Graham Cunningham lets us peer into his latest file ahead of the Irish Champions Festival and Betfred St Leger.
Tactics debate back on the agenda - and a River runs through it
A memorable Ebor week is cooling on the backburner as one of the hottest debates of the summer simmers on.
A barnstorming Guardian column argues that “the BHA must now belatedly close this chapter,” while a punchy thread in a popular racing chatroom attracts ample comment under the heading; ‘Team Tactics – It’s starting to gather momentum.’
And the year for all this brouhaha is, wait for it…….2008.
Yes, we’ve been chuntering about the way a certain Irish trainer approaches big races for three decades now and the saga returns to a lion’s den of tactical nuance next weekend when Aidan O’Brien bids for a fourteenth Royal Bahrain Irish Champion Stakes success.
But that Juddmonte International Stakes of 2008 – rerouted to Newmarket’s July Course from a flooded Knavesmire – remains the clubhouse leader in any team tactics retrospective.
Lydia Hislop was in fine form in that Guardian piece, wondering why Rule 153 relating to making a manoeuvre in the interests of a stablemate wasn’t invoked after “Colm O’Donoghue on pace-setting Red Rock Canyon eased away from the rail to leave a Duke Of Marmalade-sized hole up his inside.”
Johnny Murtagh let a costly cat out of the bag after the daring Duke took full advantage of “a copybook execution of “Mirror, Signal, Manoeuvre,” admitting he had asked O’Donoghue to create the gap and adding the telling kicker: “It’s what Ballydoyle’s all about.”
Aidan had a different MSM in his sights at a subsequent hearing, blaming a naughty mainstream media journalist for leading poor Johnny “down the garden path” and suggesting that BHA legal eagle Graeme McPherson was “living in fantasy land.”
The panel remained steadfastly in the real world, fining Aidan five grand and handing seven-day bans to Murtagh and O’Donoghue, and the waves from that ’08 storm still ripple around the good ship Coolmore to this day.
But let’s leave aside the fact that John Gosden swerved a trip to Leopardstown for last year’s Irish Champion because his stable star Ombudsman “wouldn’t appreciate running against multiple entries from one stable on a track with a short straight.”
Let’s draw a veil across the image of able seaman Soumy (Puerto Rico) peering over his right shoulder as Captain Ryan (Gstaad) secured a saloon passage in this year’s St James’s Palace and the “complete mess” when Juddmonte International pacemaker Action missed the break before keeping close tabs on hot favourite Ombudsman until past halfway.
And let’s park the fact that mega-wealthy Coolmore nemesis Maurice Regan seems to have spent a fair chunk of 2024 scouring videos to fuel a complaint alleging that O’Brien horses receive preferential treatment relating to stall allocation and late loading.
In short, let’s swerve the scuttlebutt and ask one simple question, namely: just how good are Coolmore at this pacemaking lark?
Highs and lows of a pacemaking playbook
Well, that depends on how far you want to go back.
The Irish Champion provides an apt case study with that short Leopardstown straight (which is of similar length to the one at Ascot, btw) providing the stage for numerous triumphs and a few big days that didn’t go to plan.
Fantastic Light got the drop on Galileo in 2001 because Dettori seized the inner after using his pacemaker more shrewdly than Kinane used his, while sending Sholokhov forward at what Timeform termed a “hare-brained gallop” twelve months later worked nicely for Hawk Wing and Mick….and beautifully for Frankie and the mercurial Grandera.
But lessons had been learned by the time the freewheeling Ace laid the foundation for Dylan Thomas (Kieren Fallon) to get the better of a mighty tussle with Ouija Board (Jamie Spencer) in 2006.
Irish Guineas winner Roderic O’Connor did the spadework that helped So You Think get first run on Snow Fairy in 2011, while Stone Age and Broome performed the domestique role to perfection as Luxembourg thwarted French raiders Onesto and Vadeni in 2022.
But the Ballydoyle pace playbook has been peppered with more smudges than usual in recent years.
There have been occasions when the plan has come together, of course, and City Of Troy’s all-the-way Juddmonte win and Constitution River leading an Aidan 1-2-3 in this year’s Prix du Jockey Club provided perfect examples of careful preparation meeting clinical execution.
