RACING:AIDAN O'BRIEN has twice before pulled off the Grade One hat-trick of the Curragh's Guineas festival and bookmakers aren't ruling out a similar feat this weekend.
Homecoming Queen is a hot-favourite to complete the Newmarket-Curragh 1,000 Guineas double on Sunday while So You Think is likely to be cramped odds to successfully defend his Tattersalls Gold Cup title on the same day.
The champion trainer is chasing an eighth victory in Saturday’s Abu Dhabi Irish 2,000 Guineas and the National Stakes winner Power will be joined in the colts classic by other Ballydoyle hopes, Wrote and Daddy Long Legs.
If one of them emerges a winner then it will be short odds about a repeat of 2008 when Henrythenavigator, Halfway To Heaven and Duke Of Marmalade won the first three Group One contests of the Irish season and last year after So You Think joined Roderic O’Connor and Misty For Me trebled up. Yesterday Paddy Power went just 4 to 1 about a similar hat-trick in 2012.
Ground conditions at the Curragh are continuing to dry out ahead of the first big fixture of the flat campaign in Ireland and that is good news for veteran local trainer Kevin Prendergast who intends running his Phoenix Stakes heroine La Colina.
She ran a fine fifth to Homecoming Queen in the Newmarket Guineas on ground conditions less than ideal.
“The ground didn’t suit her but we were happy she finished pretty good, she kept going to the line,” Prendergast said yesterday.
“She didn’t grow very much over the winter but she’s very solid and took the race at Newmarket very well. The drying ground – it should be good by Sunday – should suit her well.
“Newmarket was a little bit messy for her. She needs it fast so under the circumstance she ran well. I think she could step up in trip. An Irish Oaks winner is in the family so that could be an influence. She’s got a high rating so we’ll see on Sunday if she can run up to it,” he added.
One filly not appearing against La Colina will be another Group One winner in Ger Lyons’ Lightening Pearl. Instead she will wait until July to appear again after running out of the money in the Newmarket Guineas.
“Maybe she didn’t stay, that’s the big question mark. In my opinion we are better off missing the Guineas because her sectionals suggested she is all speed,” the Co Meath trainer said yesterday.
“We’ll go for a Group Three at York in July over six furlongs. The programme for three-year-old sprinters isn’t great but they do have a very good record in that race, I think the last three winners have all been her age.
“I just wasn’t able to give Sheikh Fahad the guarantee that she would stay a mile in the Guineas and hopefully it will take a good one to lie up with her at York,” Lyons added.
