Aidan O'Brien pleased with Curragh team

Monday 25 March 2013, 11:19am

Trainer Aidan O'Brien expressed satisfaction after a battalion of his horses including Camelot worked after the races at the Curragh on Sunday.

The trainer traditionally puts a number of his luminaries through their paces following the first day of the Irish turf Flat season and this year worked 68 horses.

Of the three-year-olds, O'Brien worked Mars, Cristoforo Colombo and Breeders' Cup Turf winner George Vancouver.

The most notable absentee was Kingsbarns, who is recovering from a foot infection which means he could miss the 2000 Guineas at Newmarket on April 4.

Ballydoyle's horses worked in four 17-runner groups, with the first batch consisting largely of three-year-old colts.

Pick of the bunch was Mars, who travelled fluently from the start of an eight-furlong (1600m) workout.

Next up came the chance for some of the older brigade to shine.

Camelot was unsurprisingly the smoothest operator as he briskly came from the back to the front of the field under the trainer's son, Joseph.

Other horses to feature in that team included Battle Of Marengo, who also showed promise.

The third group featured a number of three-year-old fillies, such as Snow Queen, Hanky Panky and Moth, while the final Ballydoyle squad consisted of the likes of Memphis Tennessee and Eye Of The Storm.

"Camelot is a big, gassy horse. He was fresh early on, but it was so great to see the horse in that form," O'Brien said.

"He will probably start off in the Mooresbridge Stakes or the Alleged Stakes, and then go on to the Tattersalls Gold Cup.

"Coming here, we weren't sure if Mars was a Guineas or a horse for a Derby trial, but we were so happy with the way he worked it's very possible he'll go straight to the Guineas.

"The three Henrys (sons of Henrythenavigator) - Cristoforo Colombo, Pedro The Great and George Vancouver - all worked well and we are really happy with them. All three of will also run in the 2000 Guineas.

O'Brien also had news on his team for Saturday's Dubai World Cup night, headed by St Nicholas Abbey in the Dubai Sheema Classic.

"St Nicholas Abbey runs," he said.

"Reply will run in the one-mile race (Godolphin Mile) if he gets in - he's currently first reserve - but if not he'll run in the six-furlong race (Dubai Golden Shaheen).

"Starspangledbanner runs in the (Al Quoz) sprint.

"Imperial Monarch will run in the two-mile race (Dubai Gold Cup) and Lines of Battle will run in the UAE Derby."

– PAA

Latest News

Prime Thoroughbreds - We have a Host of Leaders in our Team

Tuesday, 29 June 2021

Prime Thor­ough­bred’s cur­rent rac­ing team is putt­ing to­gether quite a re­cord. We have 22 hors­es that have raced in our team at pre­sent. Six­teen of th­ese are win­n­ers in­clud­ing the Stakes win­n­ing trio Ru­bisa­ki, Fituese and Xtreme­time with Miss Di­vine Em and Miss In Charge run­n­ing 4th in Stakes races. This sees a stakes win­n­er to win­n­er ra­tio of 18.75% with a stake’s per­formed to win­n­er ra­tio of 31.25%. Th­ese are ex­cep­tio­n­al fig­ures.   More »

Freedmans land maiden Group One win

Saturday, 27 February 2021

Un­der-rat­ed fil­ly For­bid­den Love has emerged as an au­tumn car­ni­val smokey with a bril­liant per­for­mance to win the Sur­round Stakes at Rand­wick.  More »

Capriccio completes Damian Lane treble

Saturday, 27 February 2021

In a big day for coun­try-trained hors­es, War­r­nam­bool fil­ly Capric­cio has tak­en out the In­glis Dash for Daniel Bow­man.  More »

More news headlines »