It was lucky No. 13 for Mexicali Rose in the Galway festival’s €120,000 feature on Tuesday evening as Joseph O’Brien broke new ground in the Colm Quinn BMW Mile.
The historic handicap has a huge range of famous names on its roll-of-honour but remarkably none from one of world racing’s most famous racing families.
Aidan O’Brien’s Tuesday focus was cross-channel as his star stayer Kyprios landed another Goodwood Cup but a long blank in Galway’s feature continues as his hope Old Faithful beat only one home.
Neither of his sons could win the Mile during their short but stellar riding careers but Joseph beat both his father and his brother Donnacha to the punch when No. 13 on the card, Mexicali Rose, scored at 12/1 under Wayne Hassett.
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The apprentice rider carried the colours of O’Brien’s race planner and ITV pundit Kevin Blake and secured vital splits off the inside rail to ultimately hold off Norwalk Havoc by half a length. This Songisforyou held on to third from last year’s winner Coeur D’or.
A winner of one of her starts for previous trainer Ralph Beckett, Mexicali Rose changed hands last December for £42,000 and got some valuable black type when third in a Gowran Listed race in May.
The resultant hike in her official rating proved no barrier to landing one of the most coveted handicaps of the season.
“We broke a little slow but they went a good gallop and that’s what she needed. Wherever I pointed her she went, she fought her way through, and she really came up the hill.
“I rode her in Gowran last time out when they went a little too slow for her as she wants a good pace and further. Everything went perfect today, and she might improve again,” Hassett said.
Mexicali Rose was the second ex-Beckett trained horse to win this week following Feud in Monday’s opener.
There was an expatriate feel to Tuesday’s action with two Yorkshire-based Irish trainers saddling winners.
Richard Fahey’s Reidh was ready and just about able to justify favouritism in a flat handicap, narrowly winning by a head, but Gale Mahler was impressive in landing the Listed novice hurdle by 10 lengths.
Her Classic-winning trainer Adrian Keatley is now based in Malton and said: “It’s a while since I was last in Galway but this place has been good to me and she has to be my most impressive winner here.”
The first chase of the week saw Rachael Blackmore win on Thecompanysergeant, one of four favourites to win on the card. Just one market leader scored on Monday.
They included Aidan O’Brien’s second juvenile maiden winner of the week at Ballybrit when 13/8 favourite Bubbling put up a champagne performance to win by five lengths. It followed up Rock Of Cashel’s maiden success on Monday.
Earlier, the champion trainer was both happy and somewhat defiant after Kyrpios’s Goodwood victory in course record time.
The world’s top-rated stayer, who began his career at Galway in 2020, landed a second Goodwood Cup on Tuesday in course record time under Ryan Moore.
His return to Gold Cup glory at Ascot last month crowned a huge feelgood story after recovering from serious injury and it continued with a superb four length defeat of Sweet William.
“The Gold Cup is a very important race for him every year and we will mind him for that. We thought if he was okay today, we might bring him back to an Irish St Leger again. If we got him through that, we’d have him for next year.
“We have to be respectful of him and to him, because if you saw where he came from, it’s hard to believe that he is here today,” O’Brien said before proceeding to double down on his belief that ground conditions were too soft for Auguste Rodin in last Saturday’s King George at Ascot.
Although some time experts backed up the track’s official going description, O’Brien insisted a combination of ground and too strong an early pace cut out by Auguste Rodin’s stable companions was behind his defeat.
“There’s no doubt in hindsight I made an absolute muck of it and I don’t mind admitting that,” he said. “Auguste Rodin is an incredible, classy horse, he’s not a down-and-dirty street fighter, he never was, he’s all class.
“In the race, he got trapped down the inside on bad ground where he was. We know he is a mile and a quarter horse that gets a mile and a half, but he’s not a grueller.
“What I think happened was we put a strong pace on, which we were always going to do. The ground was well watered inside and had sand put in it, so it rode much slower than we thought it would be.”
Tuesday’s Galway festival attendance was 13,680. That was down on Monday’s opening day crowd of 17,074 but up slightly on last year’s corresponding day figure of 13,506.
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