Siskin answers questions about endurance and heart in Irish 2000 Guineas

Siskin was as brave as he was brilliant winning a rough-and-tumble renewal of the Irish 2000 Guineas on Friday at The Curragh.

A colt whose stamina was in question coming into the Guineas, Siskin came out of it allaying those concerns and showing all the heart in the world.

Jockey Colin Keane had to extricate Siskin from the tightest of spots a furlong and a half from the finish, and as Siskin shouldered Armory out of his path, he lit out for home, bursting into the clear and on to a 1 ¾-length victory.

The plucky colt gave a first classic win to his jockey and to Irish trainer Ger Lyons, who handles Siskin for owner-breeder Khalid Abdullah. Siskin went 4 for 4 at age 2, including victory in the Group 1 Phoenix Stakes, but none of those starts came beyond six furlongs, and in his first race at 3, his first start since Aug. 9, Siskin raced one mile around a bend.

He also raced against six Aidan O’Brien-trained horses, and with Siskin the 2-1 unbeaten favorite, they made life hard for him and Keane. Siskin broke from post 2 and wound up hemmed along the fence as two O’Brien charges, Royal Lytham and Fort Myers, dictated the pace. Those two began backing up with about a quarter mile to race just as another O’Brien horse, Lope Y Fernandez, began charging hard down the center of the track. That accordion action tightened things dramatically in the middle of the pack– just where Keane was angling Siskin to try and get out of trouble. Get out he did, though it required both athletic footwork and shoving Arrmory off his line and into the path of Rebel Tale. The stewards took a long look at the complex, dramatic action between the two-furlong and one-furlong markers but let the result stand.

Coming second was third-time starter Vatican City, trained, of course, by O’Brien, and to some extent a victim of the difficult circumstances, too. Vatican City was placed ahead of and just outside Siskin and wound getting shuffled and having to cross over heels to find room to make a late rally, hitting the line with even more burst than the winner.

Vatican City has an elite-of-the-elite pedigree and is a colt to watch this summer, but the colt for this day was Siskin, whom Lyons said was headed to the Sussex Stakes to face older horses. Siskin is by First Defence out of Bird Flown, by Oasis Dream. He stays a mile and has courage to spare.