Donnacha O'Brien and Billy Loughnane teamed up for the first time to great effect in the Al Basti Equiworld, Dubai July Cup Stakes with Comanche Brave at Newmarket on Saturday.
The 28-year-old trainer and 20-year-old jockey joined forces to win a first Group 1 for Comanche Brave who was only seventh behind Almeraq in the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes at Royal Ascot last time.
He didn't get the clearest of runs that day and he is a relative newcomer to the distance, this just his sixth career run over six furlongs after he plied his trade over seven furlongs and a mile during his three-year-old career.
After being ridden by Pierre-Charles Boudot at Royal Ascot it was Loughnane who got the call up this time and he was noticeably travelling well inside the final quarter mile as the rest of the field came off the bridle.
Japanese challenger Satono Reve went for home early under Christophe Lemaire but couldn't maintain his challenge as Comanche Brave took over, with Venetian Sun and Coppull in hot pursuit.
Karl Burke's filly looked the biggest danger down the inside while Saffie Osborne couldn't maintain her momentum on Coppull when dropping her reins, allowing Satono Reve to get back up for third.
The winner pulled out more in the closing stages, though, to win by a length, with a neck separating Venetian Sun and Satono Reve for the placings.
Double Rush was another who looked likely to play a part on the far side before his challenge faded, while fancied horses like Mission Central and Almeraq could never get into things.
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Donnacha said: “Today he looked the same as he did back at the Curragh. He was impressive today, I thought. There is not much margin between these sprinters. He won a Group Two, so where else is there to go except to try and win a Group One. We have seen a few times that horses that have been beaten in the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes have come here and won this race so we weren’t afraid to try it, and it worked.
“There wasn’t a lot of pace on paper, which is a strange thing to say in a six furlong race. I said to Billy just let him jump and if someone is going on then great, but if not go alone yourself. He had a lovely slot in behind Satono Reve. He took him as long as he wanted to go, but I thought he travelled very impressively, and he kept going as well.
“I would say he doesn’t do a lot when he gets to the front, but I thought he was quite impressive.
“He had good form and he was an impressive winner of a Group Two. It is not down to us who the media pick up on, or don’t pick up on. I think if he would have been that impressive over here I don’t think he would have been the price that he was.
“I think he is a high class horse and he has proved that today. That run behind Ka Ying Rising was his first run back at six furlongs. It was around a right handed track, and he had only ever gone right handed once before, and he had to travel halfway across the world so he wasn’t disgraced by any means.
"It would be great to see a horse like Ka Ying Rising travel and take us on across here as it is not easy to do. We travel there so everyone should travel to us.
“He is in all the big sprints and I imagine we will want to go travelling at some stage. He is in the Sprint Cup at Haydock Park so there are a lot of options.”
Brave... and fast
Loughnane said: “Tony Hind, my agent, does a fantastic job and he sent me a message saying I think we might have Comanche Brave for the July Cup, and I said ‘You are joking’, but he said he just had to be confirmed. Thankfully he was and the rest is history.
“I got the message from Donnacha forward to me saying Billy is perfect so it was a fantastic spare ride to pick up. He is a horse that is only just beginning to learn how to sprint as he has been tried over further.
“The race today couldn’t have gone any better. I got onto the back of the Japanese horse, who was the perfect target, and my one instruction was to nurse him as long as I could. I managed to wait until the furlong pole and he picked up well from there on.
“Six furlong races this year I’ve found have been muddling in the Group One division, especially at Ascot, and that probably didn’t suit this fella that well. The fact he got an even tempo to race at today was fantastic and he has just travelled so sweetly.
“Fast ground is ideal. I do think he is a fast horse, and I wouldn’t be afraid to drop him back in trip as I was taken back the whole way through.
"This horse has got a lot of gears. Now he is really beginning to learn to sprint the sky is the limit.
“I get a big kick out of riding in these big races as I’m twenty years old. I’m fortunate enough to pick up rides in them and just learning from that is everything. To be fortunate enough to win some Group Ones is what I wanted.
