It is not unknown for the Tattersalls Irish 2, 000 Guineas to be used as a route to Derby glory but trend-experts have plenty to back the view that Gleneagles, Aidan O'Brien's 10th winner of Saturday's Curragh classic, will pitch up next over a mile at Royal Ascot rather than Epsom in a dozen days.
Just one of the champion trainer’s previous nine winners – Saffron Walden – ran subsequently in the Derby while five took in the St James’s Palace Stakes, the mile Group One that looks like being O’Brien’s own preferred choice for his latest dual-Guineas hero.
Overcoming a less than clear passage to beat Endless Drama and Ivawood on Saturday, coupled with his continuing inclusion among the Derby entries, meant one firm’s initial reaction was to make Gleneagles a 3/1 second favourite for Epsom ‘with a run’, and the fact the favourite Golden Horn still has to be supplemented only illustrates how uncertain the Derby picture is.
It is 40 years since Grundy completed the Irish Guineas-English Derby double, while both Secreto (1984) and New Approach (2008) both lost at the Curragh before scoring at Epsom. Dickens Hill won the Guineas in 1979 and finished runner up to Troy in the Derby.
But until the situation is clarified, the impression left by both O'Brien and Ryan Moore is that they view Gleneagles as a miler and indeed the trainer described the colt as "the best miler we've had", which is a fair compliment considering Rock Of Gibraltar and Henrythenavigator also completed the Newmarket-Curragh Guineas double.
Just eight in all have managed it now and Gleneagles has trumped his close relative Giant’s Causeway who was runner up in both.
“I always thought he was Giant’s Causeway with more speed, that’s what I thought and today he showed he has that pure Giant’s Causeway courage,” said O’Brien. “He has always worked like a miler, he’s strong and quickens very well.”
If visually Gleneagles wasn’t as impressive as he was at Newmarket, he did well to escape a pocket on the inside a couple of furlongs out, especially considering O’Brien’s concerns about officially “good to yielding” ground were such he said it was “very borderline” he ran at all.
