The flat campaign’s frantic tempo means the Curragh Guineas festival is still a week away, but Naas already hosts its “Royal Ascot Trials” fixture on Sunday.
There will be live coverage of the card on TG4 for the first time and will include Ryan Moore fetching up for five rides on Ballydoyle runners.
The English jockey’s schedule is hectic too these days, dashing from York to Leopardstown on Friday before riding at Newbury on Saturday.
Moore is on a trio of Aidan O’Brien horses at Newbury, including Ides Of March in a Listed contest, although he will also team up for the first time with Dancing Gemini in the Group One Boylesports Lockinge Stakes.
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That horse has the benefit of two runs already this season when he takes on a trio of Guineas winners from 2024 that are kicking off their four-year-old campaigns.
Last year’s Newmarket Guineas hero Notable Speech represents Godolphin, while Rosallion, successful in the Irish 2,000 Guineas, is joined by last season’s Curragh 1,000 winner Fallen Angel in the line-up.
Sunday’s Naas card has an impressive pedigree of throwing up future classic winners.
Sky Lantern (2012), Alpha Centauri (2017) and Mother Earth (2020) all proceeded to Guineas success a year later following victory in the Group Three Coolmore Sprint Stakes.
The 2023 winner Port Fortuna also proved herself a top-notch talent and a field of eight will get their credentials tested this time.
Moore is on the O’Brien number one, Simply Astounding, who impressed over course and distance on her debut. Up against her is the English raider Saffron Dandy, a Bath winner, whose trainer Richard Hannon also won this race with Great Page a decade ago.
Apart from two newcomers, the other six are all winners although the only dual scorer is Lady Iman. She confirmed a tall home reputation with a debut success at Dundalk in March and could hardly have been more impressive when recently landing a Listed race at the Curragh.
She is part of a significant Naas team sent out by Ger Lyons, who also supplies a pair of proven Group One winners on the card.
Magnum Force proved to be a memorable first winner at the Breeders’ Cup for Lyons last autumn, and he returns to action against older horses in the concluding Sole Power Stakes.
“Unfortunately, he is starting against the older horses, but he is a five-furlong Grade One winner so we have little or no option.
“It is all about fast ground with him and it will be seldom you will see him on these shores this year. He’ll be doing a lot of travelling and we are working back from the Breeders’ Cup. Hopefully we’ll be travelling back to Del Mar with him in the autumn,” Lyons said.
Up against him will be last year’s Lacken Stakes winner Bucanero Fuerte, who is back racing after a stud career was stopped due to fertility issues.
In the Lacken this time is Babouche, winner of last year’s Phoenix Stakes, who will take on the Prix Morny hero Whistlejacket.
The pair were first and second in the Phoenix and both have Ascot’s Commonwealth Cup on their radar. Whistlejacket impressed on his Navan debut when beating Ides of March and can build on that effort.
River Tiber won the opening conditions event en route to Coventry Stakes success two years ago. This time Charles Darwin flies the Ballydoyle flag and the full brother to Blackbeard will be short odds to earn a ticket to either the Coventry or the Norfolk Stakes.
Saturday’s domestic flat action is in Navan, where the Yeats Stakes features. Butterfly Wings is the Ballydoyle pick. Wayne Lordan is also on the classic-entered Light As Air, who looks capable of exploiting an official mark of 86 in a 10-furlong handicap.
Classic action this weekend takes place across the Atlantic with Pimlico in Baltimore hosting the 150th Preakness Stakes.
The second leg of the US Triple Crown is off just after midnight on Saturday, and hot favourite is the Kentucky Derby runner-up Journalism.
He will break from stall two in the nine-runner contest and is an 8-5 Morning Line favourite to go one better than at Churchill Downs just a fortnight ago when second to Sovereignty.
Also in the line-up is a European hope in Heart Of Honor. Runner-up in the UAE Derby, he represents Lambourn trainer Jamie Osborne, whose daughter Saffie will attempt to become the first woman to ride a Preakness winner. The transatlantic raider is a 12-1 shot.
