Del Mar, Calif.

This was supposed to be the Breeders’ Cup that answered a
lot of questions. Like whether Japan could take its burgeoning international
success to the next level. Or whether the best horse in Europe could translate
his turf success onto U.S. dirt. Or whether the Thorpedo Anna vs. Fierceness
debate would rage longer than the results of next week’s presidential election.

The answers in order were no, no and no. But there is one
big, new question now. Who is the 3-year-old male horse of the year?

Sierra Leone went from being the colt who one media wag
declared to be the most overrated to being on the short list of candidates for
his division’s Eclipse Award. His victory in the Breeders’ Cup Classic declared
that medical science may stop looking for a cure for second- and third-itis.

“For me, and I know that I’m biased,” Brown said, “but to
answer as objectively as I can, it’s hard for me to see that he’s not the best
3-year-old.”

Fierceness, who was widely but not unanimously considered to
be the horse of the year in-waiting, failed in his quest to overtake Thorpedo
Anna. He also failed in his quest to fend off Sierra Leone on Saturday. So he
is stuck on his two Grade 1 wins in the Florida Derby and Travers and a 2-2
head-to-head record against Sierra Leone. If there were an award for most
inscrutable horse, that is where Fierceness may have overtaken Sierra Leone.

Carrying odds of 6-1 on Saturday, Sierra Leone got another
Grade 1 victory to go along the one he got in the Blue Grass nearly seven
months ago at Keeneland. But he did not wipe out his reputation for being a
money pit. Even the most feeble practitioners of arithmetic can recite a simple
fact. Anyone who bet $100 on Sierra Leone to win in each of his last four
races, including three times as a favorite, accrued losses of mind and faith.

“It’s not like he was way off the board or anything like
that,” Brown said. “Our horse doesn’t have that on his résumé. It’s all
consistent runs. I think it’s easier to make an excuse for a horse if he might
not care for the track or come up just short, but they’re still there like up
at Saratoga (in three close losses) with our horse.”

Seize the Grey could have separated himself with a third
Grade 1 victory this year had he won the Dirt Mile. But he did not. Even if he
had, no one was going to mistake the horses he beat in the Preakness and the
Pennsylvania Derby (G1) with the stacked fields Fierceness and Sierra Leone
took down in their signature wins.

Choosing the best 3-year-old colt of 2024 feels like parents
picking sides in a fight between their kids. In the distant past of my career,
I had NBA assignments. One year Adrian Dantley of Utah was in a hammer-and-tong
battle with Dominique Wilkins and Alex English for the scoring title. After a
game late that season, I asked Jazz coach Frank Layden how he might compare
Dantley with his rivals.

“Stop,” he said. “Trying to compare Dantley with Dominique and
English is like comparing my mother-in-law with Gaddafi.”

I gave up my vote this year. That is a separate column that
the National Turf Writers and Broadcasters would prefer not be written. I still
have an opinion, and since he never finished out of the money this year, I would
have to side with Sierra Leone.

Far from all this madding success, all the fretting we
displayed trying to handicap the 19 Japan horses who were shipped across the
Pacific turned out to be busy work.

Rousham Park and Shahryar were second and third in the Turf,
and Forever Young came away with another third in the Classic, albeit cleaner
than his third in the Kentucky Derby. No other horse from Japan finished in the
money.

Where once that effort might have been just fine, those
sensational Del Mar triumphs three years ago by Loves Only You at 4-1 in the
Filly & Mare Turf and Marche Lorraine at 49-1 in the Distaff raised the
bar.

Japan sent nearly as many horses to Del Mar as it had
previously in the entire history of the Breeders’ Cup. That has to be
encouraging and encouraged. Perseverance eventually will be served, because
trainers like Yoshito Yahagi have figured out how to win here, there and
everywhere. As long as the money is there to keep making the journey, here is
hoping Japan keeps coming.

The Coolmore dirt experiment, however, continues to be a
failure. Abject. Wholesale. Complete and utter. Pick an adjective. Any
adjective.

Trainer Aidan O’Brien stubbornly persists in a losing
formula. Take a perfectly good turf horse, train him on a surface that bears no
resemblance to God’s golden loam, pair him with a jockey who never has won on
U.S. dirt and throw him into the deep end of the pool for the first time in our
country’s richest and most prestigious races.

City Of Troy got out of the gate slowly Saturday, took dirt
in the face for the first time in his life, hated it the way any seeing,
breathing, tasting being would and wound up finishing eighth in an effort that
was not as close as his 12 3/4-length margin of defeat would indicate.

The stats are damning, and they are not a small sample. Ryan
Moore, inarguably the best jockey in most of the rest of the world and even on
grass on this side of the pond, is 0-for-22 on U.S. dirt.

O’Brien, perhaps the world’s best trainer in the same circles
Moore travels, dropped to 0-for-18 in the Breeders’ Cup Classic with five of
the last seven attempts coming with you-know-who in the irons. In all Breeders’
Cup races contested on real dirt, O’Brien is 1-for-39. That lone exception in
the championships came with Johannesburg in the 2001 Juvenile.

What is the definition of insanity? It is watching O’Brien and
Moore swallow the same main-track mixtures over and over again.

This really is more of a caveat for the bettor. Then again,
so was betting on Sierra Leone over and over again in a big race and expecting
a victory.

What do you know? Lather, rinse, repeat actually works
sometimes. Let that be the lesson that rings loudest from Del Mar.