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Marking your card: Irish faces new and old ready for Royal Ascot challenge

Green Team primed to challenge best of British and the world again

Monday, 17 June 2024
Marking your card: Irish faces new and old ready for Royal Ascot challenge

Aidan O'Brien has a career 85 winners at the Royal Ascot meeting (Racing Post Photos)

Royal Ascot 2023 saw a record 12 Irish trained winners from eight different handlers, Aidan O'Brien winning the trainer title for the 12th time
With eight Group Ones across five days and €11m in prize money, Royal Ascot 2024 is set to be a big week for Irish trainers, jockeys, owners, and breeders, writes James Toney.

Small but mighty Irish challenge in Group One races

Three sparkling Group One races in the space of two hours often make the first course at Royal Ascot the highlight of the menu. 

There are no Irish entries in the Queen Anne Stakes while Co. Westmeath's Adrian Murray runs Valiant King - the 150-1 winner of last year's Norfolk Stakes - in King Charles III Stakes.

There are more Green Team hopefuls in the showpiece one-mile St James's Palace Stakes, the race won brilliantly by Aidan O'Brien's Paddington 12 months ago.

O'Brien has won this a record nine times since Giant’s Causeway's triumph 24 years ago and likes the chances of Henry Longfellow, ridden by Ryan Moore, while Wayne Lordan takes the saddle on his second string, Unquestionable. Henry Longfellow was unbeaten in his two-year-old campaign, but a lacklustre eighth place in the French 2000 Guineas needs to be forgiven.

Sent off as favourite at Longchamp, he never travelled, but now must face the winners of the English and Irish equivalents - Notable Speech and Rosallion.

However, as we saw with City of Troy, O'Brien has the knack of turning a Classic disappointment in May into success on their next start.

"Everything is well with him and we're looking forward to Ascot," said

O'Brien. "We made some wrong decisions tactically in France and it was a non-event. We've certainly learned those lessons."

Ascot Stakes primed to return to Irish hands after a five-year wait

There were a record 12 Irish winners for eight different trainers at Royal Ascot last year - underlining the Green Team's strength in depth.

It's a fact further underscored by the four leading market fancies in the Ascot Stakes - with four different Irish trainers. Cathy O'Leary, whose brother Tony Martin has won this race twice, looked to have a serious chance for her first Royal Ascot winner with Zanndabad, a very close third in last month's Chester Cup.

Willie Mullins's My Lyka, Gordon Elliott's Pied Piper - second in the Cheltenham Festival County Hurdle last year - and Jarlath Fahey's Boher Road are all primed for any slip from the favourite.

Irish trainers won this race five years in a row from 2014 to 2018, but the Brits have struck back to win the five renewals since.

De Bromhead seeks first Royal Ascot winner in powerful Irish challenge

The Copper Horse Handicap is one of Royal Ascot's newest races - this is just the fifth renewal. Mullins claimed it 12 months ago with Vauban, who will be his hope in Thursday's Ascot Gold Cup. He fires Belloccio this time, who currently leads the market.

There is plenty of other Irish interest with Henry de Bromhead seeking his first Royal Ascot winner Gentlemen Joe.

"He seems in really good form, so let's just see," said de Bromhead, who has booked two-time Royal Ascot winning jockey Billy Lee for the ride.

"We thought he wasn't going to get in and we're delighted to see him get in. He's in good form, though perhaps we'd have liked another run since he came second at Dundalk in April."

Gavin Cromwell likes the chances of My Mate Mozzie as he looks for a third win in four years while Joseph O'Brien fires A Piece of Heaven at the race, jockey Dylan Browne McMonagle hoping it can deliver him a first winner at the meeting.

Elsewhere, the Green Team are represented with Elliott's Party Central and Denis Hogan's Tyson Fury, surely the meeting's most popular winner for headline writers.

READ MORE: My Royal Ascot First: Ireland's Green Team remember their maiden wins

Orr likes chances of long shot in Coventry dash

The Coventry Stakes is a notoriously hard race to call - a 20-plus runner dash for two-year-olds that has been won by some legends of the sport, including Aidan O'Brien's Caravaggio.

O'Brien has won this ten times and fires Camille Pissarro at the 2024 edition, having won 12 months ago with River Tiber. However, this race has a reputation for a long-priced winner - a 150-1 shot triumphed three years ago and County Donegal native Oisin Orr has an interesting booking on Richard Fahey's Columnist, whose all-speed pedigree is certainly noteworthy.

Killarney’s Murphy booked for star Aussie sprinter

Australian trainer Henry Dwyer has turned to Oisin Murphy to saddle speedster Asfoora in the Group One King Charles III Stakes. Murphy - the meeting's top jockey in 2021 - certainly liked what he saw when he worked the horse at Newmarket last week.

Royal Ascot has been a happy hunting ground for Australian sprinters ever since the brilliant Choisir blazed a trail that no one could follow.

Since that win 21 years ago, Aussie raiders Takeover Target, Miss Andretti, Scenic Blast, and Nature Strip have won the meeting's five-furlong Group One showpiece.

Asfoora perhaps doesn't have the same profile ahead of her debut, though she is a two-time Group Two winner and has twice placed at the top level.

Her last run, a European bow at Haydock, was not necessarily eye-catching, with Dwyer urging patience ahead of a campaign that will include targets in Ireland and France, as well as Champions Series meetings in York and Goodwood.

Dwyer makes no secret that the hugely impressive Big Evs, who sparkled on their seasonal reappearance at York and comes into Royal Ascot on the back of five wins in six, is the one to beat but believes there is not much to separate the rest.

"We've a great booking in Oisin - he knows all about Royal Ascot winners," he said.



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