Which is the only horse to win the Breeders’ Cup Classic more than once?

Run over 2,000 metres, or approximately a mile and a quarter, on a dirt surface, the Breeders’ Cup Classic is the most valuable and prestigious race run during the Breeders’ Cup World Championships. Established, as a one-day fixture, in 1984 and expanded to two days in 2007, the Breeders’ Cup consists of a series of 14 Grade 1 races, run over a variety of distances, on dirt and turf, at one of a selection of venues throughout North America.

Nowadays worth $6 million in total prize money, the Breeders’ Cup Classic is always hotly contested and, as such, is notoriously difficult to win once, never mind twice. However, one horse, the quirky but hugely talented Tiznow, did manage to win back-to-back renewals in 2000 and 2001.

Trained by Jay Robbins in California and ridden, in all bar one of his races, by Chris McCarron, Tiznow did not race as a juvenile, but quickly made up into a useful three-year-old. On his first attempt in the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Churchill Downs in November, 2000, he made most of the running as was driven out in the closing stages to beat the so-called ‘Iron Horse’, Giant’s Causeway, trained by Aidan O’Brien, by a neck. A year later, at Belmont Park, Tiznow was involved in another tight finish, eventually edging out the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winner, Sakhee, trained by John Dunlop, by a nose.