Gstaad has another shot at Group One glory when he lines up in Saturday’s Darley Dewhurst Stakes at Newmarket.
An impressive Coventry Stakes winner at Royal Ascot in June, Gstaad looked to be a top-flight winner in waiting, only for it not to quite happen for him yet.
A late defection from the Phoenix Stakes due to being off-colour, he was too good for the subsequent Middle Park winner Wise Approach in the Prix Morny at Deauville, but unable to overhaul the filly Venetian Sun.
Aidan O’Brien’s colt then started odds-on for last month’s National Stakes at the Curragh but again had to settle for the runner-up spot behind Zavateri. He’s clearly second, too, in O’Brien’s estimations of his juvenile team behind the hugely hyped Albert Einstein.
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Victory in what is traditionally Europe’s top two-year-old prize would banish all that to the shade and deliver O’Brien a record ninth Dewhurst. However, it is a notably difficult task for the Irish colt, who will be joined by his stable companion Italy.
Zavateri has an outstanding chance of completing an unbeaten season and a notable underdog story considering his modest 35,000 Guineas purchase price. If Eve Johnson-Houghton’s colt were wearing superpower silks, he would be odds-on.
As well as the Ballydoyle duo, Zavateri must overcome a Godolphin trio topped by William Buick’s choice Desert Storm. The Gosden hope Oxagon and the Acomb winner Gewan are also in the mix.
Although Albert Einstein is safely tucked up at home, a Dewhurst victory for Gstaad will be no small matter to Ballydoyle. They’ve cut a swathe through the Group One races for fillies, including Precise in Friday’s Fillies’ Mile, but Puerto Rico in last Sunday’s Lagardere at Longchamp is the only colt to strike at the top level so far this season.
The European campaign still has Doncaster’s Futurity and a pair of prizes at Saint-Cloud to come. However, in the remorseless stallion-making business, a Dewhurst victory has always counted for a lot.
A relatively paltry field of 21 runners for the Club Godolphin Cesarewitch points to a broad pattern of declining field sizes in big handicaps in Britain and Ireland. The fact that 10 of the runners are from Ireland, though, underlines how more serious an issue it is across the water.
Alphonse Le Grande’s saga, before finally being confirmed last year’s winner – being disqualified and then reinstated on appeal – means plenty of focus on Tony Martin’s runner as he attempts to win it back-to-back.
Charles Byrnes won it three years ago with Run For Oscar and is back with the course winner Reverend Hubert. Willie Mullins has three chances, including topweight Hipop De Loire.
Separately, Dylan Browne McMonagle goes into the final countdown of this year’s jockeys’ championship with a five-winner lead and title rival Colin Keane still breathing down his neck.
The 22-year-old former top apprentice is an odds-on favourite to lift the senior crown for the first time. Still, any presumption that the reigning champ’s challenge might fade away due to overseas commitments for his Juddmonte employers has proved off the mark.
Keane has hung in there to trail his young rival 87-82 and is still holding out hope of being crowned champion for a seventh time.
There are 16 meetings left, with the season finale at the Curragh on November 2nd. How high-profile international events such as the Breeders’ Cup and the Melbourne Cup affect the title run-in remains to be seen, so it’s far from a foregone conclusion yet.
The weekend action is over two days at Naas, which brings its flat action for 2025 to an end. Keane holds a numerical edge with 13 rides, two more than Browne McMonagle. Both are riding in the weekend’s most valuable domestic contest, Sunday’s €120,000 Irish Auction Series Final.
Joseph O’Brien’s strength in depth for such races is underlined again by having four of the 13 runners. His number-one rider has opted for Green Citation, although Keane may hold an edge through Noel Meade’s hope Madbadanddangerous.
Sunday’s other six-figure pot is the Colm White Handicap, where JP McManus’s A Dream To Share gets to use the official 103 rating eventually assigned to him by the handicapper.
McManus hopes to get the former Cheltenham festival winner a mark for the Newmarket Cesarewitch were stymied by the handicapper’s reluctance to rate the horse based on three runs on the flat. Connections successfully appealed, only to find that it was too late for the horse to enter Newmarket calculations.
The Naas contest looks just as competitive, although the sole three-year-old, Light As Air, is an unknown factor on his first try at two miles.
There’s jumps action this weekend at Fairyhouse and Cork, where the first Academy hurdle race for three-year-olds takes place.
Much more grizzled operators will be in action in the Czech Republic on Sunday when the 135th renewal of the famed and fearsome Velka Pardubicka takes place.
It is 30 years since an Irish- or British-trained horse won the notorious marathon test that can make the Grand National seem straightforward. Keith Donoghue was out of luck when unseating from Coko Beach a year ago, and this time relies on Gavin Cromwell’s Cheltenham winner Stumptown. Kildare trainer Peter Maher runs Cavalry Master in a race off at 2.30pm Irish time.
