Timeform pick out the ratings banker, a big improver and a selection based on the Timeform Flags on the Irish Derby card.
The ratings banker
Castle Star – 15:05 The Curragh
Fozzy Stack’s colt Castle Star heads the Timeform ratings in the main supporting race on the Irish Derby card, the Group 2 Railway Stakes for two-year-olds over six furlongs. The son of Starspangledbanner was narrowly beaten on his first couple of starts but has won his last two outings, both at the Curragh last month. He got off the mark with a cosy win in a five-furlong Listed contest and improved again back at six when running out an impressive winner of the Group 3 Marble Hill Stakes last time.
Castle Star could be named the winner some way out before he quickened from off the pace to lead inside the final furlong. Masseto, two lengths back in second, has since finished fourth in the Coventry Stakes, and takes him on again here, as does the third Strapped. With further improvement expected, Castle Star should be hard to beat again.
The big improver
High Definition – 15:45 The Curragh
High Definition had been many people’s idea of the Derby winner over the winter but having missed Epsom he gets his chance to fulfil two-year-old promise in the Irish Derby instead. The winner of both his starts at the Curragh last season, he looked a top-notch middle-distance prospect for this year when coming from a long way back to land the Beresford Stakes in the style of a really good horse. Things didn’t quite go to plan in his Derby preparation last month, having to be rerouted from Lingfield to the Dante at York, but High Definition shaped encouragingly in the circumstances in staying on for third, two lengths behind Hurricane Lane.
The winner, who has since finished third in the Derby, takes him on again here but, with that run under his belt, High Definition can turn the tables, particularly as the step up to a mile and a half seems sure to unlock further improvement. Epsom might not have been the rangy High Definition’s ideal track in any case, but we know he acts well at the Curragh and he can give Aidan O’Brien his fourth win in the last five runnings, and a 15th overall.
The Timeform Flag
Sinawann – 16:50 The Curragh (Horses for Courses, Hot Trainer)
There’s a clash of the generations in this Listed contest over a mile and it can go to one of the older horses in the line-up, four-year-old Sinawann. He was campaigned in better company than this last season, running his best race when denied by just a short head in the Group 2 Boomerang Mile at Leopardstown on his final start in 2020. Sinawann shaped as if retaining all his ability on his first run since when third in a listed race at Leopardstown earlier this month, meeting some trouble and ultimately not knocked about in a race won by the race-fit Magnanimous with Fourhometwo, who reopposes here, in second. That should put Sinawann spot on for this race, while a Sussex Stakes entry shows that he’s evidently felt capable of taking on the top milers in due course. Sinawann is already a course-and-distance winner, successful in a maiden here as a two-year-old, while his trainer Mick Halford has his string in good form.
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