Part of the aim of ‘Champions Weekend’ is to bring Europe’s elite to compete in Ireland but those raiders aiming to scoop any of the Group One prizes up for grabs will have to contend with the might of Ballydoyle and one bookmaking firm make Aidan O’Brien’s stable just 16/1 to have a clean-sweep of all five top-flight races.
The dual-Derby hero Australia is the headline act going into the upcoming €3.7 million weekend at Leopardstown and the Curragh and is a red-hot 1/3 favourite to land the QIPCO Irish Champion Stakes in just 10 days time. His stable-companion Leading Light is also expected to be an odds-on shot for the following day's Palmerstown House Irish St Leger while Gleneagles and Highland Reel top a massive O'Brien entry for the Goffs National Stakes.
With Words, winner of her sole start to date in June over the subsequent Debutante heroine Raydara, among the entries for the Moyglare, and Tapestry likely to drop back to a mile for the Coolmore Matron Stakes, the champion trainer goes into Irish racing’s newest shop-window of fixtures with an unrivalled strength in depth.
O’Brien has won all five races already in his career, including eight renewals of the National Stakes and seven wins in the Irish Champion. He has never won all five in the same season but did win three of them in both 2011 and 2010. However, this year is the first in which all five of Ireland’s remaining Group One prizes have been concentrated into just one high-profile weekend and the RaceBets firm aren’t ruling out a Ballydoyle bonanza.
‘Looks certain’
“Australia looks certain to go off the shortest priced favourite in the history of the Champion Stakes, which is as much a reflection on the likely composition of the field as it is on his ability but we are nevertheless lucky to have him running,” the RaceBets spokesman,
Joseph Burke
said yesterday.
Earlier this year, the stranglehold O'Brien continues to exert on the Dubai Duty Free Irish Derby became a focus of attention after Australia's 1/8 victory-lap resulted in admission by Horse Racing Ireland that this country's premier Classic needs to be made more competitive. Discussions on how to achieve that have already begun at European Pattern Committee level.
Australia will go to Leopardstown on the back of a convincing defeat of The Grey Gatsby in York's Juddmonte and could take that colt on again on home ground. Other likely cross-channel contenders include the Tattersalls Gold Cup winner Noble Mission and Western Hymn whose trainer John Gosden won last year with The Fugue and also twenty one years ago with Muhtarram.
O’Brien, though, is the most successful trainer in the race’s history with the last of seven wins coming with So You Think in 2011. In contrast, he has won the Matron just once before with Lillie Langtry in 2010 but looks like dropping Tapestry back from her mile and a half Yorkshire Oaks defeat of Taghrooda to take on another star English filly, Integral, in Saturday week’s mile event.
“We probably wouldn’t like to travel her again for her next start so it’s very possible she’ll run in the Matron. We’d rather stay at home and not go a mile and a half. She can step up in trip again after that,” O’Brien reported.
“She’ll obviously have an option Arc weekend after that or she’ll have an option to miss that and go to America so there’s a big chance she’ll stay home and go for the Matron,” he added.
Today's €10,000 fillies maiden at Gowran is small fry compared to the upcoming €3.7 million Group One bonanza of 'Champions Weekend' but a victory for Adeste Fideles could prove very valuable anyway.
