Epic clash on Leopardstown card as Minding meets Harzand

Dual Derby winner Harzand and brilliant filly Minding star in a final field of 13 runners for the QIPCO Irish Champion Stakes at Leopardstown on Saturday.

Harzand provided trainer Dermot Weld with his first victory in the Investec Derby at Epsom in early June and followed up three weeks later in the Irish Derby at the Curragh.

Weld also saddles likely pacemaker Ebediyin, but his Champion Stakes and Tattersalls Gold Cup winner Fascinating Rock is a notable absentee.

Minding has won four of her five starts at Group One level this season, including Classic triumphs in the 1,000 Guineas and the Oaks at Epsom. Aidan O’Brien’s filly, the mount of Ryan Moore, is pitched in against colts for the first time in this mouth-watering contest.

The master of Ballydoyle has a formidable hand, with King George hero Highland Reel (Colm O’Donoghue), top-class filly Found (Seamie Heffernan) and Sir Isaac Newton (Donnacha O’Brien) also in contention.

Jean-Claude Rouget’s French Derby winner Almanzor is one of two Gallic raiders, along with the André Fabre-trained New Bay.

The three British-trained runners are Clive Cox’s Prince of Wales’s Stakes winner My Dream Boat, Kevin Ryan’s 2014 Irish Champion victor The Grey Gatsby and Godolphin’s Coral-Eclipse hero Hawkbill, trained by Charlie Appleby.

Ken Condon’s Success Days and Moonlight Magic from Jim Bolger’s stable complete the stellar line-up.

Headline act

Star French filly Qemah is the headline act among eight declared for the Coolmore Fastnet Rock Matron Stakes. Jean-Claude Rouget’s three-year-old chases a Group One hat-trick on Saturday, following impressive displays in the Coronation Stakes at Royal Ascot and the Prix Rothschild at Deauville.

With Minding instead taking on the boys in the Irish Champion Stakes, trainer Aidan O’Brien relies on Alice Springs, who won Newmarket’s Falmouth Stakes on her penultimate start, but was no match for Qemah when well-beaten in France last time.

The highest-rated runner is the Adrian Keatley-trained Jet Setting, who inflicted a shock defeat on Minding in the Irish 1,000 Guineas, before finishing sixth in the Coronation Stakes. Persuasive steps up to the highest level for the first time having won her previous five starts for John Gosden. She is joined on the trip across the Irish Sea by Hugo Palmer’s Hawksmoor.