HORSES can and do come back for the Irish Champion Stakes from one year to the next; Dylan Thomas won in both 2006 and 2007, as did Magical in 2019 and 2020, though Azamour was unsuccessful in his second attempt in 2005, while Snow Fairy improved on her runner-up position in 2011 to win the following year.
One of the challenges facing punters for this year’s race is assessing the value of last year’s form as both the winner and second, Luxembourg and Onesto, are set to go again though interestingly neither is likely to be any near as short a price as the four horses mentioned above, which might come as a surprise given their ‘previous’ in the race.
Last year’s running was a race of high drama, Stone Age setting a strong pace, Onesto making an unusual but likely important mid-race move, Vadeni meeting trouble in the straight only for Luxembourg to wear them all down late despite showing his typically high head carriage.
Subsequent events suggest that it might not have been the race it appeared on the day. Consider the record of the seven runners, who had won nine Group 1s combined coming into the race (box adjacent).
Vadeni produced the single best subsequent effort of the field when finishing runner-up in the Arc next time, but it is fair to wonder if he ran to his absolute best at Leopardstown.
There was the trouble he met in the straight but also Christophe Soumillon’s post-race comments that he ‘knew today he was not 100% fit.’
It would hardly be unusual for a top-end French colt to improve plenty for his first run after a summer break while there is also the suspicion that the close up Mishriff was operating a few pounds below his 2021 peak during last summer.
Luxembourg has at least won a 10-furlong Group 1 this year though it is hard to see many excuses for his last two defeats – perhaps he doesn’t like Ascot – and while Onesto ran a race of promise off a break in the Marois, my feeling is that some new horses will be involved in the finish this year.
IRISH Champions Festival (née Weekend) is now in its 10th year and that means a robust sample size of races without even referencing those contests that were being run before the meeting was pulled together and there are some patterns that might be worth noting going into the two days.
This is the one meeting in the entire Irish programme, flat or jumps, that British trainers target and it is all the better for it; since 2014, there have been 351 British runners at this fixture, an average of 39 per year.
Of the 351 raiders, 39 have won and backing them all would have returned a level-stakes loss of 18.8 points though I am not sure that tells the full story as a sizeable percentage of their runners came in one race, the big sales contest on Sunday at the Curragh, and that has a negative impact on overall profitability.
Of those wins, 25 came in races run at trips up to seven furlongs; British horses have won the Sovereign Path and the Bold Lad five times each in the last nine years along with four Flying Fives.
The flip side of that is that no British-trained horse has won the Petingo or Northfields as currently run.
There have been 50 Group 1 races run at this meeting since 2014 and Aidan O’Brien is unsurprisingly away and gone with his 17 winners of those top-level contests.
His son Joseph has been profitable to follow too. He has won with four of his 25 runners for a level-stakes profit of 30.5 points and his place strike rate of 40% in Group 1s is best of those trainers with at least 10 runners in the period covered.
That said, it has not been a particularly stellar season for the yard. Through the end of August, Joseph O’Brien has had 65 Irish flat winners whereas his total to that point in the year in the previous two seasons was 89 and 88 winners respectively and one must go back to 2018 to find a campaign when he was not ahead of his current total at this stage.
More broadly, the Group 1s at this meeting have been open with 22 different trainers winning such a race since 2014.
In the handicaps, Richard Fahey has done best with three winners in all and his place strike rate of 44% is best of those with at least 10 runners.
Tony Martin has only won one handicap at the meeting, Quick Jack in the 2016 Petingo, but his place strike rate of 42% is excellent. He had two other horses go down by a neck in the Petingo while Tudor City made the frame in two Northfields.
HRI’s Ownership Department have played a stormer throughout the summer in organising open mornings at various yards across the country and while I didn’t get to join the capacity crowd at Cullentra on Saturday, I enjoyed an excellent morning on Sunday at Stragane House near Caledon in Co. Tyrone, the stables of Andy Oliver.
We were smoothly guided through the event by James Griffin as visitors got a tour of the facilities and were introduced to a few of the stable’s best, like Gradulations and the promising Ballyhane runner-up Bright Stripes.
There was time to see a lot of exercise on the extensive gallops where it was revealed that Semblance Of Order, the winner of two races this season, would be going hurdling and with a flat mark of 85 would be one of the higher rated horses to go hurdling so far this jumps campaign.
Oliver covered many aspects of his life as a trainer, moving through topics like his time as vet to Mark Johnston to his feeding and watering regimes to his belief that prevention is the best form of medicine.
There was some light-hearted stuff about the naming of some of his horses. Saturday’s Navan winner, The Highway Rat, was kindly called after a favourite childhood book of his son Sam who was on hand throughout the morning and has the look of a budding trainer.
The same young man named Tommy Thug after a younger brother – not as kindly!
Oliver talked about the pros and cons of operating in a racing outpost. Staff might not be the issue one would expect, as being close to the only show in town has its advantages; those that want to ride and live anywhere nearby know where to come.
He rarely, if ever, has professional jockeys in to ride work but was full of praise for his head man Roger Bradley who knows the nuances of his gallops better than anyone.
As a personal note, I would like to thank the trainer’s wife Saffron for being so welcoming to my two errant children, keeping them amused as I was trying to hear what her husband was saying!