MILLIONS RACES AT THE CURRAGH:THE AIDAN O'Brien team will be represented by three runners in both of Sunday's hugely valuable Goffs Millions races at the Curragh, but one star name missing from the multi-million extravaganza will be Cabaret.

A 16 to 1 favourite for next year’s Epsom Oaks with Paddy Power, Cabaret had been targeted at the €1.6 million Mile event on Sunday ever since she won July’s Silver Flash Stakes at Leopardstown.

However, an allergic reaction has ruled her out of running this weekend, although O’Brien is still hopeful of getting her back to action in Sunday week’s Prix Marcel Boussac at Longchamp.

“This allergy came up on Tuesday and, while usually they go away quickly, it was worse this morning so she had to get a shot of cortisone. That means she can’t run on Sunday. It’s a pity because we had been keeping her for the race,” the champion trainer said yesterday.

Cabaret is also a 12 to 1 third-favourite for next year’s 1,000 Guineas, but, despite her absence, O’Brien will still be heavily represented in both €1.6 million events on Sunday, with Johnny Murtagh likely to team up with Beethoven in the six-furlong Sprint event.

“All three of them (Air Chief Marshal, Reggae Dancer and Beethoven) will run in the Sprint, and there will also be three of ours in the Mile – Lord High Admiral, Famous and Utrillo,” O’Brien added.

Famous, a sister to Mastercraftsman, was runner-up to Termagant in the Moyglare, and the trainer reported: “She hasn’t done a lot since then but she’s going well. Johnny may ride Lord High Admiral, who had a little bit of a setback after winning at Gowran. Ideally we’d have run him again, but he had a stone bruise which stopped that plan.”

O’Brien has yet to win one of the lucrative Goffs restricted races, which are winding up this year on the back of the economic downturn.

The same applies to Dermot Weld, who is set to be represented in the Mile by his impressive Galway festival winner Stunning View.

A crowd of over 10,000 people is expected to attend Sunday’s meeting which is the most valuable day’s racing in Ireland with prizemoney on offer of just over €3.5 million.

A similar sized attendance was at the Curragh last year, which caught the course executive by surprise slightly in terms of catering and racecards being sold out, after a poor 2007 crowd when the meeting was run on a Friday.

“It was a great attendance last year and if the weather is good on Sunday we would hope to replicate it,” Curragh manager Paul Hensey said yesterday.

The forecast is encouraging for the rest of the week and it could lead to the word “firm” appearing in the ground description for the first time this year at the Curragh.

“There isn’t much drying at this time of year, but if things go well I could see us being good on the straight and good to firm on the round course,” Hensey said.

“We have had 16 meetings at the Curragh this year and 14 of them have had the word ‘soft’ somewhere in the ground description. It’s been a terrible run,” he added.

St Nicholas Abbey flies the Ballydoyle flag in the Juddmomnte Beresford Stakes on Sunday, and O’Brien confirmed yesterday that that leaves Saturday’s Royal Lodge Stakes option open for another pair of his juveniles, Mikhail Glinka and Joshua Tree.

“Rip Van Winkle still seems to be okay and the plan remains the QEII,” the trainer also confirmed.

Final declarations for the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes, and Saturday’s other Group One Ascot feature, the Meon Valley Stud Fillies Mile, take place today. The Leopardstown maiden winner You’ll Be Mine is a likely O’Brien starter in that race, a juvenile feature won Ballydoyle runners Sunspangled and Listen.

David Wachman is looking to the following week for a Group One option for his smart filly Song Of My Heart, who may run in Newmarket’s Cheveley Park Stakes.

Song Of My Heart landed the Blenheim Stakes on her previous start at The Curragh, and Wachman said yesterday: “I think she’s a nice filly and the Cheveley Park is a race we are thinking about.”

Wachman’s Irish 1,000 Guineas winner Again returned to something like her best form in the Matron Stakes earlier this month, and her trainer is considering other Group One options for her the weekend after this in the Sun Chariot at Newmarket or the Prix de l’Opera at Longchamp.

Aidan O’Brien’s apprentice Seán Levey has lodged an appeal against the severity of his seven-day whip suspension picked up at Ballinrobe on Sunday.

Levey, who has partnered pacemakers for O’Brien in many big races this year, was deemed to have “used his whip unnecessarily” on Viceroy Of India in a 14-furlong handicap.

Viceroy Of India made the running in the early stages but faded to finish last of the 16 runners. No date has been set yet for Levey’s appeal.