Irish Champions Festival preview:

1. 25th anniversary of epic encounter

This year is the 25th anniversary of the Fantastic Light/Galileo Irish Champion Stakes. Hard to believe. One of the most iconic encounters in the modern history of Irish racing.

Where were you?

That race had it all: the protagonists, the class, the rivalry between horses (top-class both and scores to settle), Godolphin v Coolmore, Dettori v Kinane, the setting, the tactics, the crowd, the atmosphere, the drama of how the race itself unfolded and just a slender head in it at the end.

Difficult to countenance now, but Aidan O’Brien had won just one renewal of the Royal Bahrain Irish Champion Stakes before 2001. (Giant’s Causeway, 2000.) When Delacroix won the latest edition last year, when he got home by three parts of a length from Anmaat, he brought up a record 13th win in the race for his trainer.

Dylan Thomas led home a 1-2-3 for Ballydoyle in the race 2007 and Magical led home another 1-2-3 in 2019. Six of the last seven renewals have gone to Rosegreeen.

Constitution River, of course, carries the Ballydoyle flag this year, and you can understand why he heads the market. The Prix du Jockey Club winner, the Eclipse winner, nothing went right for him in the Juddmonte International at York last time. He is obviously top class and this is probably his optimum trip and you know that the race has been on his radar for ages. And he will be ridden by Ryan Moore and he is trained by the most prolific trainer in the history of the race.

That said, you can easily argue that Item should not be as far behind him in the market as he is. Plenty went wrong for Andrew Balding’s horse too in the Juddmonte International, yet he showed a blend of pace and speed and tenacity under the Colin Keane drive that enabled him prevail.

There is the York factor, he is three for three there, at a track at which course form is more important than it is at most tracks. He has to prove that he can be as good away from the Knavesmire as he is there. But he won at Kempton last year and he won at Bath, and there is no reason why he can’t be.

The Juddmonte colt has had to travel, and his style of racing suggests that he might prove to be even better over a mile and a half than he is over a mile and a quarter, but he is top class too and he is probably still progressing. A first runner in the race for Andrew Balding, who is having a fantastic season, he goes there with a big chance.

2. Raiders always worth noting

The international element to the Irish Champions’ Festival is important, and the visitors usually make their collective presence felt. It started with the first iteration of the Festival, then a mere Weekend, when eight races went for export, and it has continued from there.

Eight different British trainers got on the score sheet in 2014. Kevin Ryan won the Irish Champion Stakes with The Grey Gatsby, Tom Dascombe won the Irish St Leger with Brown Panther, Roger Varian won the Moyglare with Cursory Glance, Mark Johnston won the Boomerang Mile with Bow Creek, and William Muir won the Flying Five with Stepper Point. Brian Ellison and David O’Meara and David Barron also hit the target. There were 16 races then, eight went to Irish trainers, eight went to British trainers.

It looks like there is going to be a solid representation from overseas this year, headed up by Andrew Balding’s twin-pronged Group 1 raid with Item and Blue Bolt. Karl Burke is another trainer who is always to be respected at this meeting. He had two winners in 2023, Flight Plan in the Boomerang Mile and Fallen Angel in the Moyglare, and he had three more last year, Convergent and Alparslan and Fallen Angel again, this time in the Matron Stakes, a race in which she had finished second behind Porta Fortuna in 2024.

Fallen Angel is set to bid to become the first filly ever to land back-to-back renewals of the Matron Stakes, so it is mildly surprising that it appears as though she is going there a little under the radar. We know that she loves the track, and the ground could come up just on the easy side of good, which would be ideal. Karl Burke has a handful of entries over the course of the weekend, Night Raider in the Flying Five at The Curragh on Sunday, Mehmas Star and Ten Clarets Star in the Tattersalls Ireland Super Auction Sales race. He has his horses in really good form, he is operating at a strike rate of over 25% of late, and all his runners this weekend will need a second look.

3. Trainers’ horses primed

You know how important this meeting is to Aidan O’Brien, you know that he targets the meeting, as evidenced by a total of 13 winners at the last three renewals. But other trainers are adept at getting their horses to the meeting at concert pitch.

