IT was a quiet Irish racing week just gone, Sunday and Monday blank days after a busy period, with the pick of the races being group and listed standard at Dundalk and the Curragh on Friday and Saturday respectively.

Pipsy gave Ger Lyons a third individual winner of a blacktype race in 2023, following on from Zarinsk and Power Under Me, when landing the Legacy Stakes on the all-weather, though the form is questionable, with the blinkered Alabama not looking entirely straightforward as he hung left in the straight.

Her times, overall and sectional, paint a more positive picture. She completed the five furlongs in the fastest pure time of the three races over that trip on the card, while her final three furlong split of 34.03 was bettered only by Harry’s Bar with 33.93, that one an experienced all-weather sprinter that has rated as high as 114 in the past, though he was carrying 7lb more than the juvenile.

Next challenge

Lyons has done well in similar races over the years, winning 30 group or listed races for juveniles over five and six furlongs since 2007, though his next challenge will be getting progress from Pipsy.

Twenty-two individual horses won those 30 races, with Siskin being the standout, but only six of them won as three-year-olds with eight not making the track the following year, another sent to Hong Kong. Pipsy at least has come a long way in a short space of time, her career only starting a month ago.

The Star Appeal was won by Mountain Bear with a sweeping run down the outside as he was fastest of all the runners in each of the last three furlongs, his position near the stands’ rail likely an advantage given how races unfold at Dundalk these days.

This race was a microcosm of the juvenile season with Ballydoyle dominant as he led home his stablemate Battle Cry with over three lengths back to the third. Battle Cry seemed to shape well back on a sound surface and seemed to get lonely in front having made the running.

The reality is that neither would breach the top 10 of Aidan O’Brien two-year-olds and perhaps the most interesting takeaway was the winning rider Seamus Heffernan seeming to take a slight swipe at the progeny of No Nay Never afterwards, saying that ‘some of [them] mature at different stages, a lot show plenty and don’t develop, mature or are not up for it.’

Certainly it was not the complimentary chat he laid on Galileo after Illinois won at the Curragh on Saturday, saying that he is going to miss them when they’re gone!

Illinois might well prove the best horse on the card, but it was his stablemate Content that won the featured Group 3 Staffordstown Stud Stakes with Chris Hayes taking a rare ride for the yard.

Surprise winner

She was a surprise winner judged on her SP of 20/1 but seemed to have learned from her previous run when well-beaten in the Weld Park, dropped out having been ridden forward and often over-racing previously.

Though hardly totally settled here, she was more relaxed than on previous starts while the slightly better ground may have suited too, and she finished off her race very well having not always done so before.

The runner-up Kitty Rose is not one to give up on, racing on ground softer than previously and over a trip that may have stretched her, and one clear pointer from the race was that the form of the ICF race won by the Lupini filly is much stronger than the one Brilliant was involved in last time.

Tim Doyle can Simply do no wrong

THERE was a moment while watching racing from Thurles last week where I felt I had entered an alternative reality as Tim Doyle had two different horses return SPs of 13/8 and 2/1 respectively in competitive handicaps with fields of 13 and 12 runners. Not only that, but both won easily.

This is more a comment on the efficiency of markets than a slight on Doyle, but the reality is that the trainer has not surpassed five winners in an official flat season since his best campaigns in 2006 and 2007 when he had 12 and 10 winners respectively.

He has been toiling away since, always managing at least a winner a season but often not many more, but there is an argument to be made that he has had the best campaign of any Irish trainer in handicaps this year, pound for pound – pun intended!

All 11 of his winners to this point in the season have come in handicaps, this strike-rate of 16.9% in such races best of all trainers with at least 50 runners in such races while he owns each of his 15 individual runners himself.

Of those 15 horses, six have won a race despite being among some of the more lowly-rated runners in the country; seven of the 15 are still rated in the 40s while just two of them are rated higher than 61.

Stable star

Simply Sideways has proven the clear stable star, winning five handicaps this year and improving from 48 to 89 in that time, and she may not be done with yet judged on the visuals of her Tipperary win though perhaps his best hopes in the near term could be Special Protector and Kinda Tiny.

Special Protector came from a long way back on the same Thurles card last week and should have a low-grade race in her off 48 while Kinda Tiny has been bedevilled by racing against track biases for much of the season before perhaps being ridden too forward last time at Killarney.

They certainly won’t have the excuse of stable form if beaten before the end of the season though I would prefer if the market was not quite as sharp with catching up to that angle.

WE are over 500 handicaps deep in the official flat season as of last weekend and looking at the top trainers in such races, the handicapper will be quite happy that no one person has dominated, indeed only 11 yards have managed to break double figures.

Jessica Harrington has done best winning 22 races, followed by both Joseph O’Brien and Adrian McGuinness on 17, Andy Slattery with 16 and Johnny Murtagh with 14.

The other trainers to break double figures are Michael Mulvany, Gavin Cromwell (both 12), Edward Lynam, Tim Doyle (both 11), Paul Flynn and Noel Meade (both 10).

In terms of strike-rate, of those trainers with at least 25 runners, Natalia Lupini (22.8%), Gerry Keane (18.9%), Aidan O’Brien (17.1%) and Tom Gibney (16.3%) have done best.

Among those trainers with 50 or more handicap runners, Tim Doyle (16.9%), Michael Mulvany (14.5%), Edward Lynam (13.8%) and Pat Murphy (13.2%) come out well.

Deserves credit

Andy Slattery deserves credit for having consistently done well in this part of the programme in each of the last three seasons as mid-sized yards are always vulnerable to having a bad year follow a good one, their horses going up in the weights and becoming badly handicapped the following year.

But Slattery has followed 2021 when he had 12 handicap winners and 2022 when he had 18 handicap winners with 16 handicap winners so far this year, Burren Song, Rock Etoile and Bells On Her Toes all winning at least twice.

In terms of the horses themselves, I make it 11 individuals that have won at least three handicaps. Coeur D’or stands out among the three-time winners because of the level his wins came at while Saturday’s Curragh winner Tawaazon is the sole four-time winner.

Top of the pile however are Simply Sideways and Fratas with five wins apiece, the latter with a four-race winning streak.