RACING/Irish 2,000 Guineas: Rock of Gibraltar will start long odds-on to secure another piece of history for Aidan O'Brien in today's Entenmann's Irish 2,000 Guineas.
No trainer has completed the Guineas treble in England, France and Ireland but with three other runners in the seven-strong field, O'Brien looks set to rewrite those record books again.
Landseer secured the French Guineas at Longchamp but it was Rock Of Gibraltar's Newmarket triumph that secured the most headlines.
Some of that had to do with Hawk Wing's unlucky run and more with Alex Ferguson's ownership of the winner.
The Manchester United manager will be at the Curragh to watch his colt's attempt to become just the fifth horse to complete the English-Irish Guineas double.
The ground on the straight course is forecast to be "soft to heavy" which does throw more uncertainty over the first home classic of the season than might be expected.
O'Brien said yesterday: "Rock Of Gibraltar has been very well since Newmarket but the ground will be very bad. For a horse that wants good going, that has to be a concern." On the plus side however is that Rock Of Gibraltar's most eye-catching career performance came on the soft in last year's Grand Criterium.
The Ballydoyle second string is the Tetrarch winner Century City and O'Brien commented: "There's no doubt he has improved for every run and I hope he is still improving."
Foreign Accent, seventh in the Greenham, is the only overseas challenger while the other challenges to the Ballydoyle battalion are Sights On Gold and Ahsanabad.
John Murtagh rides the latter and having ridden Rock Of Gibraltar at Newmarket is ideally placed to exploit any chinks in the favourite.
Ahsanabad patently didn't stay in the Derrinstown Derby Trial and if we could be guaranteed he would act on very testing conditions, he would be the one to give Rock Of Gibraltar most to do.
Tendulkar was a rare Ballydoyle flop in the Newmarket Guineas and has missed some work since. As a result he returns in the Weatherbys Greenlands Stakes rather than the feature.
"Rather than a mile on the soft, we thought six furlongs would be better seeing as he missed some time. I would not rule out him going back to a mile in time," said O'Brien.
Mick Kinane is on Tendulkar but on the ground, maybe the filly Lahinch will be a better betting option. She ran a blinder in the Newmarket 1,000 Guineas considering she was used as a pacemaker.
O'Brien and Kinane have a high opinion of the Storm Cat colt Marino Marini who ran very green when beating Pakhoes by just half a length on his debut at Cork. The Marble Hill Stakes should see significant improvement.
Murtagh should be the jockey to follow in the last two races, just a year after he popped up for classic glory on the 20 to 1 shot Black Minnaloushe. Torrential Storm won on the soft at York and Pontefract last year and looks the bet in the 10-furlong handicap while Ancestor should be the pick in the mile-and a-quarter maiden.
