THE flat turf season has opened with a burst of competitiveness, the 16 races across the two meetings at the Curragh and Naas producing 16 different winning trainers. The powerful yards have been among those winners and will come into their own as the year progresses but for the moment there has been a broad spread of success.

That has been seen in the two premier handicap winners so far, the Lincolnshire won by Orandi for Tony Martin and the Madrid won by East Hampton for David Marnane. Both trainers have been a while without a top flat handicap win in Ireland, Martin’s most recent coming with Melburnian at Leopardstown in 2019, Marnane all the way back in 2010 with Bangalore Gold at the Curragh.

Orandi has been a slow burner and was winning at the Curragh as a seven-year-old having his 37th start, the last Lincoln winner older than six back in 2017. He won well, but had things go his way, a high draw in stall 27 and being ridden off the pace suiting as the race went.

Low draws

Both Sheila Lavery’s runners, the second Kortez Bay and the sixth Fort Vega, shaped well as they had to move across from their low draws at different points in the race, Kortez Bay improved since going up in trip, Fort Vega still lightly raced for his age if he can be kept sound.

The fifth Gleneagle Bay again looked as if seven furlongs is more his thing while the eighth Flying Finn did best of those ridden forward from a low draw, the opposite of the winner, and might make an impact on soft ground back in Britain this spring.

In the Madrid, East Hampton seemed to benefit from being gelded at the start of the year, showing fewer quirks than had been evident in his last run at Dundalk, and won with more in hand than the bare margin as he pulled himself up late.

Marnane suggested afterwards that he had relished the testing ground, and he is now two from two with a good dig underfoot, though the same can’t be said about some that chased him home and might be a good way to look at results from this Naas card.

Tough work

Several winning connections commented afterwards that their horses had loved the slow going, and the flip side of that is a few of those beaten won’t have handled it, the surface looking tough work as the card went on, so it could be worth forgiving a bad effort.

A final thing that stood out in the early days of the turf season was the seasonality of some of the winners.

The likes of Laugh A Minute and Sunchart, perhaps even Hurricane Ivor, are often good at this point of the year which might be another angle worth considering.

OFTEN the most interesting races in the early part of the turf season are the maidens and there have already been some notable efforts in those contests.

We got a big performance straight out of the gate from Power Blue in the opening juvenile maiden at the Curragh, his win impressive both on the visuals and the clock. A sizeable type, he travelled well and spreadeagled his rivals late, posting an excellent overall time and some fast late sectionals; for instance, he covered the final two furlongs 1.54 seconds faster than Laugh A Minute on the same card while carrying 11lb more than the sprint handicapper.

It could be argued that he had little to beat but the Jim Bolger-trained runner-up was well-backed, and Adrian Murray tends to target this race with a smart type. He was winning it for the third year in a row, the last two winners rated 119 and 110 respectively at the end of their two-year-old seasons.

Royal Ascot is a long way off, but Power Blue should be hard to beat in Ireland between now and then.

Eye-catching performances

Bint Queen Kindly was strong in the market before winning the seven-furlong maiden for fillies at the Curragh but there were a couple of eye-catching performances down the field from Alherla Rock and Vega’s Muse with handicaps in mind.

Vega’s Muse stood out, travelling well in rear and finishing her race strongly, only the winner faster in the final furlong, and having cost 160,000gns one would hope she will prove better than the initial mark she is likely to get.

Ger Lyons won a similar race at Naas with Faiyum last Sunday, positive signs there beforehand as she was well-backed and had an entry in the Park Express, something neither Lyons nor Juddmonte tend to do as much as other yards.

Taking run

This Frankel filly got a confident ride from Colin Keane and should go on to better things, while I was also taken by the run of her stablemate Diego El Queso when fifth behind Rowdy Yeats in the earlier maiden for colts and geldings.

It was a race that emphasised late speed, as it had by far the highest finishing speed percentage of the six races on the round track, and Diego El Queso found himself in a poor position near last turning in before also meeting trouble in running.

To finish sixth from that position, albeit beaten a long way, was a fair effort as he did best of the newcomers, and he looks up to winning a maiden.

AINTREE comes up quick this year, and it will be interesting to see how the Irish runners get on, the predicted resurgence of the British jumpers not really evident at Cheltenham, Ireland winning the Prestbury Cup 20-8, allowing that two of the best British horses, Constitution Hill and Sir Gino, didn’t get to show their form.

Ireland has won six of the last eight runnings of the Grand National itself, Lucinda Russell winning the other two, though Britain had won all eight runnings before that.

The field size will be lower this year and a close to even split seems likely just now; as I write, 20 of the top 40 in the weights are trained in Ireland, though eight of the top 10 in the market are from here.

Looking at the meeting more broadly, and going back to 2010, Ireland has had 68 Liverpool winners in that time, much lower than Cheltenham, an average of 4.5 winners per year, there being no meeting in 2020.

Ireland has been strong of late, 10 winners in 2024 and eight in 2023, something that has been powered by Gordon Elliott. He has had 16 winners at Aintree since 2010 but half of them have come since 2022 (while Denise Foster had two more in 2021 while running Cullentra), and he tends to run many of his better horses here rather than Punchestown.

That has been particularly the case with his novices, the likes of Three Stripe Life, Irish Point, Gerri Colombe, Brighterdaysahead and Found A Fifty all appearing here in recent years.

Central horses

Brighterdaysahead could again be one of the central horses of the meeting as she bids to redeem herself after her Champion Hurdle flop, Elliott opining since that ‘she wouldn’t have won the charity race’ with how she was going at Cheltenham so presumably much better will be expected now.

Willie Mullins has done best of all Irish trainers at Aintree since 2010 with 20 winners in all though they have come in fits and starts. He had five winners last year when looking to win the UK Trainers’ Championship, and it was similar when he had six winners in 2016 when duelling with Paul Nicholls for the same prize.

Otherwise, his best total is three from back in 2019, and it remains to be seen what sort of focus he will give the fixture this year.