It's 15 years since Michael Kinane has won the Entenmann's Irish 2,000 Guineas, but the former champion jockey is looking to Minardi today in order to bridge the long gap.
Flash Of Steel, in 1986, came only four years after Kinane's first 2,000 Guineas success on Dara Monarch, but since then the race has contained little but frustration.
Kinane has had to endure finishing runner-up on Giant's Causeway last year, discarding Saffron Walden to ride Orpen the year before, and had to give up his Newmarket hero, Tirol, to Pat Eddery for the Curragh version in 1990.
It might not be the roll of near-misses that Kinane has suffered in the Irish Derby, a race he has famously yet to win, but there will be no mistaking his motivation when he again tackles the Newmarket Guineas runner-up Tamburlaine in today's first Irish classic of the season.
Strictly on form, Minardi has ground to make up on the Richard Hannon-trained runner but Newmarket was something of a non-event for Minardi, as he got no sort of run through the race.
What it ultimately did indicate, however, is that a mile looks to be no problem to the Ballydoyle horse, for he was running on strongly towards the finish and there should be some benefit to come from a first start of the season.
Golan's Derby supporters will be looking for a Tamburlaine success, but the Guineas was just one of four runner-up placings in six career starts for the colt. He evidently finds it hard to win, he will hardly come on for the Newmarket classic as much as Minardi, and Richard Hughes will need the run of the race to employ the waiting tactics he has said he will use.
The same fortune in running will probably be needed in spades for the Ballydoyle second string, Freud, to succeed. For a colt who has won just once, and cost his many supporters a lot of cash so far in his career, Freud is plenty short enough at 8 to 1 and a value Ballydoyle alternative could Black Minnaloushe. John Murtagh's ride lost a lot of ground at the start of the Tetrarch and then ran very wide up the Longchamp straight behind Noverre in the French Guineas.
The Newmarket winner, Mugharreb, is the dark horse of the race and is significantly as short as 7 to 2 with most bookmakers but, all told, on the forecast fast ground, Minardi and Kinane look a winning combination.
Kinane is on the Gimcrack third, Juniper, in the Greenlands Stakes, but the experienced Final Exam is in the form of his life at the moment and will be hard to beat.
Dermot Weld can also pick up 10-furlong handicap with Wimbledon, who is rated 7lb lower than his last flat start and has two good hurdle efforts to boast of recently.
The Marble Hill is the first black type event of the year for two-years-old and no juvenile has made a better impression so far than Wiseman's Ferry, whose Cork defeat of Bowmans Crossing was boosted by the Wachman runner at Leopardstown on Wednesday night.
