Classic Cliche

Classic Cliche
Racing colours of Godolphin
Sire	Salse
Grandsire	Topsider
Dam	Pato
Damsire	High Top
Sex	Stallion
Foaled	13 March 1992
Country	Ireland
Colour	Bay
Breeder	Victor Matthews
Owner	Ivan Allan Godolphin
Trainer	Henry Cecil Saeed bin Suroor
Record	16: 6-5-0
Earnings	£678,705
Major wins
Dante Stakes (1995) St. Leger Stakes (1995) Yorkshire Cup (1996) Ascot Gold Cup (1996) Prix Kergorlay (1997)

Classic Cliche (foaled 13 March 1992), is a retired Thoroughbred racehorse and active sire who was bred in Ireland and trained in Britain and the United Arab Emirates. In a career which lasted from August 1994 until September 1997, he ran sixteen times and won six races. He recorded his most important success when winning the Classic St. Leger Stakes as a three-year-old in 1995, the same year in which he won the Dante Stakes. In the following season he became the first Classic winner in fifty years to win the Ascot Gold Cup.

Classic Cliche is a bay horse with a white star sired by the Prix de la Forêt winner Salse, whose progeny also included the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes winner Air Express and the Turf Classic Invitational Stakes winner Timboroa. Classic Cliche's dam Pato also produced the Yorkshire Oaks winner My Emma and was a member of the same Thoroughbred family which produced the Epsom Derby winners Blakeney and Morston. Classic Cliche was consigned by the Nidd Park Stud to the Tattersalls sales as a foal in November 1992 where he was sold for 13,500 guineas by N. Magill. In October 1993 the yearling was sent to the Goffs sales in Ireland and was bought for IR£85,000 by the Malaysian businessman Ivan Allan. Allan sent the colt into training with Henry Cecil at Warren Place stables at Newmarket.

Classic Cliche made his racecourse debut in a seven furlong maiden race at Newmarket on 26 August. Ridden by Pat Eddery he started 6/5 favourite and "held on well" in the closing stages to win by a head from Okavango. A month later, he started favourite for a minor stakes race at Ascot in which he was beaten a short head by Wijara, with the future multiple Group One winner Luso finishing fourth. At the end of the year, Classic Cliche was sold to Sheikh Mohammed's Godolphin organisation and transferred to the stable of Saeed bin Suroor.