All four of Aidan O’Brien’s Group 1 winners in the two years of the Irish Champions Weekend to date have come at the Curragh and the odds look to favour him sweeping Sunday’s three top-flight races.
Certainly bookmaker quotes of only 11-1 about O’Brien winning all six Group 1 races run in Ireland and Britain this weekend contained a presumption that the Curragh leg of Champions Weekend will be a Ballydoyle benefit.
Idaho is leading a three- pronged Ballydoyle attack on Saturday’s nine-runner Doncaster St Leger, and there is even greater O’Brien strength in depth at home a day later.
Defending champion
O’Brien trains half of the 30 runners in the three Curragh Group 1s, including red-hot favourite and defending champion Order Of St George in the Palmerstown House Irish Leger, and another odds-on favourite, Churchill, in the Goffs National Stakes.
It will be disappointing for the Champions Weekend organisers that the Moyglare Stud Stakes has no overseas raider. With four of the seven runners and the top three in the betting, Ballydoyle look to have a stranglehold on it.
In fact, with a peak form Order Of St George looking to have little more than a remunerative lap of honour in front of him in the €400,000 Leger, it could be argued from a competition point of view that the most important runner on Sunday will be Mehmas who at least presents Churchill with a meaningful challenge in the National.
Significance
Richard Hannon pitches his admirable dual-Group 2 winner into the fray against Churchill who landed the Futurity on his last start while giving the impression there was plenty more left in the tank.
The significance of how the Futurity runner-up Radio Silence fares on Saturday at Leopardstown against Churchill's stable mate, Douglas Macarthur – who races in the colours of champion South African owner Markus Jooste – won't be lost on anyone.
Order Of St George races in the colours of Australian Lloyd Williams and will be the foundation stone of many weekend accumulator bets.
If the old adage about the “the bigger the field, the bigger the certainty” is applied to the 30-runner Tattersalls Auction Stakes, Medicine Jack might be one for punters to get stuck into. Ger Lyons’s juvenile is a Railway Stakes winner with a 107 rating but a €300,000 pot lured him away from black-type. The Lyons runner can reward that move.
