Joseph O’Brien has three runners in Ireland this weekend but has considerably bigger fish to fry with another trio of hopefuls at Saturday’s Saudi Cup extravaganza in Riyadh.
Dual-Group One winner Al Riffa leads O’Brien’s team into the lavish $38.1 million (€36.4 million) Saudi event at the King Abdulaziz racetrack where he is joined in the $2 million Neom Turf Cup by stable companion Trustyourinstinct. The race is off at 3.25 Irish time.
Earlier, the three-year-old Apples And Bananas debuts on dirt in the $1.5 million Saudi Derby (1.20) while Aidan O’Brien will try to repeat his 2024 victory in the Red Sea Turf Handicap when Continuous lines up in that $2.5 million contest off at 4.50.
Everything pales financially though compared to the $20 million Saudi Cup – the world’s richest race – which is off at 5.40 and features Hong Kong superstar Romantic Warrior on his dirt debut.
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All the action is on Racing TV and both the big race and the Red Sea Handicap are also live on Virgin 2.
Ryan Moore will team up with Continuous, Ballydoyle’s first starter of 2025, who has the considerable task of emulating last year’s winner Tower Of London. If that horse was unexposed going into the race, the 2023 St Leger hero is a much more clearcut proposition.
Like Continuous, Al Riffa lined up in last year’s Arc and is again set to be ridden by the renowned Japanese rider Yutaka Take in the big 10-furlong event on turf.
The Irish hope is a 7–2 shot with some firms behind the Japanese runner Shin Emperor, familiar here from his third to Economics in the Irish Champion Stakes last September. The form of Shin Emperor’s narrow defeat in November’s Japan Cup looks to make him the one to beat.
Dylan Browne McMonagle is on board JP McManus’s Trustyourinstinct who last ran in Italy in October when narrowly beaten in a Group Two.
The Donegal rider is also on Apples And Oranges, already a huge money spinner after his Goffs Million victory at the Curragh last autumn. Subsequently third to Twain in a French Group One, the admirable colt is now in Middle Eastern ownership.
European interest in the Saudi Cup itself is confined to the French hope Facteur Chevel as 14 line up for the nine-furlong event’s sixth renewal.
A $10 million winning post has convinced Romantic Warrior’s connections to put him on dirt for the first time against opposition that includes top Japanese performer Forever Young and Rattle N Roll from the US.
“I’m confident he’ll handle the dirt but I don’t know whether he’ll handle the kickback,” admitted the Hong Kong star’s trainer Danny Shum in an echo of the build-up to City Of Troy’s tilt at last season’s Breeders' Cup Classic.
Romantic Warrior, discovered as a yearling by Michael Kinane before going to Hong Kong, already has more than $22 million in career prize money and among his 10 Group One victories are Australia’s Cox Plate and Japan’s Yasuda Kinen.
Forever Young was third in the Breeders’ Cup, landed last year’s Saudi Cup, and an outside post looks the only negative to his chance.
