Leopardstown’s 2023 flat racing campaign is due to finish this weekend, although an 8am inspection on Saturday morning is a sign of the season to come.
Torrential rain on Friday turned ground conditions heavy at the Foxrock track with up to 20mm more rainfall forecast overnight. Dublin and Wicklow are in a status orange rainfall warning until Saturday.
“At the moment the forecast is suggesting the rain will clear in the early hours of the morning and will turn brighter on Saturday.
“We have had a total of 53mm of rain so far this week at Leopardstown and due to the current forecast, we will hold a precautionary inspection at 8am,” clerk of the course Lorcan Wyer reported on Friday.
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Two days of flat action at Leopardstown are scheduled alongside a pair of National Hunt fixtures in Limerick where Sunday’s €100,000 JT McNamara Ladbrokes Munster National is the biggest pot of a busy domestic weekend.
However, Limerick’s all-hurdles card on Saturday has to pass its own 7.30 morning inspection. Up to 10mm of rain is possible overnight on ground that’s already heavy.
Gordon Elliott has a huge hand in the big race with eight of the 13 runners including last season’s Irish National runner-up Gevrey.
Elliott has turned to Ricky Doyle to ride the horse after Gevrey finished his Kerry National chance last month with a blunder at the third last.
Aidan O’Brien has a pair of starters in each of Leopardstown’s Group Three prizes on Saturday, although his son Donnacha could be the one to side with in the Eyrefield Stakes through Naval Force.
Separately, having dominated last week’s Group One juvenile action in Newmarket, O’Brien has his eyes on another Group One double for his two-year-old team in Paris on Sunday.
Illinois, a half-brother to the Arc and King George winner Danedream, makes a quick turnaround from his successful Curragh debut a fortnight ago to line up in the €250,000 Criterium de Saint-Cloud, at 12.58pm Irish time.
O’Brien has landed the 10-furlong event on four occasions in the past including with the subsequent Irish Derby winner Fame And Glory in 2008.
Ryan Moore is on board Illinois while Christophe Soumillon has been engaged for his stable companion Los Angeles, a Tipperary winner in September.
Other Irish interest centres on Joseph O’Brien’s Islandsinthestream. Maxime Guyon partnered the colt to win a sales event on Arc weekend on the back of pair of second placings to Henry Longfellow at the Curragh.
Both Moore and Soumillon are also in action half an hour later in the Criterium International over a mile, a top-flight race won by Donnacha O’Brien’s Proud And Regal last year.
Van Gogh in 2020 was the last of O’Brien’s five previous victories and this time he relies on a pair of Dubawi colts who both broke their maidens at Galway.
Navy Seal (Moore) was only fourth to Deepone in the Beresford on his last start while Portland has won just once in five starts.
The Andre Fabre-trained Alcantor won impressively over the Saint Cloud course and distance last month when beating two of his rivals on Sunday, Saganti and Havana Cigar.
The international Group One weekend will kick off in Australia on Saturday morning where Joseph O’Brien runs both Okita Soushi (Kerrin McEvoy) and Valiant King (Jamie Kah) in the $5 million (€3 million) Caulfield Cup.
O’Brien, twice a Melbourne Cup winner, and with a Cox Plate victory through State Of Rest in 2021, will try to complete Victorian racing’s “Spring Slam” in the prestigious mile and a half a handicap in Melbourne.
There is also international jumps action on Saturday night where John McConnell’s Seddon and the Elliott-trained Salvador Ziggy line up in the American Grand National (9.32) at Far Hills in New Jersey. Shark Hanlon’s Hewick won the race in 2022.
