City of Troy pays price for slow start in Breeders’ Cup Classic

• Aidan O'Brien's colt trails in disappointing eighth place
• Race won by Sierra Leone, another Coolmore horse

In racing, as in life, it is always a good idea to have a Plan B. City Of Troy's audacious challenge for the Breeders' Cup Classic here on Saturday was over almost before it had begun, but his owners from the Coolmore Stud syndicate were still all smiles in the winner's enclosure a few minutes later after Chad Brown's Sierra Leone, a colt from the American arm of the Coolmore operation, held off Fierceness by a length and a half.

There was always an air of win or bust" about the bold decision to send City Of Troy to the Classic, and so it proved.