Desert home and dry

RACING/Curragh Preview: The Tattersalls Breeders Stakes, with a gross purse of €300,000, offers the richest prize in Ireland or England this weekend and as ever it attracts a mammoth collection of two-year-olds with half a dozen English runners.

Twelve months ago punters found the right favourite even if they did not appreciate the extraordinary value represented by odds of 3 to 1 returned about Tout Seul who would finish his season with a Group One success in the Dewhurst Stakes at Newmarket.

His trainer, Fulke Johnson Houghton, tries for a repeat but admits that his cheaply bought Off Beat is not in the same class as Tout Seul.

Quality is, however, represented by Mike Channon's sharp filly Majestic Desert who won her first start and was placed in the Queen Mary Stakes at Royal Ascot behind Attraction, one of a myriad of Mark Johnston-produced star youngsters, the like of which he confesses he has never imagined in his wildest dreams.

Mark has graciously given the Tattersalls race the go-bye but he will be on the premises in the Galileo EBF Futurity Stakes with the Irish-owned Pearl Of Love. This was another Royal Ascot winner for the Middleham trainer who defeated the Aidan O'Brien-trained Tycoon in the Chesham Stakes.

In a bid to take his revenge Aidan is four-handed and clearly the pick of the quartet is The Mighty Tiger who ran so well at Goodwood when second to the Johnston-trained Lucky Story. Johnston has the line though and is on a roll.

Three races after landing a massive Curragh gamble off a rating of 60, Desert Fantasy is not merely taking his chance in a Listed race but if he has maintained his rate of improvement since winning at Galway, he will take all the beating in the Ballygallon Stud Belgrave Stakes.

If Lady Prague gets the mile up the Curragh the handicapper's figures say that she should make it four wins in a row. Her target is the claiming race in which Michael Kinane teams up with the top weight an old favourite of his Premier View.