Which horse won the Breeders’ Cup Classic twice?

Now in its forty-first year, Breeders’ Cup World Championships have evolved into a two-day, 14-race extravaganza, worth $34 million in purses and awards. Of all 14 races, the most prestigious and valuable is the Breeders’ Cup Classic, run over a mile and a quarter, on dirt, open to horses aged three years and upwards and worth $7 million in total prize money. Indeed, the Breeders’ Cup Classic arguably rivals the Kentucky Derby, which, despite recent increases in prize money, is still worth only $5 million, as the most prestigious American horse race.

Notable winners of the Breeders’ Cup Classic down the years include Cigar, Curlin, Zenyatta and the American Triple Crown winner American Pharoah. The only horse to have won the race twice, though, was Tiznow, trained by Jay Robbins, who prevailed as a three-year-old in 2000 and as a four-year-old in 2001.

Supplemented for a not-insignificant $360,000 for his first attempt, at Churchill Downs, the son of Cee’s Tizzy bravely held off the so-called “Iron Horse”, Giant’s Causeway, to win by a neck. A year later, he headed to Belmont Park where, under tight security in the wake of 9/11, he edged out the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winner Sakhee, who was making his dirt debut, by a nose. Boston-born Chris McCarron, who retired from the saddle the following June, with 7,141 winners and $264 million in total prize money to his name, rode Tiznow to victory on both occasions.