NEWS
Irish Derby in doubt for Sea The Stars
Posted: Friday, June 26, 2009 8:42 PM
by Myra Lewyn
A start in the $2,091,750 Dubai Duty Free Irish Derby (Ire-G1) on Sunday is in doubt for the headliner, dual English classic winner Sea The Stars, after course conditions at the Curragh came up soft on Friday evening.
“It’s very hard to see how he could run,” trainer John Oxx told Ireland’s RTE Sport. “We’ve had quite a bit of rain earlier [Friday] morning, which we weren’t really expecting.
“We live and hope, and we’ll delay a decision for a while,” Oxx added. “But if it’s obvious during racing [Saturday] that there’s no way the ground is going to dry, we’ll try and make an earlier announcement.”
Sea The Stars won the Stanjames.com Two Thousand Guineas (Eng-G1) on May 2 and followed with a dazzling victory in the Investec Epsom Derby (Eng-G1) on June 6, becoming the first horse to win the opening two legs of the English Triple Crown since Nashwan in 1989.
Should Sea The Stars start in the Irish Derby, Oxx would be poised to achieve a second Epsom Derby/Irish Derby double after accomplishing the feat in 2000 with the Aga Khan’s homebred Sinndar. If the colt bypasses the race, he would most likely be aimed at the 1¼-mile Coral Eclipse Stakes (Eng-G1) on July 4 at Sandown.
“I would have like to have run him again over a mile and a half, but we’d be very happy to run in the Eclipse,” Oxx told RTE Sport.
Oxx has one other runner in the 1½ mile Irish Derby—Irish stakes winner Mourayan, who owns second- and third-place finishes in group stakes at Leopardstown this season.
Trainer Aidan O’Brien will bid to win the Irish Derby for a fourth consecutive year, following victories with Frozen Fire in 2008, Soldier of Fortune (Ire) in ’07, and Dylan Thomas (Ire) in ’06. He holds a strong hand with seven entries this year, including three of the six he started in the Epsom Derby—runner-up Fame And Glory, third-place finisher Masterofthehorse, and fifth-place finisher Golden Sword.
O’Brien also will be represented by maiden winners Byzantine and Hail Caesar, Group 1-placed winner Drumbeat, two-time winner Rockhampton.
O’Brien’s son Joseph will guide Byzantine, who finished last in the Mogeely Stud Silver Stakes at the Curragh on June 6.
Johnny Murtagh will be reunited with Fame And Glory, replacing Seamus Heffernan who piloted him at Epsom Downs. Heffernan will ride Masterofthehorse.
“I rode my horse last week and he felt like he had improved from Epsom,” said Murtagh, who guided the Montjeu (Ire) colt to victory in the P. W. McGrath Memorial Ballysax Stakes (Ire-G3) in April. “He’s a solid typical, Ballydoyle improver.”
Murtagh acknowledged that if Sea The Stars starts in the Irish Derby, he will be the horse to conquer.
“Sea The Stars is the champion and we all have to beat him.”
Myra Lewyn is Thoroughbred Times TODAY news editor
