Strictly speaking, Aidan O'Brien's Entenamann's Irish 2,000 Guineas clean-sweep wasn't historic: it only felt like it.
In 1935, trainer Jack (J T) Rogers also saddled the first three horses home in the 2,000 Guineas, and even trumped O'Brien by having a pair of 100 to 1 shots (Museum and Parisian) in the first two places.
On Saturday, the Ballydoyle trainer "just" had the 20 to 1 outsiders Black Minnaloushe and Mozart ahead of the apparent first string Minardi. But it's probably fair to say that the awed shock which greeted O'Brien's achievement reverberated around the Curragh with the same ferocity as 66 years ago.
On ground turned "good to yielding" by overnight rain, the race took on an unusual appearance when the pace-setting Mozart led the field to the stands side, and an even more unusual look when he kept galloping to such effect that Minardi, Tamburlaine and most of the rest were off the bridle a long way from home.
The exception was Black Minnaloushe on whom John Murtagh travelled with an ease that even Sinndar and the other Group One performers of his momentous 2,000 season would have been hard pressed to match.
The Storm Cat colt swept through at the distance to beat his stable companions by two lengths and three-parts-of-a-length and reinforced Murtagh's international reputation as a big race pilot.
It was a first Guineas for Murtagh, who had originally hoped to ride Tamburlaine and lost out on the ride on Freud as he waited in vain for Richard Hughes to be claimed to ride in Britain.
"I was told to drop him in, let him settle, and allow him to do the rest. He turned out to be a very serious miler with real pace," Murtagh said, and Royal Ascot's St James's Palace Stakes could be the next venue to test that pace.
"All three of them are perfect this morning. They didn't leave a nut," O'Brien said yesterday and with Galileo's Epsom Derby bid looming, the 31-year-old trainer admitted his string are hitting peak form at just the right time.
Provisional plans for Mozart include a tilt at the Jersey Stakes, which is also an option for Dermot Weld's Maumee (fourth) as well as Tamburlaine (fifth.)
The latter's trainer, Richard Hannon, attributed the disapointing run to a combination of rain and watering changing the ground, but despite some criticism of the Curragh management's watering policy during the week, O'Brien's success demanded the spotlight.
"The horses are sorted out now and we can see where to go with them for the rest of the year," said O'Brien afterwards. Judged by Saturday's clean sweep, that is a statement to frighten the rest of Europe.
