RACING:THE CREAM of Aidan O'Brien's three-year-old team are getting ready for the most important week of the classic season and they got a timely lesson in class at Leopardstown yesterday from their illustrious older stable companion Fame And Glory.
The colt, who won the 2009 Irish Derby, and whose misfortune was to be foaled in the same year as Sea The Stars, only justified long odds-on by half-a-length in the Savel Beg Stakes, but there was still enough there to suggest he will be a major player in next month’s Ascot Gold Cup.
Not everyone was impressed. The reigning Gold Cup holder Rite Of Passage finished only third yesterday, and yet on the back of it was cut by some bookmakers to 3 to 1 joint-favouritism with Fame And Glory for the Gold Cup. The presence of the 50 to 1 outsider Vivacious Vivienne in second will hardly impress students of form either.
But it was noticeable how quickly Fame And Glory responded to just the slightest move from Jamie Spencer half a mile out and, after being brought back under restraint again, there was no ducking his appetite for a struggle in the closing stages.
“He came alive four furlongs out, then he had to fight and you couldn’t say he was stopping at the line,” O’Brien said, before admitting he is no more wiser than anyone else about Fame And Glory’s chances of going two-and-a-half miles at Ascot.
“Looking at him there you would say he has a good chance of getting two miles. But the Gold Cup is an unusual race. You don’t know about that extra half mile until they do it.
“What will help is his class. He’s a different horse to Yeats in that he has won a couple of mile-and-a- quarter Group One races. But the plan is Ascot,” he added.
Dermot Weld was pleased with Rite Of Passage and said: “It was a very creditable run and he was coming back at them going to the line.”
That priceless mixture of class and courage will be put to the supreme test at Epsom this week and at Chantilly on Sunday, where Ryan Moore will team up with O’Brien’s Irish Guineas hero Roderic O’Connor in the French Derby.
That leaves a likely four-pronged Ballydoyle attack on Saturday’s Epsom Derby comprising of Recital, Seville, Treasure Beach and Memphis Tennessee. Jockey arrangements for racing’s blue riband are likely to be finalised tomorrow, along with Friday’s Oaks.
“Misty For Me, Wonder Of Wonders and one other will probably go for the Oaks,” O’Brien said yesterday. “St Nicholas Abbey will probably run in the Coronation Cup on his own.”
Another O’Brien Group One winner, Zoffany, is set to tackle Frankel in Royal Ascot’s St James’s Palace Stakes after finishing runner-up to Bewitched in yesterday’s Group Three Ballycorus Stakes.
Zoffany was swamped by the Charles O’Brien-trained winner in the closing stages as Bewitched proved more than capable of stretching her sprinter speed to seven furlongs.
She was cut to 12 to 1 for the Golden Jubilee by some firms, and while O’Brien didn’t rule out that race, he did add: “That could be the toughest six-furlong Group One of the year so I wouldn’t be averse to going to Deauville later in the year with her.”
Glor Na Mara finished a close third in the Ballycorus, but trainer Jim Bolger had a profitable opening to the meeting with a double that included Teolane’s victory in the seven-furlong maiden.
The filly made virtually all to win by over five lengths, and Bolger reported: “She could go back in trip for the Albany at Ascot. She was bumped early on her debut at Naas and that put her off.”
The Bolger-trained Manaaqeb also made most of the running in the apprentice handicap to win by three-and-a-half lengths under Ronan Whelan.
The action wound up with another Ballydoyle success in the mile-and-a-half maiden as Apache easily overhauled the pace-forcing Long Journey Home to set himself up for Royal Ascot where he has a number of options.
Michael Hourigan saddled False Economy to get up to win the 14-furlong handicap under Séamus Heffernan.
Jouster to unseat Ballinrobe rivals
TRAINER ANDREW Oliver has been clocking up the miles from his Tyrone base this season, but a comparatively short trip to Ballinrobe this evening can pay off with Jouster, writes Brian O’Connor
Jouster was part of a much longer expedition to Killarney 11 days ago when he belied 66 to 1 odds on his debut to finish a promising third to his stable companion Further Detail.
There will be no such fancy odds available for tonight’s nine-furlong maiden, but the Oliver team is in form and the trainer’s sole runner in Mayo today can go home a winner.
Magical Memoir found only Street Entertainer too good for her at Punchestown on her last start and can go one better in the conditions hurdle for a first success since Listowel last September.
Malayan Mist justified expectations with a winning debut at Gowran at the start of the month and the
Dansili filly can follow up this evening.
