A total of 11 blue-blooded Aidan O’Brien-trained juveniles will line up in three Group One races this weekend, with plenty up for grabs.
One of them is Puerto Rico who has been supplemented into Sunday’s €250,000 Criterium International at Saint-Cloud. He is the sole Ballydoyle two-year-old colt to have already won at the top level this season, successful in the Lagadere on Arc day.
Apart from that though, it has been a rare blank for O’Brien in the ultra-important Group One juvenile prizes which are vital in the stallion-making business.
Coolmore’s announcement of the retirement to stud of both Camille Pissarro and Henri Matisse this week concentrated almost as much on how they each won at the top level as how they are classic winners.
RM Block
A trio of Group One winning juvenile fillies headed by Precise have instead taken prominence in recent weeks, but that could all change within just over 24 hours.
Britain’s final Group One of 2025, the Doncaster Futurity, sees O’Brien saddle three of the five runners, including the likely favourite Benevenuto Cellini.
With both Hawk Mountain and Action also in the line up their trainer is an all but unhackable favourite to land a 23rd top-level success of the season with one of them and a 12th Futurity victory in the process.
Even before the Futurity is run, the Irishman will be crowned champion trainer in Britain for an eighth time. A total to date of £7,940,719 (over €9 million) puts O’Brien more than £800,000 ahead of his nearest rivals with only the dregs of the flat season to come.
One of his nearest rivals, the Gosden team, will be represented by Oxagon in the Futurity but, as for so much of the campaign, they look to be up against it.
Christophe Soumillon is again on-board Benevenuto Cellini, who he rode to success in an admittedly sub-par looking contest at the Irish Champions Festival. The Beresford that Hawk Mountain won didn’t look a vintage renewal either. Action, a half-brother to Lambourn, didn’t get a clear passage at a critical point of the Royal Lodge behind Bow Echo and may be no back number under Wayne Lordan.
“You don’t know how they’ll handle the (heavy) ground until they run on it, Benvenuto and Hawk Mountain have won on ground with a bit of cut before but when it’s like this you don’t know until you try.
“Benvenuto was very impressive last time, he stays a mile well already, he’s a Frankel so you’d be hoping he’s a Classic horse for next year. Hawk Mountain was impressive was impressive in the Beresford which is usually a good race, he’s looks a classic horse as well I suppose.
“Action is a big horse so he’d definitely improve from two to three you would imagine,” O’Brien commented.
When the focus switches to Paris on Sunday there will perhaps be just as much interest in the other Group One contest for two-year-olds, the Criterium de Saint-Cloud, due mostly to the appearance of Pierre Bonnard.
Normally Newmarket’s Zetland Stakes doesn’t throw up buzz winners. It’s emphasis is on identifying future middle-distance stamina, or even longer than that. But Pierre Bonnard won in ultra-smooth fashion and clearly impressed Soumillon. Not surprisingly he has chosen the colt for this next 10-furlong test, one which the rider won for O’Brien two years ago on Los Angeles.
With Isaac Newtown, Endorsement and Christmas Day also flying the Ballydoyle flag – and O’Brien’s sons Joseph and Donnacha represented too, through Shosholozia and A Boy Named Susie – six of the 11 runners in a race off at 1.34pm Irish-time are from this country.
Puerto Rico tops another O’Brien quartet in the mile race off at 12.30pm. He followed up his Champagne victory at Sandown by looking to take his form to another level again at Longchamp. O’Brien has won the Critierum International six times already, including with Twain a year ago.
Colin Keane has been drafted in to ride Port of Spain in the race while in the same race Dylan Browne McMonagle will team up with Joseph O’Brien’s Hardy Warrior, runner up to Benevenuto Cellini at Leopardstown.
Sunday’s third Group One on the Saint-Cloud programme is the Prix Royal Oak off at 2.50pm. Queenstown’s primary role at Ballydoyle is usually in a pacemaking capacity but he gets another top-flight shot of his own in France’s version of the St Leger.
Double Major beat Sevenna’s Knight in this race a year ago and are back for another clash in a contest that has seen the recent Cadran winner Caballo De Mar supplemented. Queenstown was third to him in that Longchamp contest. Yeats all of 17 years ago is O’Brien’s only success in the Royal Oak
Other Irish interest at Saint Cloud will revolve around Paddy Twomey’s La Isla Mujeres in a Group Three off at 11.26am and Higher Leaves for Henry de Bromhead whose race is off at 1.02pm.
