Curragh Guineas Weekend – Day One – CopyBet
The Curragh’s Guineas Weekend provides three days of excellent and thoroughly competitive racing action and, while Ireland’s first two Classics of the campaign take place on Saturday and Sunday, Friday’s card sets the stage nicely.
There are seven races from 17:10-20:25 and the Group 3 Gallinule Stakes is likely to provide some good pointers for the Irish Derby at the end of the month.
The going is described as good, good to firm in places and Aidan O’Brien will again be the one to keep an eye on, despite only having a couple of runners.
Aidan O’Brien has won five of the last renewals of the Galinule Stakes and will be looking to make it three consecutive wins this year. He runs Shackleton and Thrice and it’s the former who makes the most appeal.
He took a couple of runs to get the hang of things but ended up getting off the mark with a smooth performance in a 1m1f maiden here in September.
The form hasn’t worked out particularly well, but it was a visually impressive performance nonetheless.
It was a bit of a surprise that he could only manage fourth when upped to 1m2f in the Zetland Stakes at Newmarket on his final start at two.
A little too keen in the early stages, he’s surely capable of better and you would imagine there’s more to come at three.
The Irish Stallion Farms EBF Habitat Handicap is shaping up to be a fiercely competitive race and a field of 16 has been declared.
There are several horses that are worthy of consideration but Keke just about gets the nod here.
Edward Lynam’s five-year-old is relatively lightly raced for his age and sprinters often improve as they get older. Keke won four times last season, including two course successes, and one of those came over this 6f trip.
He’s certainly unexposed over the trip and a slow start gave him little chance of winning here over a furlong shorter on seasonal debut.
A 3lb drop in the weights will surely aid his cause and perhaps the step back up in trip can facilitate an improved performance.
Auburn Avenue remains a maiden after nine starts and connections have tried her over various trips and a mile could be ideal.
She was a respectable fifth behind an impressive winner here over 7f last time out, but just didn’t quite have the pace to challenge.
Clearly she wasn’t at her best when a well-beaten third on seasonal debut at Cork before that. It was obvious that she needed the run and the extended 1m2f may have been too far.
Top jockey Chris Hayes has been booked for this ride and that’s certainly noteworthy.
She should be up to winning races in this sphere and remains relatively lightly raced in handicaps.
The handicapper has dropped her 3lb for that latest run earlier this month and 63 looks like a very workable mark.
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