Some high-stakes poker is set to take place ahead of final declarations for Saturday’s hugely lucrative Curragh action, which will have a maximum of 29 runners competing for €1.5 million in prize money up for grabs between two races.
Europe’s richest two-year-old race, the Goffs Million, a seven-furlong contest restricted to horses catalogued at last year’s Orby Sale, has 29 entries left in it after Tuesday’s latest acceptance stage. However, the same 29 are also entered in a new six-furlong contest on the same card, the Goffs 500, which is worth half a million euro.
Connections have until final declarations on Thursday morning to choose which race they would like to run in, with much depending on Aidan O’Brien’s plans for the apparent standout contender The Lion In Winter.
An unbeaten son of Sea The Stars, and already favourite for next year’s 2,000 Guineas and Derby, the €375,000 yearling buy sustained a foot bruise last week and O’Brien is keen to leave a final decision on his participation until as late as possible. “At the moment the plan is to run, but he has to get through all his tests. He had a foot bruise last week,” he said on Tuesday.
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It makes for a murky picture ahead of a massively endowed pair of races that sees a €500,000 first prize for the Million and prize money all the way down to 10th place. First prize for the “500″ race is €250,000.
Officially rated 115 on the back of his impressive Acomb Stakes victory at York, The Lion In Winter is a standout on figures. Next best of those with a rating is Joseph O’Brien’s Listed Deauville-winner Apples And Bananas on 100.
Three of the 29 entries have not even raced yet, although that didn’t stop Paddy Twomey’s One Look who pulled off a superb six-length success in the Million on her debut last year.
Twomey has a pair of options this time including the Listowel maiden winner American Bar, and plenty will be keeping cards close to their chest ahead of a potential massive pay-day.
“It will be interesting to see, and I’d say there will be a fair bit of poker going on in terms of what’s going to run where,” the Curragh chief executive, Brian Kavanagh, said. “The fact the Derby favourite is in there, will that encourage people to run in the other race, I don’t know.”
Goffs introduced the “500″ race to cater for horses with sprint pedigrees, and Kavanagh added: “The horses were entered at sale time and owners paid fees along the way to keep them in the races. They will make a choice at declaration stage which of the two races they want to run in.
“Goffs have a broad range of yearlings at their sale, and some will run over sprint distances so that’s why they put the six-furlong race in. They felt that the seven-furlong race was aimed at horses that will be running over a mile and further next year, and that there were a number of yearlings in their sales that would be running over lesser distances.”
If The Lion In Winter does line up for the Million he will be ridden by Wayne Lordan as Ryan Moore will be on Group One duty at Newmarket on Saturday. Moore is due to team up with Lake Victoria in the Cheveley Park Stakes and Whistlejacket in the Middle Park Stakes.
Watering took place at the Curragh on Tuesday, and although some rainfall is anticipated good ground conditions are anticipated for a massively high-paying weekend’s action at HQ.
The third Friends of the Curragh Irish Cesarewitch takes place on Sunday with a €600,000 prize fund, making it Europe’s richest flat handicap. A total of 41 entries, including last year’s shock 150-1 winner Magellan Strait, remain in the mix. They also include Ballydoyle’s The Euphrates, whose official 111 rating exceeds the maximum 110 mark allowed in the race. However, at time of entry last month The Euphrates was on 105 and so is eligible to run. He was since fourth to Kyprios in the Irish St Leger and been raised 6lbs.
Joseph O’Brien’s A Piece Of Heaven was installed an 8-1 market leader with some firms on Tuesday as Willie Mullins’s Belloccio was a notable absentee among the 41.
Dermot Weld’s veteran stayer Falcon Eight, runner-up to Magellan Strait a year ago, and fifth to Waterville in 2022, is still in the mix to try and make it third time lucky in a race that was worth just €80,000 in 2021 prior to the new sponsorship arrangements spurred by the former Horse Racing Ireland chairman Joe Keeling.
The Curragh’s black type feature, Saturday’s Group Two Montane Beresford Stakes, sees Aidan O’Brien with eight of the 13 entries left in as he pursues a 22nd success in the prestigious mile contest.
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