O’Brien delighted with Royal Ascot bound George Washington despite defeat
And that means George Washington and the winner Araafa are on course for a mouth-watering rematch at Royal Ascot next month after both came out of the Boylesports Irish 2000 Guineas in good shape.
The latter put in a career-best effort to turn around the form from the English equivalent and hand Aidan O’Brien’s superstar only his second career defeat on ground that rider Kieren Fallon was adamant had blunted his speed.
But O’Brien was in a philosophical mood 24 hours later and far from despondent with his enigmatic charge, who once again displayed his now trademark tendency to play up in the preliminaries.
“He was in great order this morning and licked his pot clean”, said O'Brien. “I am now looking forward to him running in the St James' Palace at Royal Ascot.
“Forget about him winning, or not winning, Saturday made a man out of him. He walked out of the ring afterwards like a man.
“It is good for him to run on all sorts of ground. He is like a spoilt child and wants you to give him a clip around the ear.
“But I couldn't do that, he would never trust me again. It is not like trying to reason with a child.”
The one-mile Group One contest on the opening day of the Royal extravaganza is also the target for the Jeremy Noseda-trained Araafa, who stepped up considerably on his creditable fourth in the Newmarket 2000 Guineas.
“I’m absolutely thrilled with Araafa’s win. It's 1-1 at the moment but now we’ll put our heads down and work towards Royal Ascot. We are looking forward to a rematch,” Noseda said yesterday.
O'Brien meanwhile confirmed he is likely to be four-handed in Saturday's Epsom Derby, with Septimus, Horatio Nelson, Dylan Thomas and Mountain pencilled in for the race. He revealed, however, that Horatio Nelson recently suffered a minor setback. Said O'Brien: “Horatio bruised a foot and missed one day's work.
“We know it looks as if Septimus will stay, he got the mile and a quarter in the Dante at York and had that won at the mile pole.
“We are not sure about Dylan Thomas getting the trip and Mountain is there as well.”
“The horses will work on Tuesday or Wednesday and, hopefully, Kieren (Fallon) will be on them all. We will be giving Kieren all the information he needs and he will get a feel for them as well. That will help him make up his mind as to which one he will ride.”
“Johnny Murtagh will ride one of the others and we hope to have Michael Kinane as well.”
