Ireland’s jumps season winds up at Saturday’s final leg of the Punchestown festival with racing’s focus flipping immediately to the start of Europe’s 2024 Classic campaign and City Of Troy’s potentially epochal tilt at Qipco 2,000 Guineas glory in Newmarket.
The unbeaten colt acclaimed by Aidan O’Brien as possibly the best he’s ever trained lines up for his date with destiny over the Rowley Mile with expectation levels through the roof.
It is 13 years since Frankel’s momentous success in the historic mile Classic and the O’Brien team will hope it’s a lucky landmark for the colt described by one of the Coolmore ownership, Michael Tabor, after last October’s Dewhurst Stakes as “our Frankel”.
The levels of investment in this colt with the distinctive black mane and grey tail dwarf the £500,000 Guineas purse, not least Coolmore’s belief he can foretell future dominance by City Of Troy’s sire, the US-based Justify.
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O’Brien is looking for an 11th success in the Newmarket renewal but also perhaps the undisputed all-time-great flat performer to top his record-breaking list of accomplishments. Hawk Wing remains the top-rated horse through O’Brien’s hands, a brilliant but hardly generational talent à la Frankel or Sea The Stars.
Frankel is the sire of Ylang Ylang, O’Brien’s hope for an eighth 1,000 Guineas victory hope on Sunday, a race where the champion trainer’s son Donnacha will saddle Porta Fortuna.
To underline the new Classic theme, US racing has its annual date in the spotlight just before midnight Irish time on Saturday when the 150th Kentucky Derby takes place at Churchill Downs. If that spotlight can prove a double-edged sword, including last year when welfare issues were front and centre, the race can still live up to its memorable label as the most exciting two minutes in sport.
Irish interest in the Run for the Roses revolves around jockey Ben Curtis, Ireland’s 2010 champion apprentice from Kinsale. With more than 1,000 winners in Britain under his belt he has scooped a “Durby” ride just months after moving to the US. Curtis (34) rides Honor Marie, second in the Louisiana Derby, who will break from stall seven of 20 in a contest live on Sky Sports Racing.
“It was a big step forward in the Louisiana Derby, but we all feel he’s very much at home at Churchill,” Curtis said. “I didn’t think when I came over in November that I’d be riding in the Kentucky Derby — this soon, anyway. It was definitely on my to-do list. It’s come around a bit quicker than I thought.”
Curtis is joined in the Derby line-up by Frankie Dettori, having his first ride in this race in 24 years, aboard 40-1 outsider Society Man. He will break from the outside, while the two favourites, Fierceness (stall 16) and Sierra Leone (stall 2) might prefer to swap boxes given their running styles. The latter is a Coolmore runner trained by Chad Brown who cost $2.3 million as a yearling.
Should City Of Troy live up to expectations, he could be priceless given he’s only 5-1 with some layers to become the first English Triple Crown winner since Nijinsky. And O’Brien is already talking about taking on the best of America on dirt during the summer.
The warning from history about excessive presumption could hardly be more recent though, given how Auguste Rodin blew out in last year’s Guineas. A similar scenario appears unlikely this time, but any chink in the apparent paragon’s armour might be best exploited by Ghostwriter.
Elsewhere, Lossiemouth’s exemplary status over flights is hard to quibble with since she’s been beaten only once and was unlucky on that occasion. She should excel in Punchestown’s Grade One Mares’ Hurdle.
Lossiemouth is joined by a pair of Wille Mullins-trained stable companions in the five-runner race as she bids to join other Rich Ricci-owned stars Annie Power and Benie Des Dieux on the roll of honour.
Mullins has six of the 10 runners in a much more open-looking champion four-year-old event where Paul Townend has opted for Kargese. His big task shapes as trying to settle the headstrong filly who finished runner-up at Cheltenham and Aintree, on the latter occasion all but ruining her chance by being too free.
Storm Heart was Townend’s pick in the Triumph Hurdle and having won on good ground on the flat in France, he could relish this better going.
The surface may also prove key to an improved performance by Digby as she tackles handicap company for the first time over fences in the Pat Taaffe Chase.
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