It is Irish Derby weekend and lots of Guiness and good racing.
Weatherwise it is very Irish with some showers, some sun, some cloud – in effect some of everything.
Friday sees the running of the Curragh Cup over 2800m which has often been in recent years a good prep for the Melbourne Cup. The other thing is to chose your O'Brien with father Aidan and son Joseph saddling up most of the top competitors.
Current favourite is Wordsworth – Aidan and Ryan Moore – and who are we to challenge that spot? We've even paraphrased a quotation in our heading! Master of Reality is Joseph-McDonough and should be on the plane to Melbourne regardless of where he finishes – he's 4/1 and shares the quote with Aidan's Temple of Artemis with Seamie on board. And to even out the O'Briens we'll put in Gear Up for Joseph and McGonagle.
Saturday sees the babies run in the Railway Stakes, G2 for 2yos over 1200m with 6 to run.
We have a great quinella here as far as the resident feline (Frederic the apprentice pirate) is concerned with Blackbeard named for a top pirate and Crispy Cat who ran third in the Norfolk and would have finished higher if Ridler hadn't taken out half the field.
The Derby while run on Saturday will see Tuesday as favourite on 11/8. English raider Westover is on 7/4 and we rather like the look of French raider Lionel 10/1 with Jamie Spencer riding the son of Lope de Vega for David Menusier.
After the Derby we have the G3 ARM Holding International Stakes, a G3 over 2000m with a field of 7. Jim Bolger will be hoping MacSwiney will be back to his best form – he's on 11/4 and Joseph's Vega Magnifica is on 7/1.
