They’re no celebrity Posh & Becks but racing’s power couple Hollie Doyle and Tom Marquand completed a superb Irish Champions Festival Group One hat-trick on Sunday.
Marquand’s top-flight double on Economics and Porta Fortuna lit up Saturday’s Leopardstown’s action as the 26-year-old English jockey cemented his status among Europe’s top riders.
Not to be outdone, 24 hours later his wife landed the 10th Group One victory of her stellar career when Bradsell delivered a dominant performance in Sunday’s Bar One Flying Five at the Curragh. It was her first winner in Ireland.
On a day otherwise dominated by the O’Brien family, it underlined the couple’s understated competitive excellence although, typically, Doyle was keen to focus on her latest big-race winner in a career that recently passed 1,000 winners in all.
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“He’s so special. He just dominated them ... He’s just improved and improved and proven today he’s one of the best sprinters around,” she said.
Bradsell could now take in the Prix d l’Abbaye at Longchamp on Arc-day before heading for the Breeders’ Cup at Del Mar in November.
“I wouldn’t want it to be horrible ground or for him to be drawn ‘stupid’ in the Abbaye. There is also the Breeders’ Cup at Del Mar which should be right up his street, as it is a very quick five. One or both of those, all being well, would be the plan,” said Bradsell’s trainer Archie Watson.
If local horses failed to make the first six in the big sprint, it was very much a home affair in Sunday’s three other Group One races.
Aidan O’Brien’s number-two hope in the Moyglare, Lake Victoria, upset her odds-on stable companion Bedtime Story who faded to last, but Kyprios obliged to win the Comer Group International Irish St Leger for a second time.
The popular six-year-old has bounced back from a life-threatening illness a year ago to regain his status as the world’s best stayer. It is a remarkable rejuvenation by a horse who may not even have reached his ceiling yet.
“He looks very fresh there. He could run in an Arc. It’s important to mind him, do the right thing for him, and let him tell us how he is and where he wants to go at that time of the year.
“There is only one Arc, and he has a serious engine. He just doesn’t get tired, he keeps going,” said O’Brien who suggested Lake Victoria may drop in trip for her next start in Newmarket’s Cheveley Park Stakes.
That would be a comparative home game for the filly as much of the rest of the Irish Champions Festival action underlined its status as a pivotal staging post on a broader world racing calendar.
Alongside Bradsell, Sunday’s National Stakes winner Scorthy Champ may finish his precocious first season at the Breeders’ Cup too, while the Prix de l’Opera on Arc-day is next for Johnny Murtagh’s Blandford Stakes winner Hanalia.
It’s a context that got particularly highlighted on Saturday at Leopardstown when Japan’s Shin Emperor advertised his Arc claims. The colt that finished third in May’s Japanese Derby filled the same position in Saturday’s €1.25 million highlight but looked unlucky not to have done even better.
Jockey Ryusei Sakai, on his first visit to Dublin, found out the hard way how tricky Leopardstown can be to negotiate, enduring a largely frustrating passage in the straight as Economics and Auguste Rodin fought out the finish.
Nevertheless, just a neck and three parts of a length separated Shin Emperor from a victorious warm-up for his primary target in Paris on the first Sunday in October.
Ever since Japan’s first runner in the race in 1969, the Arc has been a Holy Grail for Japanese racing. Runner-up placings for El Condor Pasa (1999) Nakayama Festa (2010 and Orferve (2012) have only deepened the obsession.
Shin Emperor’s brother Sottsass finished fourth in the 2020 Champion before landing the Arc and Shin Emperor’s trainer Yoshito Yahagi said: “It was a tough race, try to find a way out, and he did his best. The horse’s condition will improve in a few weeks’ time, and he will definitely improve his performance in the Arc.”
Only Sosie is ahead of Shin Emperor on some Arc betting lists after Sunday’s Longchamp Trials. The French star impressed when landing the Prix Niel, shortly after Bluestocking secured a Prix Vermeille victory. Aidan O’Brien’s Opera Singer was out of the money.
Bluestocking’s trainer Ralph Beckett said he is keen to supplement the filly into the Arc and added: “When they’re enjoying racing as much as she is, it makes sense to carry on, so I’d be keen [on the Arc] if everybody else is keen.”
That a Japanese horse prepped for Paris via Foxrock isn’t the only evidence of an increasingly small global racing village.
Auguste Rodin will traverse the world in reverse and end his rollercoaster career in Tokyo in November’s Japan Cup. His stable companion, Diego Velazquez, landed Saturday’s Solonaway Stakes and has Australia’s top all-aged contest, the Cox Plate, on his agenda next month.
Saturday’s other Group One winner, the Matron heroine Porta Fortuna, will be on her travels too, heading to Del Mar for the Breeders’ Cup Mile.
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