O’Neill Looking for more Mile Smiles

By Alan Carasso, DRC Notes Team

 When he has the right horse to do so, California-based conditioner Doug O’Neill isn’t the smallest bit hesitant to showcase them on the foreign stage. On 5 April, the 56-year-old will send out Grade I winner Raging Torrent in an attempt to win the Group 2 Godolphin Mile for the third time in his career and the second time in succession.

“It’s a real honor to have a horse that’s classy enough to travel to meetings like this,” said O’Neill, a two-time winner of the Grade I Kentucky Derby whose success overseas includes a victory with one-time claiming horse Fleetstreet Dancer in the Japan Cup Dirt in 2003. “It’s great for the whole crew and the owners, so I’m just grateful to be working alongside an equine athlete that’s so gifted and so classy to take us to a race like this.”

 A $75,000 purchase out of the Breeze-Up sales in Ocala, Florida, in 2023, the bay colt was an impressive debut winner at Del Mar two summers ago, but his true coming-out party happened around this time last year at Churchill Downs when he won a seven-furlong allowance race by a wide margin in a slick time. “He’s always been very impressive since he’s been out and running, but that race at Churchill was like, ‘whoa, OK,’” he said. “To travel away from his home base and to run that sort of race, we knew we were on to something. That’s when we decided we might have something pretty special.”

Two races later, Raging Torrent found himself lining up against the mighty The Chosen Vron, arguably the best California-bred sprinter of all time, in the Grade II Pat O’Brien Stakes at Del Mar. After laying down strong fractions up front, Raging Torrent was headed by his older rival with time ticking away, but he battled back tenaciously to win by a neck and punch his ticket to the Breeders’ Cup.

   “That was a pretty special race because The Chosen Vron is a legend,” said O’Neill. “Horses eyeball him and typically back up, but Raging Torrent really showed how tough he is that day.”

 Only seventh to recent Group 2 Riyadh Dirt Sprint hero and US champion Straight No Chaser in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Sprint, Raging Torrent had the services of one Frankie Dettori for the first time in the Grade 1 Malibu Stakes and easily validated 12-5 favouritism in that Boxing Day feature.