Racing Irish Guineas reports: As Yesterday powered to success in the Entenmann's Irish 1,000 Guineas, there must have been one young man in France with some very mixed emotions.

"An Irish jockey for Ireland," was the line used to justify Thierry Thulliez's jocking off after his nightmare ride on Six Perfections in the Newmarket Guineas. After some of the jingoistic vitriol thrown at him at Newmarket, such words must have seemed positively banal.

But what must Thulliez have been thinking as he watched his replacement, John Murtagh, on the hottest favourite in recent 1,000 Guineas history yesterday?

Six Perfections was a palpably unlucky loser after encountering substantial traffic in the smallest field of 1,000 Guineas runners for 64 years.

As expected, Murtagh dropped Six Perfections out from the start. But with the whole of the Curragh yawning to his left, what was unexpected was Murtagh's limpet-like determination to make for the inside rail. There was an appalling inevitability to what happened next, and the other jockeys can't have believed their luck. Typically, it was Michael Kinane who reacted best.

With Six Perfections in a pocket, Kinane made sure that she stayed there until it suited him. When he sent Yesterday after Dimitrova, Kinane's timing was immaculate.

The brilliant French star eventually made it to the outside and quickened up, but the post came in time for the Aidan O'Brien-trained filly, who held on by the minimum margin.

It completed a Group One double for O'Brien and Kinane after Black Sam Bellamy's earlier success in the Tatersalls Gold Cup, and Yesterday is now as short as 7 to 4 favourite for the Epsom Oaks.

However, as O'Brien accepted the plaudits, Six Perfections' trainer, Pascal Bary, was a picture of Gallic frustration. "It's too much, too much," he seethed. "What do you want me to say? Two Guineas . . ."

But later Bary added: "We have to take the pain twice. She will come back in the Jacques Le Marois."

Murtagh's view was that Yesterday was finishing the stronger near the line, but admitted: "I would have liked to have got out a furlong and a half down."

He added: "I wouldn't ride her differently. I followed the horse I wanted to follow and with 200 metres to go I thought I was going to win. We just didn't get there."

The O'Brien camp was much happier, and since the young trainer's use of language has been focused on so much recently his description of Kinane's ride was significant. "He was perfection, as usual," said O'Brien. "He did everything right. He timed it, saw the favourite, unbelievable."

Black Sam Bellamy's eight-length demolition of the field earned the full brother to Galileo a 20 to 1 Arc quote. "We will look at the Coronation Cup if there is a little ease," said O'Brien, whose Delacroix never figured behind Tipperary All Star in the Silver Stakes. The winner was the middle leg of a treble for the in-form Michael Halford stable.