City Of Troy is just two minutes away from legendary status at the Breeders' Cup | Breeders' Cup

bBefore international football teams existed, racehorses were a representation of national pride and ambition. Gladiateur, the first French-bred winner of the Epsom Derby in 1865, was dubbed the “Avenger of Waterloo” and even today there can be times when old habits die hard. At 2:41 p.m. Pacific time on Saturday, 9:41 p.m. GMT in London and Dublin and 5:41 a.m. Japanese standard time on Sunday morning in Tokyo, the attention of tens of millions of racing fans around the world will turn to Del Mar in Southern California for a two-minute horse race, da City Of Troy, this year's Derby winner, and 13 opponents head into the gates before the Breeders' Cup Classic.

It's a race of champions from three continents and an extremely difficult away game for City of Troy. He is attempting to achieve an unprecedented double: no winner of the Derby on grass has ever added the Classic on clay to his CV. And he's the only runner in the field who doesn't have any experience on the surface. The blistering pace, rebounding and scoring speed of his rivals will be a unique, relentless test from the start. There will be no chance to immerse yourself in the competition, no mid-race rest to fill your lungs.

All of City Of Troy's opponents have proven themselves in the field, including Forever Young, the great hope from Japan, who was just shy of becoming the country's first Kentucky Derby winner in May. Fierceness, the leading U.S.-trained contender, is a multiple Grade 1 winner and came home six lengths last year in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile, the championship race for field-bred 2-year-olds.

The challenge facing City Of Troy on Saturday has no real parallel elsewhere in sport. The tennis circuit moves from hard courts to clay or grass courts, but players know what to expect from each court and never have to face a win-or-lose competition on a completely unfamiliar surface. You can also read the calendar, recognize when a change is coming, and prepare yourself physically and mentally accordingly. In City Of Troy's case, Aidan O'Brien, his trainer, has to do the thinking for him.

“It's a completely foreign game, a different continent, a different surface, a different racing pace, different stalls,” O'Brien said at the track on Thursday. “It must be a big disadvantage for a horse, but we can only hope that he is good enough to overcome all these things.

“We have done as much as we could do in our part of the world. We didn't want to go from grass straight to dirt, but wanted to try it on an intermediate surface so he could acclimate, rather than it being so dramatic that he was shocked. That's why (his canter at the racecourse in) Southwell (in September) was perfect. Everyone said it wasn’t like dirt, which it wasn’t, but it was different than grass.”

Judging by the ratings, City Of Troy is almost certainly a better horse on turf than any of Saturday's rivals on clay, and yet O'Brien knows better than anyone that he may well be worthless.

The greatest European trainer of the last 30 years has sent 15 previous runners into the Classic on clay, including another confident Derby winner in Galileo, the sire of City Of Troy's dam Together Forever. All 15 have been beaten, including the “Iron Horse”, Giant's Causeway, who was pushed into second place by the even more determined Tiznow in 2000, but the trainer calls City Of Troy the “best I've ever trained”.

“We tried a lot and in most cases we failed 100%. “So all we can do is learn from our previous weaknesses and then hope the horse is good enough to overcome the rest,” says O’Brien. “We're trying because it's possible, but he's a three-year-old and a baby and has to deal with all the adjustments.”

In some ways, perhaps it's for the best that City Of Troy is unsure how much he will ride on his final run before retiring to breeding. The $3.6m (£2.82m) price tag for the Classic winner's connections is small compared to the likely impact on the stallion value of City Of Troy and his own sire Justify, the recent US winner Triple Crown – on dirt – in 2018. That could amount to eight figures per year as long as both are in stud, which should be at least another dozen years.

O'Brien has done everything he can to prepare his horse for his first and final race on dirt this weekend, but even then he can't be sure City Of Troy won't shy away from the classic challenge like it Galileo himself did in 2004.

“He (City Of Troy) was always an aggressive horse and a high cruiser right from the start,” the trainer said. “There’s a lot of Justify and a lot of Galileo in it. I suspect Galileo will help him be as good as he is on the pitch and hopefully Justify will help him cope with the change.”