Every win at this meeting is hard fought, the competition is so intense, but Ger Lyons had four winners on the first day of the meeting in 2021 and he had two winners in 2024 and he sends some strong representatives this year, the first of which is Maire Rua in the opening contest, the Listed Ballylinch Stud Irish EBF Ingabelle Stakes.

Johnny Murtagh has had two Group 1 winners at the meeting, Champers Elysees in the Matron Stakes in 2020 and Sonnyboyliston in the Irish St Leger in 2021. He has had at least one winner at the Irish Champions’ Festival every year except one since 2020, when Champers Elysees won the Matron Stakes and Sonnyboyliston won the Northfields Handicap. Last year, he had three: Rahmi and Alakazi and Shaool.

You can be sure that the Murtagh team will be primed again this year. Rahmi is back for the Sovereign Path Handicap again, back down to a mark of 93, 10lb lower than the mark off which he won it last year. He will be joined in the race by the unexposed Sindigan, who kept on strongly to win his maiden at Galway. Fixation and Retracement in the Northfields Handicap, a race that Murtagh won last year with Shaool, who goes in the Group 2 Blandford Stakes this year. Blue Blue Moon in the Autumn Fillies’ Stakes, and Chicago Pope in the Bold Lad Handicap, and Asakir, second behind Limestone in the Yeats Stakes at Navan in May, could out-run big odds in the Group 3 Kilternan Stakes.

Like Johnny Murtagh, Jessica Harrington’s runners are always to be respected at the meeting. The Moone trainer has been in the winner’s enclosure at the Irish Champions’ Festival every year for each of the last three years, and in 2021 she cut loose – she won the Matron Stakes with No Speak Alexander and the Moyglare Stud Stakes with Discoveries, a Group 1 win on each of the two days, and she won the Boomerang Mile with Real Appeal and the Petingo Handicap with Ever Present.

She is set for a busy weekend too, she goes into it with lots of chances, particularly at Leopardstown on Saturday, when the pick of her team may be Green Impact, who is set to line up in the Group 3 Kilternan Stakes. The Wootton Bassett colt’s record at Leopardstown reads 1112. He won his maiden there in July 2024 and he followed up by beating Delacroix in the Group 2 Champions Juvenile Stakes at this meeting two months later. He won the Listed Glencairn Stakes at Leopardstown last year and, on his latest run there, he went down by just a short head to the Breeders’ Cup Turf winner Ethical Diamond in the Group 3 Ballyroan Stakes, run, as it is, over Saturday’s course and distance. That was his first run back after a short break, and it could bring him forward nicely for Saturday’s race.

Stephen Thorne recorded his first winner at the meeting last year when he sent out Pink Oxalis to win the Autumn Fillies’ Handicap, the concluding contest on Saturday. She ‘overcame’ a wide draw to win the race last year and, drawn wide again, she goes there with a real chance again this year.

4. The luck of the draw

The perceived wisdom is that an inside draw is a positive at Leopardstown, an outside draw is a negative. That makes sense, it’s the shortest route and, sure enough, on Thursday evenings on fast ground during the summer, you probably don’t want to be too far off the inside.

But start to move into the autumn and the picture changes a little. Six of the last seven winners and eight of the last 10 winners of Saturday’s Sovereign Path Handicap, for example, were draw 11 or higher. In last year’s renewal, three of the first five home in the 16-runner race were drawn 13 or higher. In 2024’s renewal, the first four home, were drawn, respectively, 20, 18, 21 and 16.

In the Petingo Handicap, the last eight winners and nine of the last 10 winners were drawn 12 or higher and, last year, the first five home were drawn 16, nine, 10, 14 and 19. And in last year’s renewal of the other handicap on the card, the Autumn Fillies’ Handicap, the winner, Pink Oxalis, emerged from stall 21, seven of the first eight home were drawn 11 or higher and six of them were drawn 17 or higher. That is, six of the first eight home raced from six of the highest seven draws. Conclusion: it will probably not be a disadvantage to be drawn high in the handicaps at Leopardstown on Saturday, and it may even be an advantage.

www.donnmcclean.com

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