A WARM Friday and a positive weather forecast provided hope for the organisers of tomorrow's Dubai Duty Free Irish Derby that Sea The Stars will be among the line-up.
The colt's trainer John Oxx was concerned about conditions becoming too soft at the Curragh after 12 millimetres of rainfall on Thursday night.
A going change to good to yielding in places was also not music to his ears.
Oxx is biding his time
before making a concrete decision about the participation of his brilliant Epsom Derby and 2000 Guineas winner, but has declared Sea The Stars to take on a field of 12.
Paul Hensey, the Curragh's racecourse manager, said: "It has been a nice day, the sun is shining and the ground is drying. The forecast is for lovely weather on both Saturday and Sunday. Obviously it will be John's decision whether he wants to run. We're in the lap of the gods, but hopeful the forecast is accurate."
Sea The Stars was joined in the field by seven runners from Aidan O'Brien's stable, including the second, third and fifth from Epsom – Fame And Glory, Masterofthehorse and Golden Sword.
Johnny Murtagh, Seamie Heffernan and Colm O'Donoghue will ride those horses respectively, while O'Brien gives a first Classic mount to his teenage son, Joseph, who has only ridden in public a handful of times.
O'Brien jnr is on Byzantine, who is accompanied in the line-up by fellow stablemates Drumbeat, Hail Caesar and Rockhampton. Murtagh has a healthy respect for Sea The Stars as he links up with Fame And Glory for the first time since April's Ballysax Stakes. "It's going to be a great race," he said. "I rode my horse last week and he felt like he had improved from Epsom. He's a solid, typical Ballydoyle improver. Sea The Stars is the champion and we all have to beat him. It all depends which horse has improved the most."
O'Brien, who fielded six runners at Epsom, admitted it can be hard to work out the pecking order of the Ballydoyle team. "Obviously there is not much between the horses that ran at Epsom, and it's which ones come forward from there that is always a difficult thing to know," he said. "Some go back, some go forward and some stand still – usually at the races we find out.
"Sometimes you're surprised, sometimes you're disappointed – that's life.
"The Irish Derby is probably the most important three-year-old race over a mile and a half in Europe because all the good three-year-olds meet. If there are any question marks about Epsom, or France or anywhere else, it's always answered at the Curragh."
The Irish Derby is supported by a full card this afternoon at The Curragh also, and the highlight of the two-day meeting's opening day is the Audi Pretty Polly Stakes, where Ralph Beckett's Oaks heroine of last year is the one to beat.
This will be the first time Beckett's filly is back racing against her own sex since last year's Oaks – in which she beat two of her main rivals, Katiyra and Lush Lashes, in handsome style.
Look Here subsequently finished third in the St Leger and in this month's Coronation Cup at Epsom.
Beckett had been debating whether to wait until next week's Coral-Eclipse, but made the call to head over to Ireland. "I think this is the right race for her," said the Hampshire-based trainer. "The ground will be good, obviously that's fine. We have run against some of her rivals before, it's only Dar Re Mi who we don't know about.
The ten-furlong Group One has been a fertile source of British winners – six of the last 11 renewals have been won by the raiding party – and Dar Re Mi herself holds major claims.
