Equine stars set to shine across two continents
SHINING STAR: Sun Goddess en route to winning the Tattersalls Sceptre Sessions Cheveley Park Stakes at Newmarket last month. She will be looking for further Group 1 success at Keeneland on Friday night. Picture: Healy Racing
Two of the biggest international meetings of the year will feature unprecedented Irish interest over the next five days.
A huge team of 24 Irish runners, representing 10 stables from six different counties — Carlow, Kilkenny, Tipperary, Kildare, Meath, and Westmeath — has descended upon Keeneland for the Breeders’ Cup on Friday and Saturday.
The bulk of those 24 are trained by Aidan O’Brien who could end the weekend as the most successful trainer in Breeders’ Cup history.
O’Brien currently shares that honour with American trainer Bob Baffert on 21 career winners and both handlers will saddle 10 horses across the two days at Keeneland.
The main Ballydoyle day one contender is Sun Goddess who goes in the John Deere Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf (8.15pm Irish time), a race that features six Irish contenders in total.
The Sioux Nation filly is unbeaten in her last five starts, three of which have come at Group 1 level and it’ll be a big surprise if she fails to complete a sensational six-timer to give her trainer a 26th top-level success of the calendar year– two short of the record 28 he set back in 2017.
O’Brien is doubly represented in the Brown Advisory Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf (9.35pm) but, while Great Barrier Reef and Haffner both have decent chances, they may have to settle for minor honours behind the Joseph O’Brien-trained Folsom Blues, a runaway winner of the Goffs Vincent O'Brien National Stakes at the Irish Champions Festival last month before meeting with a surprise defeat when second to Amusingly in the Qatar Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere at ParisLongchamp last time out.
Not wanting to be outdone by his father and brother, Donnacha O’Brien will also be eager to make his presence felt at Keeneland and his Comanche Brave will look to complete a Group 1 hat-trick in the Prevagen Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint on Saturday (5.48pm).
From an Irish perspective, the most intriguing race of the two-day extravaganza is the Longines Breeders’ Cup Turf, a race memorably won by the Willie Mullins-trained Ethical Diamond at Del Mar last year.
The six-year-old is back to defend his title but faces a tough task to do so given the calibre of the opposition. To prevail again, he’ll have to get the better of Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe third Diamond Necklace, Irish Derby victor Benvenuto Cellini, Irish Oaks heroine Johanna Walsh, and surprise Irish Champion Stakes winner Hotazhell. And that’s just the Irish contenders!
The dust will barely have settled from events in Keeneland when the focus will turn to Australia where the Melbourne Cup will take place in the early hours on Tuesday morning (4am).
Joseph O’Brien has already won ‘the race that stops a nation’ twice before, via Rekindling in 2017 and in 2020 with Twilight Payment and could have six runners in his quest to complete a remarkable hat-trick.
