Last weekend, Aidan O’Brien enjoyed Qipco 1000 Guineas success with Love, this weekend he claimed the Group 1 Tattersalls 1000 Guineas with another impressive winner, Peaceful (3/1).
Peaceful, a maiden winner at Thurles last October had 14 pounds to find on the 6/5 favourite and Group 1 winning juvenile Albigna according to the ratings.
The daughter of Galileo, however, was an impressive winner on Saturday evening, providing her trainer with a ninth success in the race, and her rider, Séamie Heffernan, with his fourth.
With Valeria Messalina making the early running, the eventual winner chased her throughout before Heffernan took Peaceful to the head of the field with a furlong to race. Despite a challenge from Fancy Blue, So Wonderful and New York Girl, Heffernan’s mount stayed on well to claim a two-length victory, with the disappointing favourite Albigna never looking comfortable in the fillies’ Classic and finishing unplaced.
In what turned out to be an O’Brien family clean sweep of the first four places, the runner-up Fancy Blue (12/1) is trained by Donnacha, Aidan’s son, third-placed So Wonderful (13/2), who was a further head back, is trained at Ballydoyle by O’Brien Senior, while fourth placed filly New York Girl (14/1), another head further behind, is trained by Joseph O’Brien.
Following the race, Aidan O’Brien said:
“Donnacha (O’Brien) loved her when he won on her in Thurles last year and then she went to Newmarket and couldn’t walk a yard in the heavy ground but still kept fighting and wasn’t beaten far at the line. That’s the sign of a really good filly, she just wouldn’t lie down. She’s obviously very good.”
Peaceful’s win made her sire, Galileo, the winning-most sire of Group 1 horses since the introduction of the European pattern in 1971, as the Coolmore-based stallion claimed his 85th winner at the highest level, moving him ahead of the deceased Danehill.
Lancaster House claimed an all-the-way success in the Coolmore Calyx Gladness Stakes, providing Aidan O’Brien and Séamie Heffernan with the second leg of their Curragh four-timer. Winner of his first three outings last year, Heffernan bounced him into an early lead. With his market rival, the Joseph O’Brien-trained Speak In Colours, appearing to be travelling better a furlong out, Lancaster House (6/4) found plenty for his rider’s urgings to give O’Brien a first win in the race since Excelebration in 2012.
Snow (5/1), a sister to 2018 Doncaster St Leger winner Kew Gardens, was the Ballydoyle combination first winner of the day, as she beat her stable companion Salsa by three-quarters of a length in the Irish Stallion Farms EBF Fillies Maiden.
The much-travelled Magic Wand (4/5f) brought up the O’Brien/Heffernan four-timer when winning the final race on the card, the Lanwades Stud Stakes (Group 2) over a mile. The mare had four and a half lengths in hand on Hamariyna (11/2) with Silk Forest (11/4) another two and a quarter lengths back.
Jessica Harrington, whose Albigna disappointed in the Tattersalls Irish 1000 Guineas, won the Tally-Ho Stud Irish EBF Fillies Maiden with 30,000 guineas purchase Dickiedoods (5/2f), under Shane Foley.
Gavin Cromwell’s Mutadaffeq (16/1) won the EquiNectar Handicap when edging out Jerandme by a nose, while Edification (14/1) came home late to snatch the Irish Stallion Farms EBF “Ragusa” Handicap for Mark Fahey and jockey Gavin Ryan. .
Colin Keane, winning rider in Friday’s Tattersalls Irish 2000 Guineas, partnered Kieran Cotter’s Strong Johnson (7/2f) to victory in the Platinum Bloodstock & Eyrefield House Stud Handicap.
