THE hardy racegoers that made the Curragh for the Juddmonte Irish Oaks card last Saturday were treated to a dramatic running of the feature that was tough work for all concerned.

The weekend started on slow ground with persistent rain throughout, so much so that the second day of the meeting was called off due to waterlogging.

No less hardy were the winning participants, both Savethelastdance and Ryan Moore, though the excitement of the finish should not mask what could be sub-standard classic form.

Moore’s never-say-die ride on Savethelastdance was only necessary because the winner has developed a worrying trait of racing behind the bridle which she did from halfway.

It had been similar story at Epsom when she was hard at work from Tattenham Corner to keep pace with the rest but while the fast ground and undulating track could have been blamed then, there were no such excuses here.

It was not that this Juddmonte Irish Oaks was an insufficient test; the ground was soft, Ballydoyle had a pacemaker in the field and the overall time was good, and still the winner was struggling to hold her position.

Good attitude

That she has a good attitude is not in question but on this evidence she will lack the pace for 12-furlong Group 1s on anything other than testing ground.

Perhaps the step up to the Leger trip will bring her stamina into play but even that trip may not be far enough for her, especially taking on colts for the first time, and odds around 5/1 look short enough.

Her supporters can point to Aidan O’Brien’s comments that this race was a starting point for the second half of the season (‘we’re treating this as the first run of an autumn campaign’) and she could progress from it, but on balance, that is pretty flimsy evidence against the visuals of a filly that is making life hard for her rider.

Runner-up Bluestocking deserves credit for the big move she made from rear up the centre of the track though she looked to wait in front when she got the pacemaker, making very heavy weather of going by that 80/1 shot until the winner came behind her, while Warm Heart was never involved.

Unlike on her previous starts this season, she was dropped out, connections perhaps anticipating that she would struggle on the ground.

So it appeared as she looked uncomfortable from an early stage which made the task of Savethelastdance easier, another slight knock on the form.

EVEN with the shortened weekend, Aidan O’Brien had a fine time with three winners, and Michael O’Callaghan deserves credit for the ballsy decision to run Kairyu in the Anglesey.

She had won a five-furlong maiden impressively on nice ground at Naas in late June and the Marwell Stakes over the same course and distance looked an obvious next target back against her own sex.

But that was a listed race and the Anglesey a Group 3, the latter on a prestigious card too, and O’Callaghan suggested in an interview at Killarney last midweek that the Curragh race can sometimes cut up, a correct assessment with six of the eight runners being fillies.

Things had gone smoothly for Kairyu at Naas where she was drawn in the right part of the track but that was not the case here. The ground was slower than ideal while she was raced more up the centre of the sprint track which looked a disadvantage on the day, and she was also briefly held up in her run.

Despite this she ran out a ready winner, impressing with how she travelled and quickened, and while she doesn’t have any upcoming entries, a supplementary entry may be considered. The trainer referenced the Lowther after the race but perhaps the Phoenix is in his mind too.

It is also worth making note of O’Callaghan’s fourth-place finisher in the opening maiden, Ocean Conquest.

In the same Killarney interview, he spoke positively about this Time Test colt while also voicing concerns about slow ground.

The 200,000 gns breeze-up purchase raced further back and wider than the three that beat him, doing well to latch onto that trio late as they pulled a long way clear of the fourth without getting a hard time, and looks a ready-made maiden winner.

THE Galway Races – or as it known in my head, the best week of the year – begins on Monday and there is no more opportune time to consider the state of Dermot Weld.

It may not be the massive target meeting it once was for the trainer but he is always good for a winner there, his tallies over the past five ‘Races’ being one, four, two, one and three.

Overall, 2022 was one of the worst of Weld’s career in terms of pure numbers. His 22 winners and 7.5% win strike-rate during the Irish flat turf season were his lowest in any campaign of the last 20 years and markedly so, the next lowest in that period being 40 winners and a 10.8% win strike-rate.

Even in the worst of times, there was a shining light in the shape of Tahiyra, incidentally his sole Galway winner last year, and 2023 has been a better campaign, despite facing more than his share of misfortune. The turf season started slowly with just one winner prior to early May but things have gotten rolling since with 13 successes in Ireland at the time of writing despite plenty of hard luck with 23 runner-up finishes in all.

Total winners

For context, of the rest of the top 10 Irish flat trainers in terms of total winners, only two have had more seconds than winners, Adrian McGuinness (two more) and Noel Meade (one more), and Weld’s close but no dice finishes at Killarney last week have been symptomatic of the season.

At the top level, Tahiyra has built on her juvenile promise, winning two Group 1s and going close in another, but Weld has plenty of talent bubbling under with the likes of Shamida, Harbour Wind and Couer D’Or all doing well in their own grade.

The trainer tends to take the view that there is no juvenile racing before July – he has had just six two-year-old runners to this point in the year – but that should not be mistaken for lack of quality, especially with the fillies. He has seven entries in the Debutante and 14 in the Moyglare at this stage and his runner in the juvenile maiden next Tuesday will be as keenly awaited as ever.

ADRIAN McGuinness’s association with Ballybrit is not as long-standing as Dermot Weld’s but he has been a big part of the recent history of the meeting, particularly in the flat premier handicaps that he buys specifically for.

McGuinness has won 22 premier handicaps in his career but it is notable how many of them have come in the second half of the season, as seen in the table below.

Adrian McGuinness Premier Handicap Runners by stage of the season

The stronger period essentially begins with Galway and already this month, he has had three runners in the frame for such races, Cordouan in the Nasrullah and both Laugh A Minute and No More Porter in the Scurry, so it would appear his horses are typically rounding into form for the Galway Mile and the Ahonoora.

Sorting between them is not always easy, especially as he has multiple runners in races like these, but they are worth considering strongly not just for next week but for similar races into the autumn.