Melikah taken to win for Godolphin

The regally bred Melikah looks a stand-out bet to allow Sheikh Mohammed keep the winning purse from tomorrow's Kildangan Stud Irish Oaks.

The Sheikh sponsors the classic and has won it with four of his fillies in the past, but the Oaks is a rare omission from the Godolphin operation's roll of honour. Not for much longer it seems.

A total of seven English raiders in the 10-strong field is a rather depressing indicator of just how dominant British yards have been in this race, with just Dance Design and the John Oxx pair, Ebadiyla and Winona, disrupting a colossal winning streak since 1984.

The best of the Irish trio looks to be the Pretty Polly runner-up, Preseli, but she came into season at just the wrong time for the 1,000 Guineas and even her subsequent run behind Lady Upstage may not be quite good enough against this calibre of filly.

Kalypso Katie led home both Melikah and the unlucky-in-running Petrushka when second to Love Divine at Epsom and has maintained her 15 to 8 favouritism for most of the week.

Her regular rider, Michael Kinane, cried off the mount yesterday, leaving George Duffield in for yet another excellent spare ride, but the rangy grey may yet again have to settle for a place.

Petrushka looked the most obviously unlucky filly at Epsom, being shovelled back through the field at a vital time off a slow pace, and will complete a fantastic July so far for the Derby-winning rider John Murtagh if she wins. Pat Eddery, in 1993, was the last jockey to complete the Irish Derby-Oaks double in the same year.

But it's possible to argue that Melikah ran the most eye-catching race of all the beaten horses at Epsom. For one thing, it was just her second race, for another Epsom was hardly the ideal track for such a long-striding filly and the slow early pace was definitely against a stoutly bred daughter of two Arc winners, Lammtarra and Urban Sea.

It's also a fact that Melikah's last-gasp debut success at Newmarket was only possible when she met the rising ground off another slow pace and stayed on, so the galloping nature of the Curragh should be ideal.

Her rider, Kevin Darley, has yet to win an Irish classic but is in rare form and should be an improvement on the veteran American Chris McCarron, who looked all at sea at Epsom. It's a powerful cocktail of plus points in Melikah's favour and already some punters have cottoned on to it, with Paddy Power yesterday reporting support and cutting her to 11 to 4. Even that looks a value bet for the first Irish Oaks of the millennium.

The last Irish 2,000 Guineas of the 20th century is Saffron Walden's and Aidan O'Brien gives the colt a belated first start of the season in the concluding Minstrel Stakes. Saffron Walden is sure to be rusty but officially has over a stone in hand and should win.

Ballydoyle could be out of luck, however, in the Anglesey Stakes. It's almost heresy to oppose an O'Brien two-year-old on home ground and he runs three of the five in this Group Three race, with Pirate Of Penzance apparently the number one. Pan Jammer boosted the form of his Leopardstown win with a good run in the Norfolk at Ascot, but a value alternative could be Berlin, who won a restricted race very easily on his debut and connections have shelled out a £5,250 supplementary fee to run here. Berlin may not have that much to make up and could be capable of doing it.

Berlin's rider Eddie Ahern takes the mount on Romanylei in the valuable Emirates Rockingham Handicap and the form of the filly's half-length second to Pipalong at Haydock last time was advertised in this week's July Cup at Newmarket.