Graeme North is back with his take on the Irish Derby Festival at the Curragh and nominates three juveniles to keep a close out for in the coming weeks.
I should come clean right now and admit that from a professional perspective the three-day Irish Derby Festival meeting is not one I look forward to with much relish. It’s nothing to do with the quality of the racing – after all, it is some of the best in Ireland all year - but more to do with the fact that there are some courses from which timefigure analysis is much more art than science and, certainly among Flat courses, the Curragh is arguably the most taxing of all.
Much like its cousin over jumps, Punchestown, the Curragh is a vast tract of land with unlimited potential for unreported rail movements and information that can be relied upon at most UK tracks has to be taken on trust (or with a pinch of salt, depending on your take) at the Curragh. Historical time standards from the Curragh, against which race times are compared to process timefigures, appear solid enough but it’s a rare day when a set of times there makes complete sense and requires little or no manipulation, and this weekend’s set of fixtures were no different.
This isn’t ideal, of course, when the main event of the weekend is a race as important as the Dubai Duty Free Irish Derby and it might need three different going allowances across the various distances to get the timefigures to align satisfactorily with the sectional upgrades, but after much consideration the figures returned look reliable enough. In the absence of Adayar, the Derby form was represented by Mojo Star, Hurricane Lane and Mac Swiney, all of whom were in the frame at Epsom, though it was one who missed the Derby at the eleventh hour, High Definition, who ended up starting favourite to provide Aidan O’Brien with yet another win in the race.
The race produced a pulsating finish with Epsom third Hurricane Lane running down Sandown Classic Trial fourth Lone Eagle after Lone Eagle had looked to have pinched an unassailable advantage. Hurricane Lane was demonstrably the best on the day, earning a 3lb upgrade over Lone Eagle, even if his superiority over those behind him was accentuated by the interference (Mojo Star badly affected) he caused when starting his challenge. His 109 timefigure is around a stone short of his form rating and reflects the fact that the race wasn’t run at an all-out tempo with the pace steadying around five furlongs out when the pacemaker came back to the field. Back in sixth, Mac Swiney was beaten a similar distance as at Epsom, looking a non-stayer, while High Definition never fired and trailed home tenth of the eleven runners.
For the best relative timefigure on the day, we have to look to the Gain Railway Stakes where a bigger and deeper field than usual saw Norfolk Stakes runner-up Go Bears Go needing to post a 111 timefigure to come out on top, though sectional analysis shows the runner-up Castle Star, who’d won the Marble Hill here last month and had missed Ascot to come here, was unlucky and ended up with too much to do after a slow start.
Mention of the youngsters reminds me that the first nursery of the year is just around the corner. Official handicap marks for two-year-old’s have now been published and, as usual, they make interesting reading. They are on average a shade over 2lb higher than Timeform ratings, but there are, of course, wide discrepancies within that population and I’ve chosen three horses to look out for in the next month who have caught the eye in their qualifying runs either on overall time or sectionals.
First up is a horse we highlighted several weeks ago, Aleezdancer, who has been awarded an opening mark of just 88 yet whose Timeform rating is 98p. He stormed home on his debut at Beverley after blowing the start, running the last two furlongs a fair bit faster than the winner Vintage Clarets who has since finished third in the Coventry Stakes. He put that experience to good use when bolting up in a novice back at the same course next time, then followed up at Carlisle in a similar event in a good time (timefigure 90) despite spending much of the last half furlong easing down.
Kevin Ryan has a very strong team of youngsters this season, including Atomic Force who won a Group 3 race at Chantilly the Sunday before last by 5 lengths, and he’ll have a good line on where Aleezdancer stands in that hierarchy. My guess is he would be fairly near the top and may even be Group class, in which case he might bypass nurseries, but his opening mark might prove too irresistible.
The next selection is Flippin’ Eck (72 BHA, 75p Timeform) who is trained by Tim Easterby. Flippin’ Eck has had a ‘traditional’ Easterby start to life, learning as he has gone along. On his second start he ran the last quarter mile faster than the winner Tareekh (winner since) and in the same time as the subsequent Coventry Stakes runner-up Eldrickjones, then overcame trouble in running to get the better of previous winner Mahagoni at Redcar. Flippin’ Eck has run only at six furlongs so far but, being by Gleneagles, promises to find some improvement over seven.
Third up is Willie Muir’s Profound Alexander. She has a similar profile to Flippin’ Eck in that she has improved with every run and got within half a length of previous winner Ellade, a good second at Windsor since, on her latest outing at Lingfield in a good time for the grade. Her sectionals in that race make particularly interesting reading as they show she ran the last two furlongs getting on for three lengths faster than the winner, and though on the face of it, her opening mark of 76 compares less favourably with her Timeform rating than those of Aleezdancer or Flippin’ Eck, on the clock she makes just as much appeal. By Kodiac out of a Dark Angel mare, sprint nurseries look to be her game.
Keeping on top of form over both codes in the summer is an almost impossible job nowadays and with plenty of top-quality Flat action around lately, jumps racing analysis has had to take a back seat. What racing over the sticks there has been too has been ordinary at best, but betting opportunities still abound (the horse we flagged up a couple of weeks ago as miles ahead of her mark, Merry Berry, was a very backable 10/11 in a match against an inferior rival at Southwell yesterday) and Presgrave was a horse who caught my eye at Newton Abbot recently.
Bryony Frost is often seen out in front, and usually to good effect, too, on the horses she rides for Paul Nicholls but those she partners for her father Jimmy Frost, the trainer of Presgrave, usually adopt a very different modus operandi. A 40/1 shot at Newton Abbot having beaten only a handful of rivals in his previous five starts for Frost, Presgrave’s chances of improving that record much didn’t look great jumping the final hurdle in the home straight on the first circuit, where he trailed the field in last place, but that outlook began to change as he crept closer approaching four out.
What really marked Presgrave up as significantly better than the result was the kamikaze move he made between three out and two out. Three out he still had eleven runners still in front of him; approaching two out, the pace strong, he was vying for the lead having circled all those runners going six-wide on a part of the circuit that bends sharply. Not surprisingly Presgrave faded into fourth on the run-in after clouting the last, a run for which the official handicapper still saw fit to drop him 2lb. A fair animal on the Flat when trained in Ireland by Joseph O’Brien, Presgrave looks a potentially big improver off al low mark in a two-mile handicap hurdle next time.
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