Time Away to cheer Dunlop

Aidan O'Brien saddles half the 12 strong field as he attempts to maintain his big race grip in tomorrow's Kildangan Stud Irish Oaks but it could be John Dunlop who ends up completing his own Classic clean sweep.

The veteran English trainer has won every other Irish classic during an illustrious career but the combination of Time Away and the triple Oaks winner Pat Eddery looks good to fill in the blank.

O'Brien has also never won the Oaks but is unbeaten in the three Classics to date this season and has presented Mick Kinane with his most difficult big race pick to date.

Kinane, who has already missed out on both Guineas and a St James's Palce Stakes by picking wrong, has gone for Karsavina but that leaves two Group One winners in Sequoyah and Rose Gypsy on the bench and John Murtagh and Seamus Heffernan know what it's like to feast off Kinane's crumbs.

"It was Mick's decision. Karsavina ran well off a slow pace in the Pretty Polly and has been very well since," O'Brien said yesterday. "This is a home Classic that we want to support and all the fillies are well bred. There are stamina doubts about some of them but we will take the race as it comes."

Sequoyah, a close relation of the Guineas winner Saffron Walden, and Rose Gypsy look unlikely to stay. The Ballydoyle strike rate is such that O'Brien lies second to Michael Stoute at the top of the British trainers' table but on this occasion the main home defence could come from elsewhere.

That brings in the Pretty Polly winner Rebelline but the forecast "good to firm" going would hardly be ideal and this race could be fought out between the cross-channel fillies despite Paddy Power offering 8 to 1 yesterday about O'Brien completing the Classic Grand Slam this year.

Relish The Thought, third to Imagine in the Epsom Oaks, had Mot Juste back in fourth while the latter's stable companion, Lailani, is on a five-timer but has been competing in handicaps. Time Away, however, is a clear form pick having beaten Relish The Thought in the Musidora.

The Dunlop runner missed Epsom because the track would not have suited and instead ran third to Aquarelliste in the French Oaks. Proven on fast ground, she should be okay on the Curragh course and being out of a Polish Precedent mare, the mile and a half should not be a problem.

Local rider John Cullen recorded his first ever treble at Wexford last night when successful aboard Moores Light (5.30), Haveityourway (6.30) and Carina Bay(7.30).