Princess Zoe will try to pull off a rare cross-code double at Fairyhouse on Easter Sunday and it could provide a perfect happy ending to her connections.
The popular mare, winner of the Group One Prix Du Cadran on the flat in 2020, was the focus of a public spat after running at Cheltenham last month.
Owner Paddy Kehoe subsequently expressed his regret at a post-race tweet criticising Danny Mullins’s ride and indicating the jockey wouldn’t partner Princess Zoe again.
Mullins is duly back on board the mare that has catapulted his father, Tony, into the big time in recent years.
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She will have just her third start over flights in the Grade One Irish Stallion Farms Honeysuckle Novice Hurdle.
Horses that have managed to win at the top level on the flat and over jumps are rare.
The ill-fated Wicklow Brave managed the feat by landing the 2016 Irish Leger before also striking in the Champion Hurdle at the following year’s Punchestown festival.
Renowned talents like Vintage Crop and Sea Pigeon mixed the codes too but reserved their top-flight performances for one of them.
Royal Gait, perhaps most famous for being disqualified from the 1988 Gold Cup, did win both the Cadran and the Prix Royal Oak the year before that while he subsequently wound up winning the 1992 Champion Hurdle.
Princess Zoe finished an honourable fifth in the mares’ novice hurdle at Cheltenham, just over four lengths behind the winner despite a bad blunder at the last.
She has ground to make up on the runner-up that day Magical Zoe who got far from a clear passage in the race.
However, Sunday’s race is half a mile further and that should be right up the street of a mare capable of winning a Cadran and finishing runner-up in a Gold Cup.
Top English jockey Nico de Boinville makes the trip to Fairyhouse to team up with Lot Of Joy, one of eight Willie Mullins runners in the race named after the recently retired 2019 winner.
In other news, Joseph O’Brien could run both Busselton and Fire Attack in Monday’s Irish National but his early morning focus on Saturday will be on the Randwick track in Sydney.
The Irishman runs both Baron Samedi (Tom Marquand) and Cleveland (Kerrin McEvoy) in the AUS $2 million (€1.22 million) Sydney Cup over two miles in a race due off at 6.15 Irish-time and live on Sky Racing.
Later on the Randwick card O’Brien has Statement lining up for the AUS $1 million (€610,000) Queen of the Turf Stakes off at 7.35. Cork-born rider Johnny Allen rides the Irish hope.
Aidan O’Brien and Ryan Moore will be in action in Cork on Saturday but switch to Paris on Sunday.
The Derby entry Greenland takes his chance in the Group Three Prix La Force at Longchamp due off at 2.50.
The Ballydoyle team will also be represented in the Group Three Prix Vanteaux (3.25) by the regally bred Delightfully. The sister to Minding and Tuesday beat only one home on her first start of the season at the Curragh.
