Thoughts From The Curragh.

Enjoyable days racing despite the weather there today with two highlights.

The day showed the genius of two men,Aidan OBrien and Chris Hayes.

The first race lost one of its stars by the withdrawal of Portage but had the much vaunted John F Kennedy.
He apparently went berserk in the pre parade ring at Leopardstown so I went to the Curragh pre parade ring,a nice looking horse but they were all there,a man either side with Aidan in charge,in fairness he behaved like a Christian.
When he went into the parade ring he started nodding his head and whinnying but again Aidan was there almost reassuring him,often we talk of his attention to detail but here was a classic example.
In the race itself he looked a different animal and won in a canter,Dunquin didnt like the ground and might not have stayed,may have been a poor enough race.
I liked the run of Bosphorus Prince will come on plenty.

Many have commented on how good a jockey Chris Hayes,today he gave a master class in the one mile handicap 5.05.
He was drawn 15 of 16,he came out of the stalls and went straight,the eventual second Gone Viral was in 16 he followed him for a second and then joined the others,Hayes just pressed on was on better ground eventually the rest of the jockeys cottoned on and crossed over in pursuit.
The original move won him the race.

Just one sour note and a recurring theme,the giving out of inaccurate ground descriptions.
Originally the ground was given as Good To Yielding downgraded to Yielding,obvious to most it was far worse than that,it seems they are trying to fool people into running their horses don't know why as it never seems to work.