But fine margins and subtlety from the saddle lie at the heart of the pacemaking game.
Chasing the severe gallop set by Hans Andersen and Luxembourg did nothing to assist AUGUSTE RODIN in Goliath’s 2024 King George, while LOS ANGELES paid a heavy price for tracking the aggressive Continuous in the 2025 Prince of Wales’s.
JAN BRUEGHEL was given windburn by Calandagan when Ryan tried to turn the 2025 King George into a sit-sprint, while CONSTITUTION RIVER burned precious fuel trying to go with Hawk Mountain in the Juddmonte and MINNIE HAUK never landed a blow in the Yorkshire Oaks after the field ignored runaway leader Sugar Island.
Internal auditions are taking place for the honour of leading Constitution River’s Leopardstown redemption mission and, as the autumn showpieces beckon, it feels like we could be reaching an important fork in the tactical road.
You know that road is potholed when a sensible judge like the Racing Post’s Paul Kealy suggests pacemakers should be ignored for prize money/punting purposes and decked out in high-viz garb as they “peel away from the action at some defined point.”
But the current system, imperfect as it is, has taken root.
We have a rule allowing pacemakers ridden to achieve the best placing that’s generally ignored; a rule against team tactics that is sound enough yet practically never enforced; and a global bloodstock supertanker that sails close to the tactical wind on occasion.
For the record, Aidan and the Lads have already captured the three great European Derbies plus a French Oaks, a Coral-Eclipse, a Nassau and a Phoenix Stakes with valuable help from pacemakers this season.
It may not sit well with some, but solving the pace puzzle is fundamental in any G1 contest. And nearly twenty years on from Johnny landing Aidan in that sticky Marmalade jam, it’s still what Ballydoyle is all about.
York run makes Almaqam a danger to all
Now to play the familiar guessing game of which British stars will be at Leopardstown when gates fly at 5pm next weekend.
The weather forecast suggests the ground won’t be testing but Big John would have to do a screeching U-Turn to send Ombudsman, while Item’s connections haven’t been saying much about whether they fancy adding Ireland’s biggest 2000m prize to his York win.
Ed Walker has been similarly coy about ALMAQAM, but recent signs suggest he’s warming to the idea and his stable star ran the race of his life at York, trading at 1.01 as he kicked clear of Item and Constitution River just inside the final furlong only to be nailed on the line.
Ten furlongs with an ease in the ground suits him perfectly and he’s now rated 125 on the international scale and 128 by Timeform. That level is plenty good enough to take him close at Leopardstown and the current 8/1 will look a very handy price if Walker does decide to go for gold.
Memories of 2012 as Camelot crew head for Donny
The debate about the health of the Betfred St Leger is even older than team tactics talk and the 2026 edition leans heavily on O’Brien support now connections of Maltese Cross, Benvenuto Cellini, Infiraad, Point Of Law and Ancient Egypt have decided to give Town Moor a miss.
But Saturday’s Donny showpiece does hold an intriguing angle for those who recall the 2012 Leger.
Camelot was 2/5 to give Ballydoyle a cherished Triple Crown that day only to be thwarted by Encke, a 25/1 shot trained by Mahmood Al Zarooni who became infamous the following spring as one of the key horses at the centre of the Godolphin doping scandal.
Aidan never dwells on the past but I suspect the Lads recall that day well enough and a strange quirk of fate means that all three of Ballydoyle’s 2026 Leger hopefuls – CHRISTMAS DAY, PIERRE BONNARD and AMELIA EARHART – are all by the stallion who went so close to becoming the first Triple Crown winner since 1970.
Pedigree anoraks won’t need reminding that Godolphin’s latest Leger hope DEL MARO is also by Camelot, but maybe the man who was aboard that colt back in 2012 is the man to note this year.
Joseph O’Brien has already won the Leger with a lightly raced improver stepping up in class and distance (Galileo Chorme in 2020) and ENCELADUS is cut from similar cloth after following his Royal Ascot handicap success with an equally decisive Gordon Stakes win.
Timeform awarded Enceladus a new rating of 119p for that Goodwood success. That puts him just behind Christmas Day and just ahead of Pierre Bonnard and, given that he’s taken a big step forward on all his three runs this season, the stage looks set for him to give the Camelot collective a right run for their money.
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