“I set myself a target to ride two or three Group One winners in England and thankfully that is my third now and we are only halfway through so hopefully we are just getting going.”
Karl Burke said of the runner-up Venetian Sun: “She is a top class filly and she has proved that today. I hope when the autumn comes we get the rain we are not getting now.
“We have got to think about the Maurice de Gheest as that is in four weeks time. If she comes out of it well that is doable as well. That is a big possibility, but we will do what is best for her.
“She has raced on this ground as a two year old, but every time she came in, even when she was winning, Cliff was saying she feels the ground.
“The only time she ran on soft ground was at Haydock Park, and she showed what she can do there.”
Aidan O’Brien said of Mission Central: “Ryan said he maybe just felt like he got hung up in the fast pace early on, but he ran okay.
"They went very fast, and he jumped quickly, and he was right there on the pace. I would say we might be better going back to five furlongs with him. The Nunthorpe at York is there for him probably.
And on son Donnacha bagging the big prize he said: “I’m delighted with him as he has done an incredible job with that horse. He ran well in Hong Kong. He has progressed with every run and he was a little bit unlucky on the last day."
Analysis: It would be a Brave shout, but...
If not Aidan, it’s Joseph. If not Joseph, it’s Donnacha.
It certainly feels like the O’Brien family have a disproportionate share of the racing pie, although you couldn’t begrudge the lowest-profile of the three O’Briens getting in on the act.
That description somewhat undersells Donnacha, who is doing incredible things with a fraction of the horses his father and brother are in charge of.
Only last week he won the Grade 1 Belmont Oaks Stakes at Saratoga with the filly Kensington Lane, racing in the Porta Fortuna silks. Porta Fortuna has previous at the July Festival, winning the Falmouth, so Donnacha has fond memories of the July Course and he’s just fashioned another.
And fashioned is the right word. For Comanche Brave wasn’t bred to be a sprinter, he was made this way. By Wootton Bassett out of a miler in Ishvana, he’s a half-brother to a 1m4f winner and when he was staying on over seven furlongs at two he looked to be taking after his mother.
His three-year-old career went along the same path, switching between seven furlongs and a mile, a stab at sprinting not even on the radar.
But a crack at the world’s best, Ka Ying Rising, at Sha Tin in April, changed things. He might’ve been 355/1 that day, but Comanche Brave finished just six lengths off a sprinter that Europe’s top speedsters wouldn’t get close to over a speedy six furlongs.
That told O’Brien a sprinting path might be worth exploring.
He was vindicated in the Greenlands Stakes in May, a Group 2 at the Curragh, cruising to a two-length victory against some solid yardsticks.
With his unexposed profile in a division there for the taking he was a fresh new hope heading into Royal Ascot, but that’s a meeting that tames lions. Slightly hampered a furlong out, it wasn’t his day.
July Cup day was. It went like clockwork. Ice-cool Billy Loughnane in the plate, he was motionless as others scrubbed along. The six furlongs on the July Course is a speed track and this horse did them for speed. He was too quick for them.
When they hit the rising ground he was never going to be caught. He stays further and he had the race won while Venetian Sun scrapped away and Saffie Osborne dropped her reins on Coppull.
They were good efforts in second and fourth and Clive Cox’s horse can certainly be marked up – he has the potential to strike at this level considering his trainer and his profile – while Satono Reve, the Japanese challenger in third, is an ultra-solid yardstick, for all that he continues to fall just short in this country.
But the 2026 July Cup was all about Comanche Brave.
The question now is, could he be the one to take this division by the scruff of the neck?
He is the ninth different winner of the last nine Group 1 6f sprints in the UK. Could he double up in the Haydock Sprint Cup and inch towards an elite level?
He could do. Haydock will certainly hold no fears. You’d be a brave man to bet on it in a sphere where they take it in turn, but he has all the tools.
He is quick, he travels, he’s uncomplicated, he’s versatile and he’s Brave by name and brave by nature, so he has plenty going for him.
And, of course, most importantly. He’s trained by an O’Brien.
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