Aidan O’Brien hit back at his son Joseph when The Euphrates landed a big gamble in Sunday’s €600,000 Friends of the Curragh Irish Cesarewitch.
Ryan Moore guided the 7-2 favourite to a half-length defeat of A Piece Of Heaven in Europe’s richest flat handicap as O’Brien & Son dominated another of the Curragh’s autumn weekend big-money prizes.
On Saturday, O’Brien jnr got the better of his father as Apples And Bananas won the €500,000 first prize in Europe’s richest two-year-old race, the Goffs Million.
With the winner’s stable companions filling third and fourth placings, it proved a notably bountiful result for O’Brien, who 24 hours later fielded seven of the 30 Cesarewitch runners.
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This time, however, it was his father’s sole hope who emerged on top, sporting first-time blinkers in his first handicap start, where he was technically 6lbs well in on adjusted official ratings.
Fourth in the Irish Leger a fortnight previously, Moore quickly had the three-year-old up with the pace and the partnership ground it out remorselessly up the straight.
It continued the O’Brien family’s dominance of the two-mile handicap in its third year of extravagant sponsorship. Waterville also justified favouritism in 2022 while Magellan Strait scored at 150-1 last season.
If the large weekend prizes at HQ didn’t come close to providing heartwarming “little guy” outcomes that their backers might have hoped for, the Cesarewitch result did at least supply a very well-backed winner.
“He was very well handicapped, he ended up on a good mark. His Leger run was an unbelievable run. Ryan gave him a great ride, he got a great position and was controlling it,” said Aidan O’Brien.
“He’s an improving horse, I’d say he’s a Cup horse. He stays two [miles] and he has a bit of class, he travelled very strong at all stages. They were doing 12 seconds [per furlong] all the way, and to do that all the way in a race like that is very difficult,” he added.
The Euphrates was the highlight of a short-priced four-timer for the O’Brien-Moore partnership on Sunday. Heavens Gate narrowly landed the Group Three Weld Park Stakes to back up a pair of maiden victories for her odds-on stable companions, Shackleton and Aftermath.
Shackleton will be pointed towards the Group One Criterium de Saint Cloud on October 27th.
“Ryan went forward and kept it simple. He said he was very green, that it was a very strong headwind, and it wasn’t easy out there. He said he was idling and it probably wasn’t the way to ride him ideally,” O’Brien said.
The trainer confirmed Los Angeles is on target for next Sunday’s Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe while Auguste Rodin will also be kept in the race on the slim chance ground conditions turn up quick in Paris.
“Auguste Rodin has been kept on the go just in case the ground came up on the fast side, which it probably won’t. Last year I didn’t do it, and it came up fast, so I said I won’t make the same mistake this time,” said O’Brien who also plans to run Continuous and Luxembourg in the Arc.
Top filly Opera Singer is likely to be pointed at the Prix de l’Opera, while Kyprios will try to repeat his spectacular 2022 triumph in the Cadran.
Ger Lyons admitted to being “on the ground” following Babouche’s flop behind Lake Victoria in Saturday’s Cheveley Park at Newmarket but got some consolation through My Mate Alfie’s Group Three victory in the Renaissance Stakes.
“We knew she [Babouche] wouldn’t handle the ground, but she is still a good filly and I still have a fantastic bunch of three-year-olds to look forward to next year. But I’m not going to lie to you, I’m on the ground,” said the trainer.
Just beaten in the big race, Joseph O’Brien, who has Al Riffa in the Arc, enjoyed a one-two in the Nursery with Montpellier Green beating Desmond Castle.
A relatively meagre crowd of 3,900 attended at a windswept HQ on Sunday, while Saturday’s crowd was 4,100. Those figures provided a contrast to official attendance levels at the Listowel festival that ended the day before. Just over 96,000 were reported at the weeklong harvest festival, including almost 29,000 on Friday’s ladies’ day card.
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