No particular surprises at the weekend in terms of the two Irish Classics.
Churchill and Winter followed up their Newmarket victories at the Curragh to continue Aidan O’Brien’s sweep of this season’s British and Irish Classics. He was 50-1 before the weekend to claim all ten this season, which was realistic, but he’s now as short as 10-1 to do so.
Realistically, he should still be around the 50-1 price, but still you just wouldn’t put it past him.
As for the two winners, Churchill looks ready made for a crack at the St James’s Palace Stakes.
Winter was superb in the fillies’ race and will be absolutely no sort of price for the Coronation Stakes.
I can’t imagine you will see many firms offering odds against at any point between now and Royal Ascot.
Decorated Knight claimed the Tattersalls Gold Cup, which despite being put up as a tentative call in this column actually proved to be a pretty decent winner.
Roger Charlton won the race twice with Al Kazeem and continued his good record training winners in the race, with Andrea Atzeni doing the steering.
Speaking of steering, it looked like Pat Smullen lost his bearings during the Irish 1,000 Guineas.
He was probably pretty lucky to get away with such a short ban given he swiped two horses as if he was driving in a NASCAR race – if you don’t know what the heck I’m talking about check out this video – it’s worth a watch just to hear the commentators’ reactions.
“Holy Cow I can’t believe he did that” is probably the polite version of what trainer Jim Bolger said about Pat Smullen (Bolger’s horse was one of the ones that got clobbered). In any case, it’s racing and jockeys will do what it takes to win. Pat Smullen finished fifth and was demoted to sixth. Worth it eh, Pat?