Ratings Update: Ireland and Germany

As well as the high-quality racing at Newmarket in recent days, there was also a card containing three pattern races at the Curragh on Sunday. Aidan O’Brien was responsible for four of the six runners in the feature Group 2 Beresford Stakes and won it for the sixteenth time (he’s now won the last six). O’Brien saddled the first three home, in fact, with Capri landing the odds by from fellow Galileo colts Yucatan and Exemplar and completing his hat-trick following wins in a Galway maiden and Tipperary listed race. Capri was only workmanlike in victory but again gave the impression there’s a bigger performance in his locker when required (now rated 115p from 113p) and he’s sure to be suited by trip in excess of a mile. Yucatan probably deserves extra credit—not to say he should have beaten the winner—as he conceded first run to a degree and was forced to deliver his challenge on the unfavoured inside; he’s also be one to follow in 2017.

The other two-year-old pattern race on the card was the Group 3 C. L & M. F Weld Park Stakes for fillies. It was also won by the short-priced favourite in Dermot Weld’s Eziyra, who didn’t need to improve (stays on 104p) back down in trip and wearing a first-time hood to resume winning ways from British raider Grecian Light (103). Eziyra has made a very promising start for one bred to improve with age and distance, but a tendency to flash her tail when hit with the whip was again in evidence and it remains to be seen how her temperament will hold up.

The Group 3 Renaissance Stakes was an up-to-scratch renewal featuring plenty of the usual suspects, though it was the in-form The Happy Prince who came out on top in a race that not too many got into. Ballydoyle’s 116-rated four-year-old had won a Navan minor event and finished a short-head second to Breton Rock in the Group 2 Park Stakes at Doncaster apart earlier in the month, and he should run well wherever he goes next, with the Group 3 Concorde Stakes at Tipperary and the Group 2 Challenge Stakes at Newmarket two possible options. 

The listed Loughbrown Stakes was won by three-year-old Twilight Payment against his elders. He’d finished third in the Queen’s Vase in June as a maiden and showed a really willing attitude to beat Forgotten Rules returned to two miles here. He’s rated 110 but that doesn’t mean there’s no improvement left in him; he could prove a very smart stayer next year for Godolphin and Jim Bolger. 

There was also a Group 1 at Cologne in Germany on Sunday, namely the Preis Von Europa over a mile and a half, won for the second year running by Nightflower. She was rated 114 going into the race and remains on that figure, but it’s probably worth pointing out she’d been rated 118 for a period before that. The former British-trained Red Cardinal ran a cracker to finish second, beaten three-quarters of a length and advancing his form again from 110 to 116 (rated 84p after two runner-up starts in maidens before this year). Red Cardinal now represents the same connections as 2014 Melbourne Cup winner Protectionist (who was winless in 2015 but has won all three starts this year, including a Group 1, incidentally) and he’ll reportedly join that gelding, as well as Articus, on the trip Down Under this year. The big disappointment of the Preis Von Europa was Grosser Preis Von Baden winner Iquitos, though his fifth-place finish still meant he came home in front of Godolphin’s Elite Army and the German Oaks winner Serienholde.

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Click HERE to read our main Ratings Update on the British action following the big Cambridgeshire Meeting at Newmarket.