ELARQAM WAS ADDED to the field on Tuesday for Saturday’s Qipco . Japan was taken out. Swings and roundabouts.
You would have loved to have had Japan in the line-up in the Leopardstown race. Just as you would have loved to have had Crystal Ocean and Sottsass and, if the race had ever appeared on Enable’s radar, that would obviously have been fantastic.
Because this race has history. Assert won it. Stanerra won it. The great Sadler’s Wells won it when it was run at the Phoenix Park.
And some of the memorable equine battles of recent years have been fought out in this race at Leopardstown. Golden Horn and Found and Free Eagle in 2015. Dylan Thomas and Ouija Board in 2006. High Chaparral and Falbrav and Islington in 2003. And the heavyweight bout of heavyweight bouts, Fantastic Light and Galileo in 2001, if you want to go back that far, and if 2001 still qualifies as ‘recent years’.
(Everything is relative.)
This year’s renewal may not boast heavyweights of the Galileo/Fantastic Light ilk, but we still have a race that is full of intrigue.
Magical is a Group 1 performer. Aidan O’Brien’s filly won the British Champions Fillies & Mares Stakes at Ascot last October, and she won the Tattersalls Gold Cup at The Curragh in May, and if it hadn’t been for the presence of the aforementioned Enable, she would have won last year’s Breeders’ Cup Turf and this year’s Eclipse and this year’s Yorkshire Oaks as well.
The Galileo filly is top class and, the highest-rated horse in the race, she sets the standard and she heads the market.
Strange that no Irish-trained horse has won the Qipco Irish Champion Stakes since So You Think won it in 2011, Aidan O’Brien’s horse holding off the late challenge of Snow Fairy. We didn’t know it at the time, but Snow Fairy would return to Leopardstown the following year and go one better.
Nor did we know that six of the seven renewals between 2012 and 2018 would go to British trainers (three to John Gosden), while one would go to France: the 2016 version, won by the Jean-Claude Rouget-trained Almanzor.
The British are here again. Two-pronged. Headman has not contested a Group 1 race yet, but Khalid Abdullah’s horse has shaped like a Group 1 prospect for a little while. Winner of the London Gold Cup at Newbury in May, a race that is often a pointer to loftier peaks of the future, the Roger Charlton-trained colt has since won Group 2 races at Saint-Cloud and at Deauville. He has raced just six times in his life, he continues to progress, and he deserves his shot.
Elarqam also deserves his shot. Winner of the Group 2 York Stakes at York in July, Mark Johnston’s horse finished just a length behind Japan and Crystal Ocean in the Group 1 Juddmonte International at York last time.
That is top class form on the face of it, but he ran even better than the bare result suggests. He didn’t have an awful lot of room on the far side deep inside the final furlong.
He didn’t have the pace to go with Japan when he quickened at the two-furlong marker, but it appeared as if he was coming back at the leading pair as they ran to the line. If they had raced away from the inside rail up the home straight, as they usually do in middle distance races at York these days, Elarqam probably would have had more racing room, and he might have got even closer to than he did that day. It’s difficult to know for sure, but it’s possible. And the stiff finish at Leopardstown should suit him well.
We know that Leopardstown suits Madhmoon well. Owned, like Elarqam, by Sheikh Hamdan Al Maktoum, he has raced there now four times, and he has won three times. His only defeat there was on his debut this season, when he was conceding weight and race fitness to a talented rival in Never No More, racing on ground that was softer than ideal and over seven furlongs, a trip that is sharper than ideal, and he went down by a half a length.
Kevin Prendergast’s horse has won his other three races at Leopardstown, all of them over a mile. He won the Group 2 KPMG Champion Juvenile Stakes there at this meeting last year, and he won the Group 3 Desmond Stakes there on his most recent appearance.
He stumbled a little on leaving the stalls that day, he was about four lengths behind the leader after they had gone 100 yards, yet he travelled through his race well, and he quickened up nicely. It was a good performance.
Of course, he is going to have to step forward from that if he is going to win an Irish Champion Stakes, but there is every chance that he will. It was his first run since the Irish Derby, and his trainer said afterwards that the run should bring him forward. Also, the step up from a mile to 10 furlongs should be a positive.
He did finish second in the Epsom Derby in June over 12 furlongs, yet you suspect that Saturday’s 10 furlongs could prove to be his optimum distance. And 10 furlongs at Leopardstown on fast ground could prove to be his optimum conditions.
Deirdre brings the international element. We have never had a Japanese-trained runner here, so this will be a landmark occasion. She has a chance too. A Group 1 winner in Japan, she was well beaten in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot in June on her first foray to Europe, but the soft ground would have been all against her that day. She was allowed go off at 20/1 for the Group 1 Nassau Stakes at Goodwood at the start of August, which she won, on better ground. It may be that she has been under-rated by the market again.
The fact that Mitsuru Hashida’s mare is set to line up is the reason why the Green Channel will be showing the race live in Japan, and why racing fans will stay up until after midnight (their time) on the far side of the world in order to watch what happens at Leopardstown late on Saturday afternoon (our time).
More history.
The42 is on Instagram! Tap the button below on your phone to follow us!
