In the midst of Rugby World Cup fever, there could hardly have been a more apt or popular local Group One success than when the Ken Condon-trained Moss Tucker sprang an upset in the Al Basti Flying Five at the Curragh.
The horse named in memory of two former Irish rugby internationals, Moss Keane and Colm Tucker, repelled an international field to score at 16-1 under jockey Billy Lee.
Condon trains barely more than a stone’s throw from the Curragh stands and added to his top-flight spoils at HQ having memorably landed the 2,000 Guineas in 2018 with Romanised.
The horse came in at 25-1 and the folly in dismissing Moss Tucker’s chances of upsetting the odds was underlined with a hugely well-received success.
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On his 30th career start, the five-year-old owned and bred by the former Irish rugby international Donal Spring produced a lifetime peak at exactly the right time.
Spring lined up alongside Keane and Tucker in the legendary 1978 Munster defeat of the All Blacks in Thomond Park and in emotional post-race scenes said both were looking down on the happy winner’s enclosure.
The lawyer, a brother of former tánaiste Dick Spring, and who captained Munster and Leinster during his own rugby career, bred the horse on a cattle farm in Co Leitrim.
“This is incredible and there are two guys up there looking down on us – Moss Keane and Colm Tucker. He embodies everything that they were about, he is pure heart, toughness and give it your all,” Spring said.
“I’d say he had as much odds of winning today as Munster had of beating the All Blacks!” he added.
Fifth in last year’s Prix de l’Abbaye, Ireland’s newest Group One sprinter will return to Longchamp on Arc day next month, where a soaking similar to what hit the Curragh before racing would prove ideal.
“It’s just been a great story with this horse how he has progressed and kept improving,” Condon commented. “You’re thinking if we got placed it would be a super effort and then the heavens opened about an hour and a half ago which helped us a good bit.”
Conditions were immaterial to Lumiere Rock in the Group Two Blandford Stakes and Joseph O’Brien’s filly was too good for the unlucky in-running favourite Jackie Oh.
Runner-up to Warm Heart, winner of Sunday’s Prix Vermeille at Longchamp, in Royal Ascot’s Ribblesdale in June, Lumiere Rock will chase a Group One bracket of her own next.
“She has two obvious targets for the autumn, one in France on Arc day [Prix de l’Opera] and one in the fillies’ race in Ascot on British Champions Day. We’ll see how she pulls up and she’ll tell us which way we go,” said O’Brien.
“She’s an exciting filly and will hold her own in either of those two big races.
“We think that potentially she can win a Group One, so whether that is later this year or next year she’s a very solid consistent filly. She’s a joy to train.”
Sunday’s official crowd return at the Curragh was 8,646, an increase of almost 2,000 on the corresponding day a year ago. Leopardstown returned 10,019 for Saturday’s action, slightly down on 2022.
It brought the weekend’s Champions Festival attendance to 18,665. That was an increase on last year’s combined tally of just over 17,000 but significantly down on the pre-pandemic total of over 23,500 in 2019.
“I’m pleased with the day. It was good competitive racing with eight different trainers winning and three British-trained winners,” the Curragh chief executive Brian Kavanagh said.
“We were a bit unlucky with showers at the start of the day that affected the ground with City Of Troy being taken out,” he added.
Separately, after a weekend of top-flight flat action, it’s back to National Hunt action at Galway on Monday where the Cheltenham festival winner Seddon takes another step towards potential ‘National’ glory.
John McConnell has targeted a tilt at next month’s American Grand National in Far Hills for his 10-year-old star, the race memorably won by Hewick a year ago.
Seddon proved his versatility by following up a Cheltenham success over fences with victory in a valuable handicap hurdle at the Punchestown festival.
After returning to action on the flat in Killarney last month, Seddon lines up in Monday’s conditions hurdle, where Ben Harvey’s 3lb claim could prove key to getting the better of Willie Mullins’s Winter Fog.
The four-year-old filly Calico gets all the weight concessions when making her debut in a later Beginners Chase and will be hard fit on the back of a busy and successful summer campaign.
