Aidan O’Brien has labelled it a “a bit of fun” but Saturday’s William Hill Futurity at Doncaster could prove serious in the Irishman’s tussle with Andrew Balding for the British trainers’ title.
O’Brien emerged from Saturday’s Champions Day action with a lead over his rival of £82,494 (about €97,000) having landed the Filly & Mare race with Minnie Hauk. Balding also struck at Group One level in the Long Distance Cup with the 33/1 shot Mount Atlas.
With O’Brien failing to fire in the two major seven-digit prizes, both of which fell to Godolphin, it meant some bookmakers cut Balding’s odds on a first championship to 5/4. O’Brien remains a 4/7 shot to win for a ninth time in all and for a third year in a row.
The championship race runs to the end of the year, although the outcome of Britain’s final Group One of the season this weekend may ultimately prove decisive.
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O’Brien has suggested he’s unlikely to have any more cross-channel runners afterwards and should Balding still be within touching distance after the Futurity, a slow accumulation of minor pots through November and December on the all-weather might prove enough for him.
“Andrew Balding is a great fellow, and they are a great family. The very best of luck to them today. It is a bit of fun, and we are all delighted to be here,” O’Brien said at the weekend.
The competitive nature of elite level sport, however, suggests a record-extending 13th Futurity success will be a priority. O’Brien has 18 of the 32 Futurity entries ahead of Monday’s next acceptance stage. Noble Exhibit, winner of the Beresford Stakes, is already a 5/4 favourite with some firms.
However, he’s likely to distribute some of that depth of talent to the following day’s Saint Cloud fixture in Paris, where both the Criterium International and the Criterium de Saint Cloud take place. The Irishman pulled off the Group One double last year through Puerto Rico and Pierre Bonnard.
The Futurity is worth £155,952 (about €180,000) to the winner and an O’Brien success would make him hard to peg back. Balding has just two entries, the Newmarket maiden winner Royal Quest and the Salisbury debut scorer Gran Dia.
“The Futurity Trophy will be the deciding race. We’ve got enough horses to keep running and some that were always programmed to run in valuable races through the year. We’ll stick with that and hope for the best,” Balding told RTV.
“I almost didn’t want to be in this position, as everyone’s put so much effort into this, but we’re usually quiet in November and December. We’ll play the cards we’ve got and it might be enough,” he added.
It might be a triple-Group One juvenile weekend in Europe but it’s the following week’s Breeders’ Cup that’s the target for another of the Ballydoyle two-year-old team.
Great Barrier Reef was third to his stable companion Darkness Falls in the recent Dewhurst Stakes and is now set to step up to a mile for the Juvenile Turf at Keeneland. O’Brien has won it eight times, including last year with Gstaad.
“He ran very well [in the Dewhurst] and I was kind of surprised and delighted really. He’d had a good break when he ran at the Curragh [Round Tower Stakes] where he got chinned and just got tired. Then we tried to run him back again and he got sick and had a bad scope.
“It was a very serious run in the Dewhurst. We thought if he ran well we’d go on to the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile with him because we thought he was a horse that would get seven furlongs and could get a mile, so that’s where we’re going next with him,” O’Brien commented.
The strength in depth of Ballydoyle’s two-year-old team was underlined with a vengeance again on Saturday through a six-timer at Leopardstown’s all-juvenile programme, repeating the feat at last year’s fixture. All six were ridden by Wayne Lordan. It was the first time a trainer-jockey partnership has won six races at a single meeting in Ireland or Britain.
It included Group Three successes for Wall Street in the Eyrefield Stakes and Capability Brown in the Killavullan Stakes.
