THE big winners over Irish Oaks weekend were British horses and Ger Lyons, and British success has been a theme throughout the current flat season. Through last Sunday, the 46 British runners during the Irish turf season have produced 10 winners but it’s not so much the number as the stature of those winners.

Three of them were classics, another a Group 1 along with three Group 2s, all but one of those wins coming at the Curragh. The Irish programme book for the second half of the season is surely being pored over by British trainers now.

You Got To Me won the Oaks under vastly different tactics to those employed in the Ribblesdale, the first-time tongue-tie applied too, and she looked a strong stayer at the trip though the five fillies that chased her home were speedier types.

The pace here was stop-start, strong early but slackening mid-race, before picking up again late. Runner-up Content might well have won with a clearer run but is a keen sort that needs to be held up and will continue to be at risk of meeting trouble while the third Purple Lily travelled strongly before not getting home, looking more of a 10-furlong filly.

Take-aways

Perhaps the one to take from it is Elizabeth Jane, one of the least experienced in the field. She took a big step forward from the Naas Oaks Trial where she travelled strongly, before seeming to blow up, but finished out her race much better here, coming from a long way back.

British horses filled the first three places in the Sapphire Stakes, though the order may have been different had Makarova got any luck. He was squeezed out after the start and got stopped in his run a furlong out before finishing well. A return trip to Ireland would make sense.

Minstrel Stakes winner Poet Master proved well-suited by a slower surface than he encountered at Haydock, allowing that the race may not have taken much winning with Mountain Bear disappointing, while it was almost a British one-two in the Meadow Court Stakes, American Sonja only just getting in the way.

Lyons’ leaders

Ger Lyons won the opening two races on Sunday but it was the manner of those wins that impressed, Red Letter ridden differently to debut, making all on the fresh ground and readily dismissing some well-bred rivals.

Ballydoyle seemed determined to make the Anglesey a stiff test, Treasure Isle stepping up from five furlongs but still going the minimum trip pace, but Babouche showed a particularly good attitude for one that her trainer thought would have learned little from Cork with how that race went.

Ridden closer to the strong pace than the one that beat her, she travelled well and impressed with her toughness late, finding plenty to repel Camille Pissarro.

Lyons has flagged that his juvenile strength is with the fillies and that is backed up by his seasonal statistics. He has won with eight of 39 two-year-old runners in 2024, with 16 total places, but six of those winners were fillies from just 18 runners, that group also supplying 11 places.

Similar pattern

Interestingly, Aidan O’Brien is showing a similar pattern, if not quite as marked, with his two-year-olds. Overall, he has had 26 winners from 81 runners with 46 places, but the fillies are 12 from 30 with 21 places, much better strike-rates than the colts.

That sets up some brilliant clashes over the next few months, with Babouche and Red Letter versus Fairy Godmother and Bedtime Story something to look forward to.

THERE was some very fast ground at Killarney last week, prompting a spate of non-runners, and the going seemed to produce if not quite bias, a definite favouritism towards horses ridden forward and on the rail for the first three days of flat racing.

Of those 22 flat races, 15 were won by horses that were on or very close the to pace, and that would have been 16 had Green Triangle not run out, with a number of the others that came from further back getting to make their challenge up the far rail.

The standout exception among the winners was Alpha Capture, who came late and wide in the mile handicap on Tuesday, and won’t go up much for winning a head. Not long with Willie Mullins and having dropped from a three-figure mark as a three-year-old, there should be another race in him.

Of the beaten horses to shape well from a bad position, Poppy Pimento, third in the three-year-old handicap on the same card, is worth bearing in mind having made up a lot of ground in the middle of the track, closing all the way to the line.

Signs of life

This was the first sign of life from her having been well beaten in three maidens but has the pedigree of one that might like Galway, her dam Truffles winning twice at the meeting in 2018.

The Killarney July meeting is a target fixture for the John Murphy yard, the trainer sixth overall in winners here since 2008, only much bigger operations ahead of him, and before last year, it was 2017 when he left without success.

He failed to win this year, either, but his runners acquitted themselves well in defeat – form figures f:363369484222, the last two of those coming over jumps – especially as he had only one runner between June 1st and July 15th, White Birch missing the Eclipse with an unsatisfactory blood test in that time.

This meeting might thus have been more of a restart than end-point, and a few of his shaped well, especially the trio of maiden runners Lady Ahoy, Triangle D’or and Convincing.

THE greatest racing week of the year is upon us. You can have your Cheltenhams and Punchestowns but it’s Galway above all others for me and while that may not be logical, sometimes it’s just the way a thing makes you feel.

I will try to apply more logic to finding the Galway Plate winner, where Perceval Legallois heads the market and is thoroughly deserving of that position.

The novice handicap chase he finished second in at Punchestown looked a strong race in that moment, run in a fast time, and subsequent events have done nothing to suggest otherwise, the fourth and sixth winning good races soon afterwards.

Jumping issues

Perceval Legallois had some jumping issues over the winner, falling at the last when in with every chance in a valuable race at the Dublin Racing Festival, but he was exemplary here under a tactics change, sent to the front and having most of the field in trouble from half-way.

Those tactics often work well in the Galway Plate and he has plenty of other positives too; he goes well fresh and seems to handle all types of ground, while he has good form at the track, placed at this meeting in 2022 and winning his first chase start over these fences.

This may not be the strongest Plate of recent years and he looks the one to beat.