Almost half a century after first scoring at Royal Ascot, Dermot Weld hopes to have more big-race glory in his sights at next week’s famed meeting with the scintillating Irish 1,000 Guineas winner Homeless Songs.
The Curragh classic winner is a general 5-4 favourite to win Friday’s Coronation Stakes which is set to see an intriguing clash of the Guineas winners.
Cachet, winner of the 1,000 at Newmarket, and the French Guineas heroine Mangoustine, are also in line to take their chance in the mile highlight along with last season’s top two year old filly Inspiral.
However, although the prospect of a warm weather outlook next week is good news for Royal Ascot’s renowned social scene, it presents a headache for Weld who is keeping his fingers crossed the racing surface doesn’t get too fast.
Your complete guide to all the festive sporting action including TV details
Irish Times Sportswoman of the Year Awards: ‘The greatest collection of women in Irish sport in one place ever assembled’
Two-time Olympic champion Kellie Harrington named Irish Times/Sport Ireland Sportswoman of the Year 2024
Pub staff struggled to keep up with giddy Shamrock Rovers fans who enjoyed every moment of Chelsea trip
“I wouldn’t like to see the word ‘firm’ strongly mentioned in the going,” he admitted on Friday. “Anything she has done since the Curragh she has done nicely and we are all set for next week – provided the ground is suitable.”
Conditions at Ascot on Friday were good and good to firm in places ahead of Tuesday’s start to one of the biggest weeks of the racing year.
Weld has been successful there 17 times over the decades, first striking in 1973 with Klairvimy in the King Edward VII Stakes. He last won with Free Eagle in the 2015 Prince Of Wales’s Stakes and fulfilled a long-held ambition when Rite Of Passage landed the Gold Cup in 2010.
Prior to the Coronation Stakes being promoted to Group One status in the late 1980s, Weld won it in 1978 with Sutton Place. She is one of 15 Irish-trained winners in all of the prestigious contest since the second World War. Jessica Harrington’s Alpine Star was the last of them two years ago.
Homeless Songs supplied the world-renowned trainer with a landmark 20th Curragh classic in last month’s Guineas, running out a 5½ length winner over no less than the subsequent Oaks heroine, Tuesday.
That was on a good to yielding surface while good ground is the fastest she has raced on to date. Watering is due to begin at Ascot before the meeting begins.
That weather outlook saw Trueshan on the drift in betting for Thursday’s Gold Cup after he was one of 13 entries left in the stayers championship at Friday’s acceptance stage.
The triple-champion Stradivarius tops the betting in most lists with Aidan O’Brien’s emerging star Kyprios next best. Last year’s runner-up, Princess Zoe from Tony Mullins’s yard, is an 8-1 shot.
Homeless Songs’ Guineas success came despite the Weld team enduring a relative dry spell in terms of winners. However, Giladah was a welcome winner at Leopardstown on Thursday evening and there could be more pre-Ascot encouragement through Ezine at Gowran on Sunday.
The Juddmonte filly ran into Tuesday on her debut and then managed to win her maiden at Naas despite stable form.
Black-type ambitions are held for Ezine but before that Weld appears happy to try to exploit a potentially favourable mark of 85 in a fillies handicap.
On a busy but mostly unremarkable weekend’s action in Ireland perhaps the most noteworthy aspect could be how commentators cope with two horses of the same name running in the same race at Gowran.
Jessica Harrington’s Sierra Nevada lines up for a fillies maiden alongside her older namesake trained by Charles O’Brien. While horses registered in Ireland and Britain can’t have the same name, the three year old Sierra Nevada was bred in the US.
It isn’t the first time such a coincidence has occurred. It is 28 years since two horses called Averti ran in a race in Yarmouth.
The registering process once produced a notable clash as perhaps the most successful sire of the modern era, Galileo, shared a name with a Cheltenham festival winner. The latter Galileo was a gelding bred in Poland.
Ultimately both Sierra Nevada’s might do well to cope with another of their rivals, Any Dream Will Do.
The Harrington team has hit its stride again recently and Magical Lagoon is one of a dozen fillies left in contention for next Thursday’s Ribblesdale Stakes at Ascot.
Before that, as well as 10 domestic weekend runners, Cowboy Justice under Shane Foley will fly the flag in a valuable handicap at Chester before Harrington’s focus switches to a pair of Listed races at Longchamp on Sunday.
Arc winning rider Stephane Pasquier has been booked by Harrington to ride Viareggio, the sole the Irish hope in the Prix Melisonde over a mile and a quarter which is due off at 1.33 Irish-time.
Viareggio was third on her previous start to the Ribblesdale hope Sea Silk Road in Goodwood’s Height O’Fashion Stakes.
Pasquier is also on board her stable companion Nectaris who goes in the Prix Volterra over a mile at 2.50. Nectaris got the better of Juncture in a valuable handicap at the Curragh over Guineas weekend on her last start.
The Navan winner Voice Of Angels will represent Joseph O’Brien in the same race. O’Brien, who landed the Prix Ganay with State Of Rest at Longchamp earlier this season, had called on the services of local rider Tony Piccone.
