The 2025 flat campaign continues to crank slowly into gear and Ger Lyons has his first runners of the year on grass at Naas on Sunday as he prepares a powerful squad of three-year-olds for potential Classic success.
The Co Meath trainer is targeting the exciting Red Letter at Newmarket’s 1000 Guineas in early May and the Juddmonte-owned filly will go there without a prep race.
In contrast, Chantez, a winner at last September’s Irish Champions Festival, is set to return to Leopardstown next weekend for a trial before her possible shot at a Classic victory.
In contrast, last season’s Phoenix Stakes heroine, Babouche, may not be asked to stretch her stamina to a mile this term, while a sprint campaign is definitely on the cards for Lyons’s Breeders' Cup champion, Magnum Force.
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“I’ve got a lovely string of horses and there’s a bounce in my step that probably hasn’t been there for a while,” Lyons said on Friday.
“I’m blessed to get these pedigrees and individuals I can make pages with. Red Letter is Juddmonte, so is Babouche. Chantez is Newtown Anner. They’re horses I just couldn’t buy. You could probably argue I’ve earned the right, but it’s nice to be in this position,” he added.
Last year Lyons nominated Red Letter as the likely best of his strong team of juvenile fillies and little has changed in his view of the Frankel filly, who’s 20-1 in most lists for both the 1000 Guineas and the Oaks.
“Red Letter will go straight to the Guineas. I think she’s smart, she’s showing plenty, and her form is rock solid. All being alive and kicking we’ll aim big with her until she tells us otherwise,” he said.
Lyons saddled a memorable Curragh double in 2020 through Siskin (2000 Guineas) and Even So (Oaks.) However, he has yet to secure an English Classic.
Godolphin’s Desert Flower and a typically powerful Ballydoyle team, topped by the triple-Group One winner Lake Victoria, are set to stand in Red Letter’s way in the Guineas, although her stable companion Babouche is unlikely to head to Newmarket.
“I’d love to think she’ll get a trip. But from what I’m seeing she’ll be campaigned shorter rather than longer. She’ll tell me but she may be more of a Commonwealth Cup type,” said the trainer who will also point Magnum Force at top sprints.
“We’ll be keeping him short all year and working back from the Breeders' Cup. America was the thrill of a lifetime, and you’d love to relive it. You could see him run in May and in all those big sprints afterwards,” he added.
Added to Jessica Harrington’s Classic team, including Hotazhell and Green Impact, Joseph O’Brien is able to draw on talent such as Tennessee Stud, as well as the all-powerful Ballydoyle battalion, Lyons’s input could help make for a hugely successful 2025 flat campaign for Irish yards.
All of Ireland’s top four flat stables are represented at Naas on a card with a track record of identifying future top performers.
It’s just two years since Paddington landed the Irish Racing Writers Madrid Handicap as a first step towards multiple Group One victories. Awtaad won the same race in 2016.
Aidan O’Brien is represented by the 95-rated Serengeti this time and he can boast placed form as a two-year-old behind his highly promising stable companion, Twain.
If ground conditions become ultra-testing, the late Aga Khan’s colours could come to the fore through the wide-margin Killarney winner Tangapour.
There is black-type action in the Listed Tote Devoy Stakes where Lyons unveils a recruit in Bravais. The ex-Andre Fabre horse was gelded after finishing third in the 2023 Prix Niel and hasn’t run since. Rated 109 he gets a valuable 5lbs from the similarly rated Trustyourinstinct.
“If you put a gun to mine and Colin’s [Keane] head we’d have to say we don’t know what he is, except what we see in the book. I was asked to train him, have fun and win races. You wouldn’t see 109 on the gallops, but if he runs to 109, we’ll have great craic with him,” Lyons said.
Last year’s winner Sunchart is back while Dallas Star returned from a long absence to win at Dundalk recently and represents the ever-growing AMO operation.
Some Classic hints may emerge in the seven-furlong maiden where Mississippi River takes on Storm Piece and Rowdy Yeats, and maybe even more likely to emerge from the later fillies' maiden.
The Oaks and Breeders' Cup winner Tuesday landed this in 2022 while a year earlier Empress Josephine scored just over six weeks before landing the Irish 1000 Guineas.
There are some potentially high-class fillies in the line-up this time, including Faiyum, a daughter of Frankel. Also in the mix is another Frankel filly, Ballydoyle hope Guarded.
