A total of 16 Irish trained hopefuls are set to take their chance at the Breeders’ Cup in Santa Anita later this week and rising star Dylan Browne McMonagle can look forward to partnering three of them.
Ahead of Sunday’s scheduled finale to the Irish flat campaign at the Curragh, the 20-year-old from Letterkenny in Co Donegal remains the reigning dual-champion apprentice in Ireland.
Having cemented his status in the senior ranks this season with 57 winners (earning more than €1.6 million) putting him third in the jockey’s rankings, Browne McMonagle has been handed a shot at making an impression on perhaps the biggest international stage of all.
He teams up with Lumiere Rock for his boss Joseph O’Brien in Saturday’s $2 million Filly & Mare Turf and has also come in for a pair of outsiders from the Ballydoyle team.
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The Donegal rider will kick off his Breeders’ Cup on Mountain Bear in Friday night’s Juvenile Turf and can also look forward to being on board Broome in the following night’s $4 million Turf.
Having secured Group One glory on Al Riffa in last year’s National Stakes at the Curragh, the trio present Browne McMonagle with a chance to secure another top-flight prize before heading to Australia to ride there for the winter.
Aidan O’Brien has also engaged Frankie Dettori for his three-pronged attack on the Juvenile Turf that the champion trainer has already won five times in his career.
With Ryan Moore choosing River Tiber in the contest, Dettori has secured the mount on the Prix Jean Luc Lagadere runner-up Unquestionable.
Dettori and Browne McMonagle had a high-profile spat at Ascot’s Champions Day two years ago when the Italian labelled his young rival a “disgrace” due to his tactics aboard Baron Samedi in the Long-Distance Cup. Dettori subsequently apologised to the Irishman.
Friday’s opening Juvenile Turf Sprint has the biggest Irish representation with four runners in the five-furlong heat.
Ado McGuinness’ French Group Three winner Tiger Belle got a good draw in three while Jessica Harrington’s Givemethebeatboys is in five. The Ballyodyle hope Cherry Blossom (eight) is two inside Adrian Murray’s Norfolk Stakes winner, Valiant Force.
The draw was also kind to Ballydoyle’s Content (five) and Donnacha O’Brien’s Porta Fortuna (six) in the Juvenile Fillies Turf while Murray’s rank outsider Cuban Thunder will break from seven in the Juvenile on dirt.
Double-digit draws are generally viewed as a negative around Santa Anita’s tight turf track and Lumiere Rock will have to break from 10 in the Filly & Mare.
Aidan O’Brien’s Yorkshire Oaks and Prix Vermeille winner Warm Heart has an ideal box in two in a contest which will see Dettori’s mount Inspiral run from six.
“Warm Heart has won her last two Group One’s and is back to a just under a mile and a quarter,” O’Brien reported. “She won a Listed race at Newbury over a mile and a quarter. We think the fast ground will suit her and she has done well since then in the meantime.”
Aesop’s Fables will fly the Ballydoyle flag in Saturday’s Turf Sprint but topping their team will be the dual-Derby hero Auguste Rodin in the Turf.
Ryan Moore’s mount will also be joined by Bolshoi Ballet who will again be ridden by top US rider Johnny Velazquez. He guided the horse to a maiden top-flight victory at Saratoga in August.
Broome was sixth to Rebel’s Romance in last year’s Turf and in 2021 chased home Yibir in the race when it was run at Del Mar.
Auguste Rodin has initially been installed a 3-1 shot in Morning Line for the Turf in the US where the English runner Mostahdaf is marginally preferred at 5-2. That betting is reversed in most ante-post lists on this side of the Atlantic.
In other international news, the Willie Mullins-trained Vauban impressed onlookers when the Melbourne Cup favourite got a sighter of the Flemington track during a piece of work on Tuesday.
Accompanied by his stable companion Absurde, Vauban pulled away from the Ebor winner in comfortable style. The former Triumph Hurdle winner is a general 3-1 shot to land the race that stops a nation in the early hours of this Tuesday morning.
“Everything seems good, we’re having a ball,” Mullins’s assistant trainer David Casey told local media in Australia.
“The horse has been very relaxed, taken it all in, done everything we’ve asked, great to get a morning like this morning to come to Flemington and see something different. It’s all just a good experience for him for race day,” he added.
Wednesday’s domestic action is on the all-weather at Dundalk where Greenfinch should prove hard to beat in a juvenile maiden.
The half-sister to Group One winners US Navy Flag and Roly Poly should progress from a Curragh second on very soft ground last time.
