse.

Francesi was also a relatively expensive yearling purchase and although he has only won once for Sean Woods, his performances on the all-weather have been extremely consistent, including when handling a step up in trip over course and distance to be second here 28 days ago. Woods has had a quietly impressive season, operating at 20 per cent winners-to-runners, while Robert Havlin makes the trip to Woverhampton for only two rides; the other is the well-bred debutant Savvy Brilliance for the same trainer at 6.30.

Read Richard Birch's Monday tips here

One thing to look out for today . . .

The weather may not have co-operated a Carlisle but there is still some more quality action over jumps than is often associated with a Monday at Kempton. The Pertemps Qualifier (3.05) features the return of Grand National fifth Fiddlerontheroof, who has a spin here en-route to the Coral Gold Cup at Newbury.

Fiddlerontheroof has only run once over hurdles since winning the Grade 1 Tolworth as a novice, finishing 11th in the 2020 Supreme to Shishkin. He must give 12lb to the rest of the field, which is headed by classy Call My Lord, who races off 6lb lower than when third over course and distance in the Lanzarote Hurdle in January.

Kempton was good to soft on Sunday morning but, given Sandown’s abandonment later in the day, more testing conditions seem assured. With only seven declared runners, Cheltenham may already be feeling vindicated in their decision to cut the number of qualifying places on offer for the final at the festival from six to four this season.

Read more on the Breeders' Cup:

Flightline posts another monster figure - but did it beat his best?

Smiles all round as sensational Flightline lives up to the hype in Classic

World's best racehorse Flightline retired following Breeders' Cup success

'It rates another exceptional display' - analysing Flightline's Classic success

'We need a hero and that's Flightline' - unbeaten star dazzles in Classic

The Front Runner is our latest email newsletter available exclusively to Members' Club Ultimate subscribers. Chris Cook, a four-time Racing Reporter of the Year award winner, provides his take on the day's biggest stories and tips for the upcoming racing every morning from Monday to Friday. Not a Members' Club Ultimate subscriber? Click here to join today and also receive our Ultimate Daily emails plus our full range of fantastic website and newspaper content