It isn’t a Classic but the addition of Vadeni to Sunday’s other Group One highlight at the Curragh’s Guineas Festival underlines a resurgence in fortunes for the Tattersalls Gold Cup.
The older-horse feature’s top-flight status came under threat in recent years after a series of small turnouts meant it failed to reach European Pattern Committee criteria for Group One categorisation.
Over a three-year period, Group One races must average an official rating of 115 for the first four finishers. The figures employed are based on how those first four are rated at the end of the season rather than in the race itself.
The Gold Cup failed to make that average in both 2018 and 2019, adding to a series of small-field renewals over the previous decade that also didn’t make the criteria. In 2012, in the race won by So You Think, the end of year average was just over 108.
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There has been an recent upswing, though, which looks set to be added to this Sunday after last year’s French Derby and Eclipse winner Vadeni was supplemented into the race at a cost of €45,000.
He is set to clash with the top-class English raider Bay Bridge as well as proven home Group One winners Luxembourg and Above The Curve.
“It was a bit ropey for a while but it has come back well in the last three years and this weekend looks very healthy again, assuming the best horses finish in the first four places,” the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board’s senior handicapper Garry O’Gorman said on Tuesday.
“In the years 2018 and 2019, the average dropped to 113.75, 2020 was Covid year so that didn’t count, although it was a stunning year with an average of 121.5 for the first four.
“Exceptionally, that year we allowed three-year-olds into the race because it was obviously run later that season. So, if you want a pub quiz question – Armory is the only three-year-old to finish in the first four in the Tattersalls Gold Cup!
“The last two years it has made the average and last year worked out very well at 119.25 with Alenquer, High Definition, State Of Rest, and Lord North,” he added.
Vadeni, also runner-up in last year’s Arc, finished fourth to Iresine on his return to action in the Prix Ganay at Longchamp last month, a place behind Bay Bridge.
