Not only did trainer Aidan O’Brien win the Irish Derby for the sixth year in a row, he recorded his fourth sweep of the top three placings in the race Sunday when Treasure Beach beat Seville and pacesetter Memphis Tennessee in the Group 1 race at The Curragh.
Misty for Me won her third Group 1 race at the Curragh in the Pretty Polly Stakes Saturday, leading throughout 1 1/4 miles for fillies and mares and repelling a threat from Midday, the 1-3 favorite, in early stretch.
Treasure Beach, Carlton House, and Memphis Tennessee, respectively the second, third, and fourth-place finishers in the English Derby, renew their rivalry Sunday at The Curragh in the Group 1 Irish Derby. Treasure Beach and Memphis Tennessee are trained by Aidan O’Brien, who also has Roderic O’Connor and Seville in the eight-horse field. With half the runners, O’Brien figures to have a solid chance of landing his sixth straight victory in the 1 1/2-mile Derby.
Buena Vista, Japan’s Horse of the Year for the last two seasons, will be favored in Sunday’s Group 1 Takarazuka Kinen at Hanshin Racecourse, a race that offers an automatic berth to the winner to the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Churchill Downs in November.
In 2010, Snow Fairy won four Group 1 races in four countries on two continents. How much she can accomplish this year will be better known on Saturday when Snow Fairy makes her 4-year-old debut in the Group 1 Pretty Polly Stakes for fillies and mares at the Curragh in Ireland.
Society’s Rock, second in the race last year, scored an upset in the Group 1 Golden Jubilee on Saturday, the final day of the 2011 Royal Ascot meeting, but it was Group 2 Hardwicke Stakes winner Await the Dawn whom American racing fans may want to follow.
The French invader Immortal Verse rallied from last in a field of 12 to win the first Group 1 race of her career in Friday’s Coronation Stakes at Royal Ascot, the meeting’s premier race for 3-year-old fillies.
Delegator is the best-known horse and possible favorite for the Group 1 Golden Jubilee on Saturday at Royal Ascot, but his credentials for the five-furlong dash hardly are impeccable.
The question was whether Fame and Glory, the most talented horse in the Ascot Gold Cup, could stay the race’s demanding 2 1/2-mile distance. The answer was a resounding yes, as Fame and Glory captured the Group 1 Gold Cup by three lengths
A trip to the Breeders’ Cup Mile at Churchill now considered a strong option for Canford Cliffs, who won the Group 1 Queen Anne Stakes on Tuesday and ranks as Europe’s top miler.
