Irish racing will mourn a dynastic figure in Kevin Prendergast this weekend, one whose global perspective during a more than 60-year training career could get underlined at Royal Ascot.
Oscar Schindler was among the best horses through Prendergast’s hands, supplying one of four career Royal Ascot successes for the hugely popular figure who died on Friday aged 92.
The horse also twice won the Irish St Leger (1996-97) and contributed handsomely to Prendergast’s big-race haul that totalled eight Curragh classics as well as the 1977 Newmarket 2000 Guineas with Nebbiolo.
Oscar Schindler finished up his career by going to Tokyo to contest the 1997 Japan Cup. That was on the back of having contested the previous year’s Melbourne Cup in Australia.
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There wasn’t a perfect outcome on that occasion for the man born in Melbourne on July 5th, 1932, where his legendary father, Paddy, had emigrated to try his luck. On returning to Ireland, Prendergast snr helped transform Irish flat racing’s reputation, becoming champion trainer here and in Britain.
His eldest son subsequently burnished the family name over a long career that continued until his final runner at Cork last week. It contained well over 2000 winners in all. Forty-five years to the day since his father died, the man widely known as “Spot” lived up to his belief that Prendergast’s didn’t retire.
Having witnessed first-hand how his father and Vincent O’Brien reshaped perceptions of Irish racing around the world, he also perhaps got a glimpse of the future back in 1997.
Oscar Schindler finished eighth to the English champion Pilsudski in that Japan Cup, then the only contest a burgeoning local sport allowed open to foreign competition. There were two more European winners shortly afterwards, but none in the last two decades.
It reflects the continuing evolution of Japanese racing into a leading global player, one that could be highlighted once again on the final day of Royal Ascot 2025.
It is 20 years since the first Japanese trained horse lined up at the world-famous event. From 10 runners in all since then, the best position achieved was Shahryar’s fourth in the 2022 Prince Of Wales’s Stakes.
Japan’s admirable embrace of middle-distance racing, and the pedigrees required for it, has resulted in massive success worldwide in recent years. Equinox was an undisputed world champion in 2023. But Ascot history may be made on Saturday in the sprint division.
Satono Reve lines up for the Group One Queen Elizabeth II Stakes with a big shot at breaking Japan’s Royal Ascot duck.
An impressive top-flight winner in his native country in March, the six-year-old ran into the world’s top-rated sprinter on either side of that effort.
In December, he was third to the outstanding Hong Kong champion Ka Ying Rising on his home ground in Sha Tin. He returned there in April to chase home the same horse.
Ka Ying Rising would be a very short price to win any top sprint in Europe and so Satono Reve presents a fascinating intercontinental form line when taking on a notably international field.
It includes the French-based Group One winner Lazzat who just failed to secure a massively lucrative prize in Australia last autumn. He scorched home by over five lengths at Chantilly recently to prompt a purchase by new owners, Wathnan.
Aidan O’Brien’s Australian import Storm Boy has a lot to prove on the back of his underwhelming European debut although the Irishman managed such a feat with Merchant Navy in this race seven years ago.
Over four decades ago, Ore supplied Prendergast with two of his Royal Ascot successes, landing the Queen Alexandra Stakes in 1982.
The longest race on the British flat racing calendar has turned into an Irish benefit in recent years including twice for Willie Mullins’s Stratum. The jump racing titan looks to have the answer again with Sober, twice a Group Two winner for Andre Fabre and third in the 2022 French Leger.
Ryan Moore teams up with Donnacha O’Brien for Commanche Brave in the Jersey Stakes and the Irish colt should rattle off the firm surface.
Moore landed last year’s Chesham in spectacular style with Bedtime Story and will hope another filly, Moments Of Joy, can do the same. Humidity, a brother to the 2022 winner Holloway Boy, could prove tough to beat, though.
The most valuable domestic contest on Saturday is Down Royal’s €100,000 Boylesports Ulster Derby, a race won by the Prendergast trained Celtic Dane in 2010.
Aidan O’Brien has won it twice in the last four years including with the subsequent high-class Tower Of London. Acapulco Bay is topweight but could have the quality to successfully carry it.
Limerick’s feature is the Listed Martin Molony Stakes where Queenstown has an opportunity to successfully take a break from lead-horse duties in Ballydoyle.
