City of Light

Mr. and Mrs. William K. Warren Jr.’s City of Light grabbed the lead after a four-horse scramble in the first quarter of a mile, put away challenges from Firenze Fire and favored Catalina Cruiser on the far turn and breezed to a 2 ¾-length victory over Seeking the Soul in the 12th running of the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile (G1) for 3-year-olds and up at Churchill Downs.

Trained by Michael McCarthy and ridden by Javier Castellano, City of Light covered the one-turn mile over a fast track in 1:33.83. The victory was the first for McCarthy in the Breeders’ Cup and 10th for Castellano, who also won the 2015 Dirt Mile aboard Liam’s Map.

For the Warrens, it was their second Breeders’ Cup victory from three starters. Their initial triumph came in the 2005 Classic with Saint Liam.

City of Light is a 4-year-old Kentucky-bred son of Quality Road out of the Dehere mare Paris Notion. Never worse than third in 10 career starts, City of Light picked up his third Grade 1 victory.

“I can’t tell you how long I have been waiting for this,” McCarthy said. “I always thought this would be a mismatch. I have been looking forward to this for quite a long time. I thought he would love this racetrack. Backing up to one turn where his best races were, I thought he would run away and hide and he did just that. We loved the post [1]. Javier rode a great race and it was no secret that we were going to run away from there. At the three-eighths, I knew it was over.”

City of Light made his stakes debut with a 2-length victory in the Malibu (G1) at Santa Anita to close out 2017 and started 2018 with a 1 ½-length victory in the Triple Bend (G1) at Santa Anita. In his next start, he gave Breeders’ Cup Classic (G1) winner Accelerate his lone loss of 2018 when he prevailed by a neck in the Oaklawn Handicap (G2). City of Light finished third to Accelerate in the Gold Cup (G1) at Santa Anita before cutting back to one turn and finishing second in the Forego (G1) at Saratoga.

Sold as a yearling at Keeneland in 2015 for $710,000, City of Light was bred at Noreen O’Neill’s Ann Marie Farm in Paris, Kentucky. City of Light is the first Grade 1 winner for Ann Marie Farm.

City of Light finished his career with brilliant front-running victory in the $9 million Pegasus World Cup Invitational at Gulfstream Park in January of 2019.