The Cork hurling team are cramped odds for this weekend’s All-Ireland hurling final, but Minnie Hauk is an even hotter sporting favourite in Saturday’s Juddmonte Irish Oaks.
Aidan O’Brien’s filly looks a standout for the Curragh’s €500,000 feature as she bids to become the 16th horse to complete the Epsom-Curragh Oaks double. Snowfall in 2021 was one of O’Brien’s seven previous winners of the race and she duly completed the double at prohibitive odds of 2-7.
Ante-post betting suggests Minnie Hauk could start considerably shorter than that again against six opponents, half of which are her stable companions.
It’s a long way from last year’s 14-runner contest – the biggest field in over a dozen years – won by the British raider You Got To Me. This time it’s an all-local contest that includes a maiden and a runner rated a relatively mediocre 85.
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On the face of it, only Wemighttakedlongway, trained by O’Brien’s son Joseph, looks up to giving Minnie Hauk a race, and she was only fourth at Epsom last month.
Wemighttakedlongway was subsequently fourth again to the Epsom runner-up Whirl in the Pretty Polly so the form looks solid. The daughter of Australia is back at a mile and a half and Joseph O’Brien is hopeful some ease in the ground will help her close the gap.
Nevertheless, how enticing a prospect a Classic is that looks more coronation than competition remains to be seen. But should Minnie Hauk pull off the double she will join some stellar company.
Enable in 2017 subsequently became one of the best middle-distance performers in Europe this century. Snow Fairy (2010) and Ouija Board (2004) progressed to become globally acclaimed performers as well.
In a notably open middle-distance scene this year, Minnie Hauk already tops some betting lists for the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in October.
All of it suggests the chances of something putting it up to her come 3.40pm on Saturday look more unlikely than Tipp turning over the Rebels, but against that, excellence should be on show.
A similar friction between quality and competition looks to surround the earlier Gain Railway Stakes, one of a trio of Group Two contests backing up the Classic.
Moved back from its established Derby-day date, it has just four runners lining up. Small fields aren’t unusual for a race with a stellar roll of honour, but how Ballydoyle’s filly True Love looks like being the outstanding candidate is. The last filly to win the Railway was Camargo in 1998.
True Love landed the Queen Mary at Royal Ascot and is Ryan Moore’s pick over Puerto Rico as O’Brien chases a 15th win in the race.
If switching the Group Two Railway for the Group Three Anglesey over Derby weekend had a certain Pattern book logic to it, this turnout will still convince sceptics it really had more to do with making the ‘Blue Riband’ programme more suitable for World Pool betting.
However, such a turnout, particularly considering the likely financial pay-off from the World Pool, will probably bolster official belief that the switch is worth it.
Unlike Derby-day, there is plenty of Pattern-race support to this Classic card, although another standout could dominate the Michael John Kennedy Curragh Cup.
The dual Group One winner Al Riffa has spent his career mixing it with some of Europe’s best middle-distance performers and memorably gave City Of Troy a scare in last year’s Eclipse.
Joseph O’Brien stretches him into the staying division now and with encouragement in his pedigree for stamina, and no top-flight penalties to concede, this looks an ideal opportunity.
Some high-class sprinters contest the Barberstown Castle Sapphire Stakes including Arizona Blaze, who found only one too good in Royal Ascot’s Commonwealth Cup.
He’s playing senior hurling now, though, against his elders, albeit it may prove to be another three-year-old, Powerful Nation, that proves too strong. Andy Slattery has made no secret of his regard for the colt who has Group One ambitions later this season.
Just a single cross-channel raider takes on local sprinters in the Scurrys Handicap but Canon’s House is on a roll having won his last three starts. The Easterby runner is ridden by Billy Garrity, who won the Scurrys on Strike Red a couple of years ago, and the training team scored with Perfect Pasture in 2016.
In other news, the US Grade One highlight on Saturday night is the Haskell Stakes at Monmouth Park in New Jersey, where the Preakness winner Journalism returns to action.
Runner-up to Sovereignty in both the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont, Journalism takes on seven rivals in the $1 million Haskell Stakes over nine furlongs, off at 10.45pm Irish time and live on Sky.
Californian trainer Bob Baffert is seeking a 10th Haskell victory with Goal Oriented lining up against Journalism.
