Aidan O’Brien has won 17 Group I races this year.
Winning major races and championships is second nature to the 38-year-old Irish trainer. Not only has he been the dominant trainer in Europe for the last 10 years, he has won several major races on this side of the Atlantic.
He won the Grade I Arlington Million with Powerscourt in 2005, the year after the horse finished first in the Million but was disqualified and placed fourth. And in 2000, he won the Grade I Secretariat Stakes for 3-year-olds with Ciro.
O’Brien will be attempting to add two more Grade I races to his 2008 collection Saturday at Arlington Park when Mount Nelson runs in the Million and Plan in the $400,000 Secretariat.
Both horses are 5-2 second choices on the morning line, but O’Brien won’t be at Arlington to see them run. He’s going to France, where two other members of his mighty stable, Astronomer Royale and U.S. Ranger, will be competing in Group I races at Deauville on Sunday.
Also not at the Million will be Sudan, who was scratched Friday. Trainer Bobby Frankel, a two-time Million winner, scratched Sudan because of a bowed tendon.
Pat Keating, a longtime member of O’Brien’s Coolmore team, will saddle Mount Nelson and Plan.
“Our horses are in good form,” Keating said.
Each won his last race. Carrying 133 pounds — seven more than he will tote in the Million — the 4-year-old Mount Nelson recorded the second Group I victory of his career in the Coral-Eclipse Stakes in England on July 5. Plan won the Group III International Stakes in Ireland on July 12.
Keating is well acquainted with Archipenko, the 2-1 favorite in the Million who was trained by O’Brien last year before being sold.
The third foreign horse in the Million is 4-year-old Spirit One. With 17 starts, he is the most experienced of the three, but all of his previous races have been in his native France.
“Those two horses are very strong, but we like our horse as well,” said Spirit One’s trainer, Philippe Demercastel. “We didn’t make this trip for nothing.”
The most highly regarded of the American horses in the Million are Einstein (7-2) and Stream Cat (8-1).
Einstein is a three-time Grade I winner, and Stream Cat returned from an eight-month layoff to win the Million prep, the Grade III Arlington Handicap, in his only start this year.
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nmilbert@tribune.com
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More on Sudan’s scratch from the race at chicago sports.com/horseracing
