IT would have been a bit much to expect Irish trainers to match last year’s Royal Ascot successes with 12 winners via eight different trainers, but this year’s win total of 10 (five different trainers) was still ahead of expectations of the previous 10 years between 2013 and 2022, with the average during that time being 7.3 Irish winners at the meeting.
Irish horses travelled to the meeting in their biggest numbers to date, breaking three figures for the first time with 117 total runners, ahead of the previous high of 98 in both 2019 and 2021. Those increased figures might have led to a drop in place strikerate, that figure coming in at 21.3%, one of the lowest of recent times, so 10 winners in light of that means the ball hopped in favour of Irish trainers.
Using Royal Ascot as a barometer of the overall wellbeing of Irish flat racing might be wrong, given it is only a 35-race sample size, but there is a point when you are what your winners say you are, and Ballydoyle remains in robust health with six winners, including arguably the two biggest races of the week, the Prince Of Wales’s Stakes and the Gold Cup.
Weak renewal
Auguste Rodin landed on a weak running of Wednesday’s Group 1, but this was still a step up from the Tattersalls Gold Cup, the faster ground suiting, a potential rematch with his conqueror there, White Birch, is something to look forward to, though City Of Troy remains the stable’s key piece in that division.
Kyprios has never been a horse to win too far, and that trait seems to have become accentuated since his return this season, but he was able find a chunk of improvement for his couple of trial wins from Queenstown, to beat a more highly rated rival in Trawlerman on Thursday. His return from injury has already been a training triumph, and he is in bonus territory now.
Wow moments
Aside from those feature race winners, Aidan O’Brien-trained fillies provided the two wow moments in the juvenile division. Fairy Godmother produced a closing furlong full of magic, somehow coming from an impossible position to win the Albany, a visual feast so dramatic that the History of Horse Racing Twitter account was adding it to its back catalogue shortly after the race.
Her tendency to get keen is a little worry, and she may need riding cold which could lead to more intense finishes, while remaining at six furlongs seems sensible for the moment.
One consideration on her future targets will likely be avoiding Bedtime Story who was impressive for very different reasons in the Chesham Stakes, taking a huge step forward from debut having only started out 16 days ago.
The Chesham tends to be the weakest of the Royal Ascot juvenile races, so there is that for punters looking to take her on next time, but the visuals were again mind-blowing.
Hopeful future
O’Brien’s other two winners were with three-year-olds, Illinois and Port Fairy, but his Group 1 mile runners, though beaten, offered hope for the future.
Henry Longfellow took a big step forward from his return in the Poulains, forcing Rosallion to work hard in the St. James’s Palace, and while he got the run of things near the pace, there is the strong suspicion that he will do better when back on slower ground.
Opera Singer didn’t progress as much from the Irish 1000 Guineas as expected, but she was notably weak in the market, perhaps the most surprising big drifter of the entire meeting, and she might not even have been running here had things gone to plan earlier in the spring.
Her form as a juvenile improved markedly as she stepped up a mile, typically indicative of one that will want middle distances as a three-year-old, but because missing the 1000 Guineas at Newmarket, connections wanted to give her a chance at the mile this season. Further, even 12 furlongs, should see her to better effect.
THERE was a mass migration of top-class Irish flat horses to Ascot last week but if there was a horse that stayed at home and might prove up to the highest level, it is Saturday’s Martin Molony Stakes winner, Harbour Wind.
He has risen from humble beginnings in the last 13 months, sent off 14/1 against an odds-on stablemate when winning on debut, but progressing quickly last summer as the cheekpieces went on and he moved up in trip.
The form of his final run last year when second in the Prix Chaudenay at ParisLongchamp in September worked out very well for a late season race confined to three-year-olds; the winner followed up by seven and a half lengths in the Prix Royal-Oak next time while the fourth has won two top French staying races in 2024.
Closing in
Harbour Wind shaped better than the form too on that occasion, coming from a long way back to close down the prominently ridden winner, and though his win on Saturday was only by a short-head, there was lots to be positive about, not least his willing attitude in the finish.
The extended mile-and-a-half trip was on the sharp side for him while he had a penalty, and all of rivals were race-fit, yet he was still able to win without his preferred cheekpieces.
Those will surely be back on at a later date and a Melbourne Cup bid has been mentioned, with the route down under plotting itself based on trainer traits, Dermot Weld likely to head for the Curragh Cup and Irish St Leger on his next starts, the gelding currently entered for both.
MUCH of the June programme in Ireland is quantity over quality, but the standard ramps up for the final weekend of the month with Derby weekend, which does feature something new this year, a nine-race card on the Sunday.
Newmarket did the same for their Guineas meeting to fit in with the World Pool but a card this length asks a lot of a racegoer, the day at the track already long, and it is the same for a form student.
The races at the Derby meeting are quality ones, the type one would like to go deep into, and leaving one out is not like missing out two divisions of a 0-65, but there are only so many hours in the day.
This is the price of progress as the sport becomes more globalised, and we should welcome their interest, but there are downsides.
O’Brien dominance
One thing that is unlikely to change this Derby weekend is the dominance of Aidan O’Brien over these few days; of the 320 races run at the fixture since 2010, O’Brien has won 74 of them from 339 runners, and his horses have been profitable to back, a level-stakes bet on them all returning 31.52 points profit.
His success has left only relative crumbs for the other top Irish yards but the most successful in that period since 2010 have been Joseph O’Brien (20 winners), Jim Bolger (20), Ger Lyons (19), Jessica Harrington (17), Michael Halford (17) and Dermot Weld (15).
British trainers had an excellent time over Guineas weekend with four winners in all, including both classics, and they have had 26 winners at this meeting since 2010, doing well in two particular spots.
Ten of their winners came in sprints (i.e. races up to the Scurry trip) while nine of them came in the two middle-distance Group 1s, three in the Derby itself and seven in the Pretty Polly.