There are still 50 days to the Cheltenham Festival but Aidan O’Brien is wasting no time getting his 2024 campaign under way with dual Group One winner Warm Heart set to line up in a $1 million contest in Miami on Saturday night.
Last year’s Yorkshire Oaks and Prix Vermeille heroine will have a final career start before a likely date at the breeding shed in Gulfstream Park’s Pegasus World Cup Turf Invitational over nine furlongs. Ryan Moore is jetting to Florida to partner the filly, who wound up her 2023 season when third in the Hong Kong Vase at Sha Tin last month. Prior to that she found only Inspiral too good at the Breeders’ Cup in Santa Anita.
That was over 10 furlongs and the daughter of Galileo’s best form, which also includes Royal Ascot success in the Ribblesdale Stakes, has come at a mile and a half.
This weekend’s task on a lucrative Gulfstream card, topped by the $3 million Pegasus World Cup on dirt, will see her drop significantly in distance, but she was nevertheless quickly made favourite by local odds compilers for a 14-runner contest in which the Irish hope has drawn stall nine. O’Brien has used the Pegasus contest to kick off his year in the past, although Magic Wand had to settle for the runner-up spot in both 2019 and 2020.
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“It is a little short. In an ideal world we would prefer a fraction further, but if there’s a good tempo in the race it should suit her,” the Ballydoyle representative Chris Armstrong told US media. “She’ll appreciate the track [and] she’ll appreciate the quicker ground. Ryan is looking forward to getting out there to ride her again. It’s just a race that comes up at a good time of year before she’s retired to stud.”
Warm Heart’s local opposition includes last year’s winner Atone from Godolphin, while Catnip will be Frankie Dettori’s ride in this race. The Italian is travelling from Los Angeles for a number of mounts that also include Crupi for Todd Pletcher in the big dirt event.
O’Brien saddled 20 Group/Grade winners in 2023 but even by his own record-breaking standards this year has the potential to be exceptional.
The unbeaten City Of Troy, who had comparisons to Frankel made for him by his Coolmore ownership group after landing the Dewhurst, is favourite for both the Guineas and the Derby, and is the most prominent name among a crop that dominated 2023′s two-year-old rankings.
O’Brien famously landed a hat-trick of Champion Hurdle victories at Cheltenham with Istabraq (1998-2000) but it is his son Joseph who holds festival ambitions now. Nurburgring and Intellotto are among a strong group of juvenile hurdlers for O’Brien Jnr, who prepared Ivanovich Gorbatov in 2016 to win the Triumph, albeit the horse was officially trained by his father.
Intellotto, a winner on his jumping debut at Leopardstown over Christmas, could return to the Foxrock track for the Grade One McCann Fitzgerald Spring Juvenile Hurdle at the Dublin Racing Festival. However, O’Brien has left both him and Cossack Chach in the reckoning for Saturday’s “Trials Day” action at Cheltenham after the latest acceptance stage.
“We’re probably just going to run Intellotto in the Grade One in Leopardstown and Nurburgring will probably go straight for the Triumph Hurdle. Intellotto produced a smart performance over the course and distance. It’s obviously a big jump in class to go straight into a Grade One, but I think he deserves a shot at it,” O’Brien said on Monday.
Although he has rerouted El Fabiolo from a clash with Jonbon in Saturday’s rescheduled Clarence House Chase, Willie Mullins is also taking a peek at “Trials Day” with a number of entries.
Capodanno, third to Galopin Des Champs in the Savills Chase and who missed an engagement against Allaho at Thurles on Sunday with a temperature, is one of half-a-dozen left in the Paddy Power Cotswold Chase. Potential opposition includes Royale Pagaille and the leading English novice Stay Away Fay.
Mullins has three options for the Grade Two Unibet Hurdle including a potential first start of the season for last year’s top juvenile Lossiemouth. Along with her stable companion Gala Marceau she also holds a Grade Two entry at Doncaster on Saturday.
Jonbon’s main Clarence House threat is likely to come from last year’s winner Editeur Du Gite, who took advantage of the race being moved from Ascot a year ago to secure a memorable victory over Edwardstone.
Tuesday’s Irish action at Down Royal sees Sunday’s impressive Navan winner St Denis’s Well make a quick reappearance under a 7lb penalty.
Another Jack Kennedy mount, Staffordshire Knot, goes in the opening maiden hurdle, and the form of his Cork third to Readin Tommy Wrong and Lisnagar Fortune could hardly have been better advertised since.
The Gordon Elliott runner himself scored in a Fairyhouse bumper on New Year’s Day and sets a high benchmark in this context.
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