THE going has been particularly tough for Irish raiders trying to crack Britain’s top sprinting prizes in recent times, but could Aidan O’Brien be the man to turn the tide for the visitors this afternoon?
River Tiber flies the flag for Ballydoyle, and the Irish sprinting ranks, in today’s Group 1 My Pension Expert July Cup (4.35) at Newmarket, and bookmakers make him one of the leading fancies, behind only Inisherin and Vandeek in the betting after declarations.
That is despite an underwhelming eighth from River Tiber as 13/8 favourite in the Jersey Stakes at Royal Ascot three weeks ago. The run was not in line with the promise he showed when third on his comeback run in the Irish 2000 Guineas behind Rosallion and Haatem.
A winner of the Coventry Stakes at the Royal Meeting 12 months ago before finishing third to Vandeek in both the Prix Morny and Middle Park Stakes, the Wootton Bassett colt now gets the chance to revert to six furlongs for the first time as a three-year-old.
If he is to notch his first win in over a year, however, he will have to do something few Irish-trained horses have been able to do in recent years - win a senior Group 1 sprint in Britain.
Lean spell
When looking at the premier sprint races in the jurisdiction, there has been no Irish-trained winner of the King Charles III Stakes (previously the King’s Stand), Nunthrope or British Champion Sprint Stakes since 2014.
Only one runner trained on these shores has captured the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes since that year too. Merchant Navy, representing O’Brien, was the outlier, though he was trained in Australia up until his penultimate run before that victory.
You have to go back as far as 2013 to find the last Irish-trained winner of the Haydock Sprint Cup, just as is the case with the Prix de l’Abbaye in France, while Ireland has supplied just one winner of the Commonwealth Cup since its inception in 2015.
The biggest factor to encourage supporters of River Tiber in this regard is the fact that Aidan O’Brien has a better handle than most on what is required to win the July Cup specifically.
Victory this afternoon would mark a sixth for him in the race, and make him the outright most successful trainer in the race’s history. He and Eddie Lynam are the only two Irish-based trainers to have won the race since Vincent O’Brien’s final July Cup triumph with Royal Academy in 1990.
Similar to River Tiber, O’Brien’s last two winners of this race, U S Navy Flag (2018) and Ten Sovereigns (2019), had both been beaten in a Guineas and at Royal Ascot in their two starts prior to striking gold at Newmarket.
It can be done, but the wider picture points to a tough task for Irish sprinters competing overseas.