Minnie Hauk among Aidan O'Brien's leading older horses for 2026 Flat season

The 10-furlong Group 2 Mooresbridge Stakes, a Curragh contest the trainer has won 14 times including last year with Los Angeles, has been identified as a potential starting point for the daughter of Frankel.

She had a superb three-year-old campaign, winning the Betfred Oaks, Juddmonte Irish Oaks and Pertemps Network Yorkshire Oaks before just missing out by a head when second to Daryz in the Qatar Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe at ParisLongchamp in early-October.

Minnie Hauk wound up her Classic season with a slightly below-par sixth when sent off 6/4 favourite for the Breeders' Cup Turf but O'Brien reports her to have blossomed during the winter.

"No doubt [Minnie Hauk is stronger this year]," he said at a Monday morning press event organised by Horse Racing Ireland. "She's twice as wide and is in great order. We're not rushing her but everything she's doing is lovely.

"Minnie Hauk could go for the Mooresbridge Stakes on the way to the Tattersalls Gold Cup and then she could go to Ascot for the Prince of Wales's, she might be the one that we think might suit it the most. She'll have the Coronation Cup as a possible option.

"I think so [all roads lead back to the Arc], maybe with the benefit of hindsight I should have finished her after the Arc last year and left her alone as she was only a three-year-old filly, but she ran a great race and there are other three-year-olds coming on this year so it's going to depend on how they fare."

One fascinating older horse O'Brien has Group 1 hopes for is the Wootton Bassett colt Twain, unraced entirely through 2025 but a winner of both of his starts as a juvenile in 2024, including the top-class Criterium International at Saint-Cloud.

"Twain I couldn't get right last year," said O'Brien. "All little niggly things, and that was probably the biggest disappointment of all last year - that we didn't get him out. But everything is going well so far.

"We're thinking of the Lockinge at Newbury, with a run before it. I'd say he's a miler, he's not slow. Maybe he'll get further with that pedigree but I'd say he's a miler.

"The Saval Beg [is what we're thinking] with Scandinavia, you can see he's a big, long-striding horse and we're very happy with everything he's doing. He's obviously in at Dubai but he probably won't go. I'd imagine it'll be Navan, that's what we're thinking at the moment.

"Jan Brueghel could go back to the Coronation Cup and he'd have a run before that. The Coronation has a different look to it this year, it has a lot of prize money, so that's what we're thinking."

Early two-year-olds going through the gears

It is early days for the juveniles of 2026 but O'Brien already has a list of early types identified as possible Royal Ascot candidates if all goes to plan in the next couple of months.

He revealed: "There's a St Mark's Basilica out of Palace who is smart, called South Dakota, and we've a very smart Blackbeard out of Liberisque, he's big and he's powerful and he's going to be out shortly I'd say. He's called Captain Cook.

"We'll have runners at the first Curragh meeting, there are 10 of them there who are hopefully Ascot-type horses and they'll be the ones that start running in the next few weeks."

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