Together Forever ready for smash and grab at Curragh

The

Coolmore team paid out €40,000 to supplement Curvy into the Darley Irish Oaks and also have the regally bred Words to dominate the top of the betting. But Together Forever may ultimately prove to be their unsung Curragh heroine.

Seamus Heffernan teams up with Aidan O'Brien's apparent third-string for the first time in a career that sees her go into the €400,000 highlight as one of only a pair of proven Group One winners in the declared 10-runner field. However Qualify, the shock Epsom Oaks winner, is reported to be an unlikely starter due to softer ground conditions leaving Joseph O'Brien's mount, the unbeaten Words, as the undoubted Ballydoyle No 1.

Improved

Ryan Moore’s continuing absence means

Wayne Lordan

gets a prime opportunity to score a maiden classic success on Curvy, the vastly improved filly who progressed to a Group Two Ribblesdale victory at Royal Ascot on her last start.

However, all his rivals will be aware of Heffernan’s remarkable record of getting the best out of Ballydoyle cast-offs in big races and pre-race odds of 12/1 about Together Forever look generous. Recent wet weather should produce ground ideally suited to the daughter of Galileo who landed last year’s Dubai Fillies Mile but whose profile this season has faded.

However, failure to concede weight to Star Of Seville over the Musidora’s 10 furlongs reads well after the latter’s French Oaks success and while Together Forever’s own Epsom Oaks performance was noteworthy only for her dramatic hang left, she’s hardly the first horse to find the camber tough to deal with.

Words, possessed of all the potential in the world but still with only a Group Three under her belt, is much shorter in the betting. Curvy's credentials look more solid, as do Qualify's, although she has to bounce back from the Irish Derby, while Jack Naylor could prove more of a threat than any of the three cross-channel raiders.

Together Forever however can provide her jockey with a first win in the Oaks to go with three in the 1,000 Guineas, two Derbies and a Leger.

Conditions look to have come right too for English filly Mecca’s Angel in the Group Two Sapphire Stakes, while Shogun, who flopped on his debut on Derby day, can make amends in the juvenile maiden.