Our Irish Eyes column picks out the best bets on today's Irish 1000 Guineas card at the Curragh.
Recommended bets: Irish Eyes
2pts Somehow in 2.20 Curragh at 5/1 (General) – back over preferred trip & ground should suit
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This year’s Tattersalls Gold Cup was dealt a massive blow when Aidan O’Brien’s superstar Minding was ruled out due to an injury.
However, the master trainer (pictured) still saddles three of the eight runners in his quest to win the race for the first time since So You Think gave him his fourth success within five years in 2012. That win was his sixth victory in total.
Deauville is the favourite with Ryan Moore in the saddle and he held on well to snatch a Listed win last time out at Chester over this trip. However, that came on good ground and the 1m 2 ½f trip on soft might just be a shade too far for him.
Johannes Vermeer beat Deauville by a shade under six lengths on the only time they have met previously and he won’t mind the soft ground but it may be that O’Brien can still land the race with a filly in the shape of Somehow.
She was sent off a gambled-on 10/3 for last week’s Lockinge but the reality is that she was never going to get involved over the one-mile trip but she ran well to stay on near the finish against the colts to finish fourth. That will have put her spot on for this race - her fourth in less than four weeks - back over her preferred trip and unlike a few of the others, she will relish the going.
Seamus Heffernan has been on board for three of her five wins to date and he resumes the partnership again as she bids to become the first filly to take the race since Rebelline in 2002.
Trainer Joseph Murphy is currently near the top of some ‘cold lists’ but those statistics are very misleading as he has had a lot of horses hit the post recently and his Only Mine ran a cracker to finish second to the legendary Gordon Lord Byron on the first day of Guineas weekend.
He saddles Born To Play in the Group 3 Gallinule Stakes, a traditional trial for the Irish Derby and this is a horse which might just have a squeak at 33/1.
Again, the stats tell us he hasn’t even won a maiden from two starts but he has run with credit on both occasions. On debut he flew home following a slow start to finish fourth behind Irish 2000 Guineas third Irishcorrespondent at Leoaprdstown.
On his second start at Cork he broke much better and despite not seeming to possess a turn of foot when it was needed, he was nevertheless very unlucky to go down by a mere neck at the finish when once more staying on like a train.
He is crying out for this stiffer course and step up in trip and he will love the ground as well.
It’s a big ask to think he might break his maiden in a Group 3 race against the Ballydoyle Battalion et al but he’s too big at 33/1 and might just give us a run for our money.
Winter is difficult to oppose in the Irish 1000 Guineas and given she is such a fine, imposing filly, the ground should not pose any problems for her and so 4/5 seems a very fair price.
I move to the following race, the Fillies’ Premier Handicap, for the next best bet on the card in the shape of the John Oxx-trained Magen’s Moon.
Owned by her breeder Maurice Regan’s Newtown Anner Stud, she took four starts before she won her maiden. However, that is only half the story as among the seven fillies to beat her over her first three starts were the aforementioned 1000 Guineas winner Winter, Group 3 winners Hydrangea and Eziyra, in addition to Group 3 runner-up Take A Deep Breath.
She was allocated a mark of 80 and ran a superb race to fail by a mere neck to make a winning handicap debut at Killarney 12 days ago. Raised a reasonable 2lbs for that, if she handles the ground – which she should – she will take plenty of beating and should give the maestro Oxx a winner from his only runner on the card.
Posted at 2145 BST on 27/05/17.
