A year after winning the Breeders’ Trophy Juvenile, Bruce Almighty returned to Bro Park on Sunday afternoon and won the Breeders’ Trophy Classic as well. Stall Trick Or Treat’s Appel Au Maitre gelding pulled six lengths clear of King To Be with Per-Anders Gråberg in the day’s biggest contest, and with the first prize of SEK 928,440 he became the fourth horse in the race’s history to win both the Breeders’ Trophy Juvenile and the Breeders’ Trophy Classic – after Icaros, Golden Memory and Ascot Brass.
Bruce Almighty (Appel Au Maitre) was ridden by Per-Anders Gråberg, as Carlos Lopez had chosen stablemate Doc Holliday.
Racehorses and Bubbles’ Sir Brian (Zaahid) lost rider Jacob Kvisla in a tight situation a couple of hundred metres after the start, and the loose horse then moved up on the outside of Plattan I Mattan (Alson) and Bruce Almighty down the back straight and led the field through the turn.
“Bruce Almighty is a horse with plenty of talent who has been knocking on the door in his recent starts. Since I know he is pretty quick out of the gates, I tried to press on a little early. We ended up on the outside of the leader before I discovered that a loose horse had gone past us. We then followed it up the straight, which worked out perfectly. A slightly softer turf track surely suited Bruce Almighty today as well,” said Per-Anders Gråberg after the race.
Entering the straight, Gråberg chose precisely to follow the loose horse, whereupon Bruce Almighty quickly drew away from the rest of the field. With 200 metres left the race was effectively over.
Stald Klampenborg’s King To Be (Moohaajim) finished strongly after a slow beginning, but was six lengths behind the winner at the line – and in turn a length and a half ahead of the Jan-Erik Neuroth-trained Strike Ten (Alson), the best-placed Swedish-bred.
Doc Holliday (Appel Au Maitre) finished fourth a further three lengths or so back, while Plattan I Mattan (Alson), Mazikeen (Appel Au Maitre) and Dancingonarainbow (Juniper Tree) took the remaining prizes in the SEK 1,856,880 contest.
It was also the fifth year in a row that the Breeders’ Trophy Classic went to a Danish-bred horse – after Titannia in 2022, Slava Ukraini in 2023, Schamyl in 2024 and No Surrender in 2025 – and the last three winners were all bred at Stutteri Hjortebo.
That meant three of the first four home were bred at Stutteri Hjortebo in Bjerringbro – just as in the Svenskt Derby at Jägersro in July, where Doc Holliday, Missing and Bruce Almighty filled the first three places.
This time Bruce Almighty was the best of them, and the Hjortebo one-two consisted of Bruce Almighty and King To Be, both born in May 2023, nine days apart.
“Bruce Almighty is a really good horse who got a perfect race on a track that surely was in his favour. After the Swedish Derby, the Breeders’ is always a possible target, and that is why we deliberately skipped the Danish Derby,” said Niels Petersen after his big-race day at Bro Park.
Bruce Almighty is out of the Gio Ponti mare Jungle Julia, who raced in Stall Trick Or Treat’s colours herself before becoming a broodmare at Stutteri Hjortebo, and Bruce Almighty joins, among others, full brothers Hear The Drums and Cotton Eye Joe, who both filled second in the Danish Derby – Cotton Eye Joe was even second in the Swedish version at Jägersro as well.
“We owned the dam and sold her to Hjortebo. Since then we have bought all her offspring. It is almost like a fairytale,” said Stall Trick Or Treat’s Morten Myhre after a Breeders’ double that brought in a good SEK 1.3 million in total.
The 2026 season began for Bruce Almighty with a win over that very rival Doc Holliday at Øvrevoll in May, after which he was fourth in the Jockeyklubbens 2000 Guineas, third in the Svenskt Derby and most recently beaten half a length by Taifuu in the Bet25 Larch Ærespræmie at Klampenborg on 1 August.
With Sunday’s triumph, the chestnut gelding has won three of his nine starts, and his earnings now stand at SEK 1,813,365.
The three predecessors with both Breeders’ Trophy titles are Icaros (2005 and 2006), Golden Memory (2010 and 2011) and Ascot Brass (2019 and 2020) – and the first two also won the Breeders’ Trophy Mile in the years when the mile race was still reserved for three-year-olds.
For Bettina Andersen’s King To Be, second place was yet another big result in a season in which the Derby Trial winner has also been third in the Danish 2000 Guineas, beaten a nose in the Jockeyklubbens 2000 Guineas and second behind Cosmopolitan in the Bucherer Danish Derby.
SEK 464,220 went to the more than 200 shareholders in Stald Klampenborg, and King To Be was the day’s best horse from a Danish trainer.
Doc Holliday was making just his second start on turf after his seventh place in the Danish Derby, and fourth place over 1,750 metres was a step in the right direction for the Swedish Derby winner, who has gained all his previous wins on dirt.
Bruce Almighty’s win was Niels Petersen’s third of the day and Stall Trick Or Treat’s second feature success inside an hour – 45 minutes earlier the stable’s Grab The Moment had won the Breeders’ Trophy Mile.
More on that, and on the day’s overall numbers, in the other articles from Bro Park.
