John Ingles highlights the fillies' maiden at the Curragh on Friday evening that's been a remarkable source of Group 1 winners for Ballydoyle.
Can any other two-year-old maiden boast a record of throwing up a Group 1 winner in ten of the last eleven years? And all for the same stable? That’s the remarkable record of the seven-furlong fillies’ contest run at the Curragh on Friday evening.
Year after year, Aidan O’Brien runs his best filly in the race or, at the very least, one with Group 1-winning potential. That doesn’t necessarily mean he wins the race every year – but he has done for the last three seasons – or that the filly in question makes her debut in the race, but there's usually a future Group 1 winner for Ballydoyle in the contest.
That was the case again last year when Lake Victoria made a winning debut before stamping herself as the best of her age and sex at two, going on to win the Moyglare Stud Stakes, Cheveley Park Stakes and Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf and then becoming the sixth Ballydoyle filly from the race since 2014 to go on to win a classic when successful in the Irish 1000 Guineas.
While O’Brien won the maiden in 2023 with Ylang Ylang who went on to win the Fillies’ Mile, it was eighth-placed Opera Singer who proved the better filly, winning the Prix Marcel Boussac later that season as well as the Nassau Stakes at three.
Between 2019 and 2021, Love, Snowfall and Tuesday were all beaten in the maiden (Love and Tuesday were runner-up), though all three fillies went on to win the following season’s Oaks among other Group 1 wins. Love also won the Moyglare at two, as well as the 1000 Guineas before her Epsom victory. Ennistymon, who completed a one-two for Ballydoyle when runner-up in Love’s Oaks, had finished seventh in the maiden.
Another future classic winner was fourth in the 2018 renewal, with Hermosa going on to complete the 1000 Guineas double at Newmarket and the Curragh, while the 2017 winner Happily was another to go on to success in the Moyglare at two, as well as the Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere.
The 2016 runner-up Rhododendron won the Fillies’ Mile and the following season’s Prix de l’Opera, as well as finishing runner-up in the Oaks, and in 2015 Alice Springs won the maiden before Group 1 wins at three in the Falmouth, Matron and Sun Chariot.
O’Brien also won the maiden in 2014 with Words but it was stablemate Qualify, behind her in fourth, who went on to better things, winning the Oaks at 50/1.
A change of sponsor means this year’s edition will be run as the O’Driscolls Irish Whiskey Irish EBF Fillies Maiden and once again O’Brien will field two runners in the race. His second string in last year’s contest, incidentally, Exactly, is a useful filly in her own right, finishing third in the Moyglare and Marcel Boussac last year, and sixth in last week’s Coronation Stakes.
Ryan Moore partners Minerva who has the benefit of a run already. She was odds-on to make a winning debut under Moore at Leopardstown earlier in the month but wasn’t clued up enough first time out and beaten into third by stablemate Moments of Joy who has since finished third in the Chesham Stakes.
Minerva certainly looks a likely candidate on paper to keep up the Group 1 record of her stable’s runners in this maiden. She’s a daughter of Frankel, also the sire of Lake Victoria and Ylang Ylang; she’s also out of a Showcasing mare, like Lake Victoria, and cost the same amount as Ylang Ylang as a yearling, 1.5m guineas.
Minerva’s dam Prize Exhibit has already produced the useful Group 3 winner History (by Galileo), also third in the Ribblesdale Stakes, while Minerva’s three-year-old brother Propose got off the mark in a Curragh maiden last month but shaped as if amiss in last week’s King George V Stakes. Prize Exhibit is a sister to Sussex Stakes winner Mohaather and had plenty of ability herself, winning in Graded company at up to a mile in the States.
O’Brien had six fillies entered earlier in the week, with Composing, a daughter of Wootton Bassett and the mount of Wayne Lordan, being the one chosen to accompany Minerva. She too was held back by inexperience on her debut, which came over six furlongs at the Curragh last month, but was well backed and shaped as though she’ll be suited by the extra furlong here after plugging on for fifth behind Balantina who has since finished third in last week’s Albany Stakes.
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