Last season’s shock 73-1 Breeders Cup champion Order Of Australia presents a quandary at the Curragh on Sunday.
If the mercurial Aidan O’Brien-trained star is in the same sort of form as he was at Keeneland last November when landing the Mile, then his rivals for the Group 2 Romanised Minstrel Stakes face an uphill task.
Even with a Group 1 penalty Order Of Australia is rated to notch a fourth career victory.
The problem is how that defeat of his two stable companions Circus Maximus and Lope Y Fernandez in a Ballydoyle clean-sweep at the Breeders Cup is the single outstanding piece of form on the colt’s CV.
From an apparently impossible outside gate Order Of Australia stepped up considerably on anything he’d done before, including when a wayward passage through the French Derby landed Seamus Heffernan with a 22-day ban for use of the whip.
His sole start this year saw him cut little ice behind Palace Pier in the Queen Anne at Royal Ascot and on Sunday he drops down both a grade and a furlong.
Ranged against the half brother to Iridessa and Santa Barbara are seven talented opponents who have never got close to Order Of Australia’s best level.
Top-rated among them is Njord whose best form is on a much softer surface than he’s going to get here. Maybe lightning quick ground will emerge as the key to Order Of Australia.
Sunday’s other Group 2, the Kilboy Estate Stakes, features a cross-channel runner in the Roger Varian trained Angel Power.
Varian sent Believe In Love to win the Stanerra Stakes at Leopardstown over a week ago and relies this time on a filly that wound up winning at Group 3 level last year.
Angel Power’s best form though is on much softer going than will be at the Curragh, a comment that also applies to Johnny Murtagh’s Royal Ascot winner Create Belief.
Giver Her A Squeeze fancied
The latter is top-rated on 110 on the back of that 5½ length Sandringham rout on heavy ground.
A value alternative to both could be Insinuendo. Willie McCreery’s runner was supplemented into the Pretty Polly over Derby weekend and wasn’t beaten far behind Thundering Nights after running keenly.
The runner up that day, Santa Barbara, has since won at the top level in New York while Insinuendo’s previous Blue Wind Stakes victory has also worked out well.
McCreery and jockey Billy Lee are also entitled to fancy their chances earlier on the Sunday’s programme with the Bellewstown runner-up Give Her A Squeeze.
Henry De Bromhead sends seven runners to Tipperary’s jumps card on Sunday including Popong and Trainwreck in the featured handicap chase.
Perhaps his most intriguing starter though is Accidental Rebel who has failed to win in 13 starts to date.
However, as a brother to the former Champion Chase winner Special Tiara he is entitled to step up significantly now he meets fences for the first time.
